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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.
How Characters Progress in a Changing World
McShave
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Ashes of Creation is creating a revolutionary map/ leveling/ city progression tool in Nodes. Since I've heard of nodes, it has intrigued me as to how they will work and how it will affect the average day-to-day gaming experience we are all looking forward to.
We know that Ashes intends to increase the level of the monsters in an area when a node levels up, but they also say that there will still be monsters for lower level players as well. Is it really possible to have a zone with content for level 5 and level 45 in one node's area? It will depend on the area that a node has, but I don't think a metropolis node will be able to cover all level ranges.
I expect that a lower level player will be leveling in a lower level node area, while as they level, they move to a higher level node for access to more production buildings, a larger market, and more possible resources. This will ultimately end with most, if not all, high level players in high level nodes, which could be a problem for population sizes of lower level nodes as the average character level matures post-launch.
Or maybe they will take a top-down approach, where new players will want to start at the high level nodes, and then move out as they level up? This will allow a player to see what is available before they begin their journey, and let them chose which direction they want to go (direction as in where in the map they want to adventure in). Because housing in metropolis will be scarce and probably cost-heavy, it is not practical for new players to take residence in the high level node and encourage them to move to low-level nodes in the area.
Just some thoughts of mine. How do you think the node system will play out when it comes to character progression?
We know that Ashes intends to increase the level of the monsters in an area when a node levels up, but they also say that there will still be monsters for lower level players as well. Is it really possible to have a zone with content for level 5 and level 45 in one node's area? It will depend on the area that a node has, but I don't think a metropolis node will be able to cover all level ranges.
I expect that a lower level player will be leveling in a lower level node area, while as they level, they move to a higher level node for access to more production buildings, a larger market, and more possible resources. This will ultimately end with most, if not all, high level players in high level nodes, which could be a problem for population sizes of lower level nodes as the average character level matures post-launch.
Or maybe they will take a top-down approach, where new players will want to start at the high level nodes, and then move out as they level up? This will allow a player to see what is available before they begin their journey, and let them chose which direction they want to go (direction as in where in the map they want to adventure in). Because housing in metropolis will be scarce and probably cost-heavy, it is not practical for new players to take residence in the high level node and encourage them to move to low-level nodes in the area.
Just some thoughts of mine. How do you think the node system will play out when it comes to character progression?
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Comments
But, that area is still comprised of Vassal Nodes that range from Stage 0 - Stage 5.
Nodes are not static locations. There Stages and Levels change as Towns/Cities/Metros are constrcuted and destroyed. Also, Castles will have some influence.
As a player of games that have things similar (and in some cases basically identical to) Nodes, even considering that one of them isn't a Fantasy style game, my experience doesn't match your expectations at all.
It works exactly how one would expect it to work with some effort. For anyone who thinks that we're limited in the technology to do this, we are not, and haven't been for decades.
I believe that it will work as Intrepid says, and that there will be a huge world, with big nodes, and those nodes will have different levels of enemies within their footprint in various PoI, or just in various areas or paths. The reason games normally avoid this is simply so that new or lower level players don't get confused and then surprised by the strength of enemies.
That's a problem that has many possible solutions. So I think it will play like any other MMORPG, but with the occasional change to a sub-area's Threat Level when the node levels, which would itself be an infrequent thing, and is specifically based on 'lots of players in the area leveling' anyway.