Node Siege - Risk vs. Reward

Shadow Phoenix

A question for the Dev Team:

It has been mentioned by Steven many times that he tends to approach the interactions with a business like manner of risk vs. reward, which I fully support. With that in mind, what is the inherent risk to the attacker for a node siege? The rewards have been discussed many times - node destruction, access to storages, etc...but never the risk on behalf of the attacking node. And I'm keeping in mind that the risk has to be consistent with the rewards they would be reaping, which we haven't seen yet in the alpha.

SmileGurney

It's caravans all over again.

unknownsystemerror

You need to differentiate between node wars and node sieges in your question. Node wars do not destroy an opposing node, cost mayoral mandate points, have requirements before they can be "decced" and other. (all planned, not in testing yet, but they have said getting those systems online shortly is priority atm). Node sieges which are also in testing now on PTR, have a different function. They are started by individuals. Cost as many resources as it took to take the node targeted to that level, have a quest line that has to be followed to craft the declaration, has a placement period where the banner crafted has to be defended within sight of the node's walls. All sorts of restrictions that will come later. Initially the testing will be rudimentary and will have similar problems to current guild and node war decs, with people exploiting and using broken, unfinished systems to gain "advantage".
The "risk" to attackers in a node siege is the time lost farming those materials to craft the declaration. Imagine the millions of exp and resources that contribute to a node levelling beyond the initial stages to even level 3, not to mention beyond. This will not be some solo effort, but will require a targeted group (Steven has used examples of WoW opening the Gates of Ahn'qiraj that takes server wide effort in relation to sieging a metro). Now, during testing that "risk" to attackers will not be as identifiable, cause to get bodies into the mix, those requirements will not be present initially. So your risk as an attacker is the time and resources that will be lost on a failed attempt. Does that mean that there will be roaches who don't participate in the gathering portion and just show up for the loot? Sure, but realize if the siege is successful, to get the stuff you win out of there will require even more pvp, and those two side of attacker/defender, become many, based on the games affiliation structure. It is important to realize the difference between the various systems.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_wars
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Guild_wars