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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
How to fix node wars
Imnotkio
Member, Alpha Two
Issue
the fix for out-of-war healing was a bad one. It's very unintuitive, a break in the flow of gameplay and allows for unintended consequences and sometimes accidental corruption
Reasoning
Players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties that decide to intervene in the war. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
This already happened multiple times since the fix was implemented. Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)
Suggestion
If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks you during a node war, he becomes orange for you and your fellow citizens. This orange status allows your node citizens to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Issue
Node war was supposed to be a gameplay for citizens, but the way it currently works it is a system for guilds and random citizens only hinder instead of aiding
Reasoning
Currently, the node system is taken by guilds. Guilds decide when they are going to war, against who, and for what reasons. Mostly, it's guilds declaring war on nodes owned by their enemy guilds. Random citizens are only present to give kills and consequently points to the enemy. There are no incentives to try and incorporate these random citizens into the war.
On top of that, the war system doesn't incentivize these random citizens to participate, as there is currently no outcome or reward to a node war, and there is no straight path for these random citizens to group up with each other and form a raid of their own. Adding to that, the random citizen who is not in the guild that "owns" the node has no attachment to the node and has no reason to care about the node itself. Whichever node you're a citizen of, it currently does not matter and I'm afraid that will remain the case regardless of stuff like relics. To top all of that, usually, the random citizen is not near as close as a hardcore player in the dominating guilds and he gets instantly deleted by the current power creep and low TTK design.
Suggestions
1. Kills should not reward points as it incentivizes a bunch of undesired behaviors like bullying low levels, creating alts for free points, and weaker players and random citizens being a hindrance to the war.
2. Give citizens better tools for grouping up and organizing PUG groups for war. Maybe a town board to form warbands, some better ways to communicate with mayor.
3. Overall citizens should have more of a voice on whether they agree to start the war or not, including them in the decision could help make them more personally invested.
4. War rewards, of course, appropriate ones (not created out of thin air materials and gold and resources).
5. I strongly suggest considering ways to increase citizen attachment to its node. Stuff like allowing the use of benches only on your vassal network, giving the option for mayors to block non-citizens from using their benches and shops, or a better control for mayors for taxing non-citizens
6. Increase the TTK design for god's sake, 10~15 seconds in a balanced 1v1 scenario means insta kill when power disparities are taken into consideration. No one enjoys dying without pressing buttons. Give even the weaker players the opportunity to press some buttons and contribute before dying.
Issue
Players who are not interested in participating in the war, for whatever reason, just log out and wait for the war to end.
Reasoning
Sometimes players feel like fighting the war is pointless. They are heavily outnumbered, or they don't have a group to fight with, or they are just way weaker than the war power average. When these players are caught in a war, and don't have the opportunity to run to a safe territory, they just log out and wait for the war to end. This is bad as it's literally keeping the players off the game. If a node engages in multiple wars and consecutive wars, players could be forced to stay logged out for days.
Suggestions
1. Heads-up timer of 5~10 minutes so players can scatter and reach a safe territory before the war starts.
2. Put a notification on your character selection screen if that character is at war and if he's logged off on a war zone.
3. Give every player the possibility to respawn in a safe emberspring (outside of the warring territories) to avoid players being eternally ganked into a node war. This way they can avoid the war without having to log off.
4. Diplomatic options for the node to call for allies (other nodes), surrender, and negotiate peace. This way, they can muster more numbers if they are outnumbered, or just surrender if they feel like they have no chance, saving everyone's time.
5. Possibility of dropping citizenship from different nodes. If a player really wants to be in his territory for some reason, like accessing his storage, and he's in a war, the only solution is to drop citizenship. But it's hard getting to the town hall in the middle of a war. If you could drop your citizenship from another node, that could be facilitated.
6. Refugee policy available for nodes: It would require the node to fund the stay of these refugees, with extra available housing and increased node maintenance. If the node decides to activate this policy, it would allow players to request refugee status, temporarily becoming citizens of that node, with limited availability per node.
Issue
Node wars are being constantly used and being spammed, for frugal reasons and troll mayors, to bully weaker nodes and to alleviate their boredom.
Reasoning
Warmongering mayors can cause real havoc without any intention of fighting all those wars. Warmongering mayors can also use constant wars to bully smaller and weaker nodes. This warmongering behavior has no real consequences as currently, it is almost impossible to oust a mayor who has a big guild and alliance behind him. Even with other ways of election, this won't probably change as big guilds/alliances will dominate economic and military nodes as well. This creates a situation of war exhaustion for their citizens.
Suggestions
A war exhaustion mechanic:
Every time a node goes into war, a war exhaustion bar starts to increase. It increases based on how long you are at war and how many wars you are in. The bar slowly decreases while you're at peace. The higher your war exhaustion, the more expensive it is to declare a war. Over 90% war exhaustion and you can't declare war on another node. War exhaustion only increases if you're the attacker, not the defender, or maybe have war exhaustion for defenders increase way slower than for attackers.
You could also add to the war exhaustion mechanic debuffs to players and hindrances. If war exhaustion becomes high while a war is active, players become weaker, they have increased respawn cooldowns, and other debuffs to accelerate the end of the war and incentivize peace negotiations.
the fix for out-of-war healing was a bad one. It's very unintuitive, a break in the flow of gameplay and allows for unintended consequences and sometimes accidental corruption
Reasoning
Players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties that decide to intervene in the war. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
This already happened multiple times since the fix was implemented. Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)
Suggestion
If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks you during a node war, he becomes orange for you and your fellow citizens. This orange status allows your node citizens to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Issue
Node war was supposed to be a gameplay for citizens, but the way it currently works it is a system for guilds and random citizens only hinder instead of aiding
Reasoning
Currently, the node system is taken by guilds. Guilds decide when they are going to war, against who, and for what reasons. Mostly, it's guilds declaring war on nodes owned by their enemy guilds. Random citizens are only present to give kills and consequently points to the enemy. There are no incentives to try and incorporate these random citizens into the war.
On top of that, the war system doesn't incentivize these random citizens to participate, as there is currently no outcome or reward to a node war, and there is no straight path for these random citizens to group up with each other and form a raid of their own. Adding to that, the random citizen who is not in the guild that "owns" the node has no attachment to the node and has no reason to care about the node itself. Whichever node you're a citizen of, it currently does not matter and I'm afraid that will remain the case regardless of stuff like relics. To top all of that, usually, the random citizen is not near as close as a hardcore player in the dominating guilds and he gets instantly deleted by the current power creep and low TTK design.
Suggestions
1. Kills should not reward points as it incentivizes a bunch of undesired behaviors like bullying low levels, creating alts for free points, and weaker players and random citizens being a hindrance to the war.
2. Give citizens better tools for grouping up and organizing PUG groups for war. Maybe a town board to form warbands, some better ways to communicate with mayor.
3. Overall citizens should have more of a voice on whether they agree to start the war or not, including them in the decision could help make them more personally invested.
4. War rewards, of course, appropriate ones (not created out of thin air materials and gold and resources).
5. I strongly suggest considering ways to increase citizen attachment to its node. Stuff like allowing the use of benches only on your vassal network, giving the option for mayors to block non-citizens from using their benches and shops, or a better control for mayors for taxing non-citizens
6. Increase the TTK design for god's sake, 10~15 seconds in a balanced 1v1 scenario means insta kill when power disparities are taken into consideration. No one enjoys dying without pressing buttons. Give even the weaker players the opportunity to press some buttons and contribute before dying.
Issue
Players who are not interested in participating in the war, for whatever reason, just log out and wait for the war to end.
Reasoning
Sometimes players feel like fighting the war is pointless. They are heavily outnumbered, or they don't have a group to fight with, or they are just way weaker than the war power average. When these players are caught in a war, and don't have the opportunity to run to a safe territory, they just log out and wait for the war to end. This is bad as it's literally keeping the players off the game. If a node engages in multiple wars and consecutive wars, players could be forced to stay logged out for days.
Suggestions
1. Heads-up timer of 5~10 minutes so players can scatter and reach a safe territory before the war starts.
2. Put a notification on your character selection screen if that character is at war and if he's logged off on a war zone.
3. Give every player the possibility to respawn in a safe emberspring (outside of the warring territories) to avoid players being eternally ganked into a node war. This way they can avoid the war without having to log off.
4. Diplomatic options for the node to call for allies (other nodes), surrender, and negotiate peace. This way, they can muster more numbers if they are outnumbered, or just surrender if they feel like they have no chance, saving everyone's time.
5. Possibility of dropping citizenship from different nodes. If a player really wants to be in his territory for some reason, like accessing his storage, and he's in a war, the only solution is to drop citizenship. But it's hard getting to the town hall in the middle of a war. If you could drop your citizenship from another node, that could be facilitated.
6. Refugee policy available for nodes: It would require the node to fund the stay of these refugees, with extra available housing and increased node maintenance. If the node decides to activate this policy, it would allow players to request refugee status, temporarily becoming citizens of that node, with limited availability per node.
Issue
Node wars are being constantly used and being spammed, for frugal reasons and troll mayors, to bully weaker nodes and to alleviate their boredom.
Reasoning
Warmongering mayors can cause real havoc without any intention of fighting all those wars. Warmongering mayors can also use constant wars to bully smaller and weaker nodes. This warmongering behavior has no real consequences as currently, it is almost impossible to oust a mayor who has a big guild and alliance behind him. Even with other ways of election, this won't probably change as big guilds/alliances will dominate economic and military nodes as well. This creates a situation of war exhaustion for their citizens.
Suggestions
A war exhaustion mechanic:
Every time a node goes into war, a war exhaustion bar starts to increase. It increases based on how long you are at war and how many wars you are in. The bar slowly decreases while you're at peace. The higher your war exhaustion, the more expensive it is to declare a war. Over 90% war exhaustion and you can't declare war on another node. War exhaustion only increases if you're the attacker, not the defender, or maybe have war exhaustion for defenders increase way slower than for attackers.
You could also add to the war exhaustion mechanic debuffs to players and hindrances. If war exhaustion becomes high while a war is active, players become weaker, they have increased respawn cooldowns, and other debuffs to accelerate the end of the war and incentivize peace negotiations.
11
Comments
Adding some extra points on this, currently there is no Node affiliation at all, because we don't win and we don't lose anything by dropping our citizenship - this makes it so people simply do not care and it makes it very frustrating for those that do care.
Suggestions
We need node-bound currency that gets deleted once you drop your citizenship, and we need and relevant things that can ONLY be purchased with the node currency - capes and enchant scrolls but ALL the enchant scrolls from T1 to T3 is a good starting point, however those should not be able to be sold in the marketplace for gold, it should be character bound. That way people care about farming node currency and if they drop the citizenship they lose the currency they were farming.
I know once religion/social org progression is in place and if those are related to node progression that can also fix the issue, but using currency I think its the quick fix for this.
I'd also like to extend this feedback to Guild affiliation, because people also do not care about guilds and drop tags for no reason all the time,
Heres my suggestion for those I gave in another post:
Going back at the OP post
With every War system in the game, guild wars included if its just a race for kill points people will continue to log out, we need objectives that are meaningful so that we can finish the wars - the godspike event right now is bugged, we cant deliver the gatherables, that makes have no option if the citizens from the other node log out and we cant get the kill score.
We also need REASONS for players to want to defend their Node/Guild, losing a war should feel like losing a war. Working with debuffs for the losing side is the way to go IMO, debuffs that can stack up to a limited amount but that can really make the citizens rally against their mayors if they do not defend the node, stat-dampening and artisan debuffs are some good examples. This combined with objectives during the wars, both to guild and node wars could incentivize players to fight instead of simply not caring about the wars and logging out.