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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
I didn't like the node system idea before p1, I still don't like the node system.
haelin
Member, Alpha Two
I truly feel we are beating around the bush with nodes. I think we should just call a spade a spade and stop pussyfootin on what nodes should be. They should be guild halls. You can't put all your eggs in one basket and hope for castles to be such a big content sinker to round out all of this thinned out clutter. Steven wants nodes to be guild-less because he wants everyone in, out, and solo to be able to participate in node events, which I think is a shot from the hip that serves no justice here. You can easily just have nodes per biomes that are mayor-less (like Lionhold) and can't be owned by guilds while the others are.
I already consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer with a lot of time on my hands at this point in the year and I will tell you that it even grinds my gears to have to keep up with what node has what bench and have to plan my crafting around where I am going to walk to do my crafting. It won't go over well with, I think, a larger portion of players on beta or release. Why couldn't you allow more benches per node, allow them to be guild ran, and let the natural process of guild competition to build, repair, and destroy what is in the node? It also just seems insulting to solo players to try to make them feel like they should help a node, when nodes right now give no identity, and it seems like changed to nodes have been really low on the priority list these past 2 1/2 phases. It feels as if Steven wants the world to be giant and wants to spread people out so thin to cover this map that he makes this node system as unintuitive as possible to forcefully spread players about in order to cover more digital real estate on the map. I feel you could do it a far more natural way and, on top of that, even if nodes were guild-owned, that doesn't stop the caste process from still being implemented too. We just level to 25, and then try to figure out the inefficient process of what elected mayor is going to place where, to only find out, it will always be inefficient and then when have nodes with no real identity unless you arbitrarily chose that node to be your guild representing node or you're some neutral good solo player that wants to help a node build, which I feel makes malnourished care for most nodes. If you want this game to be ran by big guilds and majority of the game encourages it, just go through with it and let nodes fight each other by node/guild. You can still have plenty of guild-less nodes spread around the map for solo play.
I already consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer with a lot of time on my hands at this point in the year and I will tell you that it even grinds my gears to have to keep up with what node has what bench and have to plan my crafting around where I am going to walk to do my crafting. It won't go over well with, I think, a larger portion of players on beta or release. Why couldn't you allow more benches per node, allow them to be guild ran, and let the natural process of guild competition to build, repair, and destroy what is in the node? It also just seems insulting to solo players to try to make them feel like they should help a node, when nodes right now give no identity, and it seems like changed to nodes have been really low on the priority list these past 2 1/2 phases. It feels as if Steven wants the world to be giant and wants to spread people out so thin to cover this map that he makes this node system as unintuitive as possible to forcefully spread players about in order to cover more digital real estate on the map. I feel you could do it a far more natural way and, on top of that, even if nodes were guild-owned, that doesn't stop the caste process from still being implemented too. We just level to 25, and then try to figure out the inefficient process of what elected mayor is going to place where, to only find out, it will always be inefficient and then when have nodes with no real identity unless you arbitrarily chose that node to be your guild representing node or you're some neutral good solo player that wants to help a node build, which I feel makes malnourished care for most nodes. If you want this game to be ran by big guilds and majority of the game encourages it, just go through with it and let nodes fight each other by node/guild. You can still have plenty of guild-less nodes spread around the map for solo play.
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Comments
As for everything else. Yes, an unfinished system feels like shit. Yes, barely lvled nodes don't have as many stations as fully leveled ones would.
And I think you're combining 2 things that got nothing to do with each other. You want nodes to be controlled by guilds, but you use the reasoning that it'll somehow solve the issue of stations. If anything, we already saw what happens when nodes are fully controlled by guilds - they literally fuck over everyone else. I forget if it was Enveus or Polar, but one of "those" guilds had the control of a node, built very important stations and then, as soon as they made the tools they needed - they immediately removed said stations and no one else could make them again in any meaningful window of time. The same will be true if nodes are fully controlled by guilds, only probably on an even worse scale.
And if you just want to completely disconnect stations from nodes and make them always accessible - just say that. Though such a change would create a massive shift in design direction, so I kinda doubt Intrepid would ever do that.
I don't at all want to disconnect stations, I just think Steven should stop trying to make this game for guilds with numbers and then have a node system design that is intended for everyone like he wants to all of a sudden limit big guilds organizing too much. The reason of also frustration is because nodes, castles, guild halls, are pretty damn fundamental to the whole game. I don't get why we are trial and erroring so many things with classes and economy when these things aren't even in the game yet. Why even care what the economy is going to be if these other things aren't in the game yet, we should be cracking down on the fundamental stuff of the game rather than expanding it.
What exactly do you want in the system to change, which makes you believe that the situation will magically improve? Do you want guilds to have EVEN MORE advantages through nodes, so that they're more motivated to build up stations faster? Cause we're already waaaay too fucking deep in snowball land, where any guild bigger than a group of friends can benefit way too much from several sources. As much as I love guild-based gameplay, I don't think that throwing the design even deeper into that end will result in anything good.
As for the amount of stations, I already addressed that. We're locked at lvl3 nodes, so we're locked at the amount of stations of lvl3 nodes. The higher we go - the more stations nodes will have. What's the point of increasing that amount now, when we don't know what kind of balancing Intrepid want for later?
Yes, I agree that we should be testing much more basic stuff. It's simply difficult to do that when said basic stuff is not even in the game yet.
Yes, this is what I'm saying. The game is a guild game. Let's call a spade a spade and just expedite the process of nodes to ACTUALLY be guild owned. Why are we trying to pretend that they are for everyone when we can stop the masquerading and just make them officially guild-owned. This would give more purpose and ownership to nodes and will have more natural conflict of siege wars and node wars while actually want to do build orders and progress more too because you can have guilds recruit for that very purpose rather than pray that other citizens will fill the holes.
And yes, I'd want guilds to have more control. Guilds with big enough capital can control a node. This is where siege wars will be more meaningful. They are already pitting the nodes against each other and locking them based on the tier and boundary. Why not just make it a guild-oriented thing?
I've heard that the higher the node goes the more stations we will have to choose, but also when we get to master, all the journeyman professions will split in half, so we will still be hard-locked and stuck with a very limited amount of benches.
And if you DO want other players to contribute, then what the hell are you changing exactly?
Nodes are for everyone because literally everyone can interact with them. Everyone will be able to get benefits from those interactions. Majority of people will be citizens, which means more benefits for them. And the current system creates a goal for some unguilded players with big ambitions.
We simply only have democratic voting method right now, so it's super easy for guilds to just get a few votes for their candidate and overwhelm any other one. With properly distributed population, full nodes and all election methods we'll have a broader approach to mayor elections.
When there's 200 citizens in a lvl5 node and only a 40-member guild stationed at the node - the remaining citizens can vote against that candidate, if the guild is trashy. The biggest example of this so far has been the failure of Enveus to get any mayors in P2.5. People came together and outvoted them because Enveus are trash and people don't want them in a position of power. This would become only more true once we enter the later stages of development, with proper indications of guild/alliance affiliations of candidates, better tools for people to advertise themselves against those candidates, etc.
Just giving full nodes to guilds for free before properly seeing the full system at work seems like a waste to me.
That limitation at the peak of progress is the point of the game. Nodes need to have benefits to their citizens and to the region itself. If only 2 nodes on the entire map have the top lvl station of a certain profession - that will directly lead to those nodes getting more foot traffic, taxes inflow and general social interactions between players.
The only thing that would change is that the game would (in part) stop pretending to be something it very obviously is not.
The node system comes across as being a kind of level playing field. In terms of a nodes citizens, everyone works towards a goal, and everyone benefits. Race, guild and religion are not supposed to play a part in the benefits you gain from your node being built up.
However, we all know this is not how it will play out.
Essentially, what the OP is asking Intrepid to do is to not hide what their game is about.
I mean, I guess things would get worse because now guilds would have literally 0 reason to do any good in the game, but why help Intrepid do what they're already great at doing? Why not try pushing the game into a better direction?
Because guilds would definitely switch their priorities. You don't need other people to contribute if you actually allow guilds to level up the player count and have a more organized contribution towards a guild-oriented goal. You could easily just reduce the amount of resources also needed for testing purposes for guilds to get them all of the ground. I do believe whole heartedly that guilds are almost like privatized entities, and I promise you they would get nodes off the ground and with more organization than guild-less nodes. It would actually be a less is more approach and reduce their work load and have the game more complete with the same effect. They are essentially trying to make it unintuitive and ass backwards purely to make people spread across the map and only make people have to traverse more across biomes which I promise will get old for most players, even the more hardcore ones.
We already have guild-controlled nodes, because literally all nodes are controlled by guilds. Democratic voting just means "guilds win". So how would any of this change if they already control it all. And HOW exactly would the same guilds that already build up nodes magically build them up faster/better? Guildless people wouldn't just magically start joining guilds just because guilds are controlling nodes now. Barely any guildless person cares about the node part of the equation when deciding whether they want to join a guild or not.
So the exact same guilds that we currently have controlling nodes would still be controlling nodes after your change. Except now all the other people would care about nodes EVEN LESS. And they would also not be able to contribute to them, if I understand your suggestion correctly. So the growth would be even slower than it is now.
We'd have a worse situation, unless you reward those guilds with some insane additional benefits like gear or money or something else that would shift their goals from just grinding mobs/bosses and caravans to grinding artisanry instead.
They are not guildless though
I'd be all for trying this out, simply because I'm 1000% sure I'd turn out to be right and I love being right. But changing this entire system (considering it's barely even implemented still
i do think the banner of the node should be changed to the Guild/alliance you are in so we can see what alliance owns what at the time.
Mayoral election system should remain the same along with seige system and things
Allows you to expand guild skill tree by including node ownership in the tree aswell so 1 guild cant have more than X nodes in their control
You should be able to temporarily decline access to the node to a limited amount of guilds (War dec for example prevent access for X time and u can only have so many war decs at a time)
However you shouldnt be able to completely prevent people from using them especialy casuals and things but there should be ways to prevent enemy guilds from entering can make enemy guilds go purple in the POI of the node.
You keep saying we already have defacto guild-controlled nodes. Cool, give them more resources to actually do what they want. I bet these benches take forever because they have to go through a lot of bullshit. Expedite the process and let them build quicker, we wouldn't be bottlenecked if these megaguilds got to build their way. you could only be a citizen if you're a member of the guild and you can just let non-guildees use the benches if they allow it for a tax to make money.
The people would not care about nodes and that's fine because a lot of people don't. They spend most of their time doing their little solo shit and then worry about where what bench is where and have to use 3rd party software to find where stuff is. They couldn't care less and IF they did care about nodes, then join a guild, its very simple. The growth doesn't have to be slower if you just decrease the resources needed and allow guilds to flourish on their own. This is the risk/reward and incentive for it being 100% guild owned. You get expedited process to build, more organization to do so, but siege wars will have guilds trying to destroy each others stuff. We don't need some Steven pipe dream for all citizen to care and develop the nodes everywhere around the map, just because he has some FOMO about a part of the map that won't be developed. We already have nodes now that are barely touched and we aren't even what? 15% the way there to all the nodes?
I like that you also say that it would shit guilds to stop grinding mobs and start grinding artisanry. A perfect example that you DO know what would happen. I can see that you also understand that they would get shit done because it would benefit them. I guarantee you that they would be howling at the moon trying to get that stuff off the ground. That's what guilds want, they want real estate, they want land rush, they want to own things. If the rest of the game is meant for mega guilds, why not nodes?
Just because nodes become guildhalls doesn't mean that they can mix and match with what the system they have now. You could still have benefits for guildless people if they care to help out, but it won't be necessary if the threshold was changed for a say 100+ man guild, for example. You could easily have people spread across the map, biomes, nodes, by guilds wanting a piece of the map, not because you want people to LARP and slow travel around the map for "immersion".
And I said that THE ONLY WAY guilds would care more about nodes would be if they got insane benefits for doing that. And I am against giving them EVEN MORE BENEFITS.
We already have too much snowballing in this damn game. We need less, not more.
This is why I said call a spade a spade. They can have all these benefits, but they are also going to get to get the repercussions of owning a node too, like getting shit sieged and destroyed constantly. If its quicker to build, then you make it easier to destroy and a constant fighting mechanic.
They wouldn't be benefitting that much from this anyways. They get taxes for people using their benches but they have to upkeep it all from their own guild money. Could even make storage have a guild tab for guild storage (bam, easily implemented). Could easily put a guild recruitment sign near commission board (bam, easy guild recruitment) just like player stalls. You can still have guildless nodes maybe 1 per biome to see how it fairs against guild ones. Also don't say WAAAAY easier. It will be easier but don't be hyperbolic. Steven's vision is a mega corporation guild game, let them cook.
I keep telling you that your suggestion would change nothing in the player behaviour.
You're describing a completely different system to the one we have right now. Way smaller scale, way easier progress, way less push for other people to interact with the world, way more benefits for already too-beneficiallly-gifted guilds.
But that's exactly what it would be. Not every guild is some 100+++-member entity. Which means that literally only the guild can contribute to the node and use those contributions to build it up - the requirements for all that stuff would have to be decreased drastically, otherwise nothing will be built up. And if you DO keep requirements high, then we come back to the huge rewards, I mentioned being against, because otherwise guilds would simply not care enough about nodes.
And majority of guilds don't want easy onboarding of some randos from the street. Especially not the hardcore guilds, which would be the ones most interested in controlling nodes. And those same hardcore guilds would also limit themselves to 40 members, because that'll give them the most passives-based power. Which goes back to node building requirements having to be insanely low, or nothing gets built up.
And having a singular guildless node would simply make it the most profitable one, because there's always way more guildless people than guilded ones. And if that node is the cheapest one (which it would be) - everyone will be using it for their business. And under your own logic these nodes would also be attacked the least, because guilds are preoccupied with fucking each other over. This would in turn mean that all the guildless people would be safer in these guildless nodes.
Except the reality of it all will be that guilds will only attack the guildless nodes for the exact reason I explained above, because that's what they do. They prey on the weak, not on the strong. And this would simply become a yet another reason for casual/solo/guildless players to leave the game, as if they hadn't enough reasons to do that already.
So, again, whichever side of your suggestion I look at - it's just making the design worse, making the game even more niche than what it already will be and pushes people away from the game even more than the game already does.
At this point, almost every little fundamental change will change player's behavior. Also siege nodes are pseudo-instanced based anyways, so its not like the massive amount of citizens that contribute to a node will be able to defend their own node anyways. Once again, its more catered to a guild oriented thing. This is why the siege nodes on the server were pretty much guild ran anyways and they had to do their own community siege to allow others players to give it a try.
Guilds can easily become this and we have plenty for an alpha test, especially if Steven keeps pushing for dynamic server meshing and wants more people in the server. Not only that, he said that it is perfectly fine to have some nodes to be barren wastelands around the map. You can easily have small guilds take up nodes that are less favorable. Also changing numerical values to make it easier to level, is not a big change. Trying to implement guilds castle and baronies and shit just for a macroscopic scale work-around would be far more time consuming. This is also a business, do you really think they can hold on to this game for 2-3 years of development. I'd say we need to be more realistic with that as well.
And yes, guilds will always want numbers for sieges, pvp events, raids, traversing the map, build orders etc. They wouldn't be randos, they would be people applying to join the guild. You don't think spamming global for guild recruitment is also "randos from the street"? It's easy too, you just make the guildless node invulnerable to guild node activity, consider it a PvE node for solo content with less benefits. You keep saying it makes the game more niche or makes the game more catered to guilds. THAT'S WHAT STEVEN WANTS. He said he's okay with not everyone liking it and he wants Eve Online level guilds. This can all be watered down to me saying skip the 3rd layer of power control they haven't even put in the game yet and let guilds be guilds, its simple.
Because the direction it is going is what this game is about, as I have said many times - the few ruling over the many.
Problem is, that is no way to market a game, so we have the situation we are in.
I do think less is more at this point since it has been almost 9 years and we still have a few years to go. The development could easy start running dry and we either go the Star Citizen route of expensive micro-transactions and never leave alpha or we release with hundreds of things still broken.
They want the few ruling over the many because they want some complex political hierarchy system with some form of checks and balances. But this is a video game and it will just be abused farther down a pipeline.
You could argue this.
However, my assumption as to why Ashes is this way is much more simple.
Ashes is the way it is because Steven plays MMORPG's as essentially a megalomaniac. He has his guild of people that he instructs as if they have no option other than to do as he says. Since this is how he plays, it means that this is what MMORPG's are to him.
He is not shy about stating that Ashes is the game he wants to play, so the game being built around a few megalomaniacs per server each being followed by a number of submissive/subservient players doing their bidding is the only way Ashes was ever going to be, without a lead designer to reign him in some.
Edit; I've been pointing this out on these forums essentially since Jeff left several years ago. That is when the notable switch happened from Ashes being presented as a game based on the content (run the content, fight over the content) stopped, and it started to be presented as a game about controlling other players - even if that presentation is only in subtle ways.
The content is now little more than a backdrop that frames the systems of controling and blocking other players.
If you are someone that believes the content is the core of an MMORPG, then you have to look at Ashes as being a game that isn't actually even focused on the game itself.
I can agree with this and I do think they should make some of the very fundamental parts of the game fully isolated so we can work on balancing of classes and get a less volatile economy. All those other things can be added way down the road after release and all of that. I do like the vision, but it does seem a little out of place. He is emphasizing the MMO more than the RPG, which is what most MMOs have been doing for the past decade. I'd rather see the full hierarchy of checks and balances be in the game with smaller map and people on it rather than this weird horizontal development process they are doing right now. Either that or do what I was saying which allows player at a shorter point of the totem pole of "power" to have freedom of expression within the game. Cause with the patches and how things are developing, I'm also not fully confident in how well the team knows the unreal engine to really see some of these more complex things come to fruition. Who knows, maybe we will see with these econ changes.