Citizen node war is a bad faction system, open PvP should be about GvG only.

First I want no notify that im a semi-hardcore PvP player who played Lineage 2 for 4 years, so dont come at me with being a whiner or carebear.
As guild leader and after recruiting several players from other MMO on AoC, I noticed most of them actually doesn't understand GvG or the open PvP "philosophy" , they barely handle frustration and get mad over being killed after randomly flagging etc… BUT after a while these fresh recruit see the point, and understand accept open PvP being ruled by flagging system.

However the node war system that recently happened on Tenok server negated that goodwill… After decades of Solo MMO and non-consequencial Faction MMO where a Guild is just a chat to spam "LFG", this is a hard job to federate players into a guild "philosopy", so when a Citizen node war comes out of nowhere, players feels totaly disconnect from that conflict, they dont give a single damn about geopolitics, except that they are being grieffed upon going out of town for no reason.

I understand the concept attempt at making being a citizen a small faction thing, where people should care about where they become citizen, etc… But this is 2026! As I explained above a whole generation of players already barely wants to do one with a Guild, so with that citizenship thing? nah.
These citizen players will just leave the game if they are killed for conflict they aren't directly aware or part off, being in a whole open PvP world is already stressfull to them, but the flagging system is here to offer balance.
With these node war citzen thing, it's free party and casual players will complains and leave the game if they lose their farms in chain, cant get out of town, or worse lost their storage from a town siege...
Again, Im not complaining and I understand the attempt, but it wont work!

War systems like this should ONLY be a GUILD VERSUS GUILD thing, and NOT involve citizens, town and nodes should remain somekind of a community PvE thing, but then Casttle siege should be added to rules over these town and be a challenge for PvP and GvG player, but you must not allow open region grieffing like citizen node war, it will make PEOPLE LEAVE the game.

I urge Intrepid Studio to review the node war system, and instead make proper castle siege system where PvP is focused on GvG.
The focus should be on Guild Versus Guild politics, the current guild war system is meh and need to be reviewed to be the focus, to actually offer reward (guild XP etc).
The ONLY WAY to make players wants to engage in PvP, GvG and geopolitics is by "selling" them epic castle siege, and huge contested PvE dungeon with epic loot.
Random grieffing out of TOWN will NEVER MAKE players wants to engage in the system.

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Comments

Kallysha

There is already guild wars for that, people actually complaining guilds taking over the siege and the rest of the citizens cant participate; what would be the point of being a citizen if cant even participate in a siege/war, you think im paying taxes to fill the guilds pockets?

I've seen many saying they are pvpers, semi or hardcore and then i watched them play….

Now if you tell me the value for such wars/siege is too high i wouldnt disagree with you.

And here we are again with the " it will make PEOPLE LEAVE the game" yeaah… people will leave the game for many other reasons than that.

actiongirl

I'm coming from Albion Online (AO), so it colors my viewpoint somewhat. I definitely find AoC's flagging/corruption system amusing. Most players in AO are 'faction flagged' for pvp all the time, voluntarily, because it provides 4 things of value to the player:

lots of opportunities for pvp without bothering pve players or new players (this is separate from zone lethality, and I'm setting that aside for the purposes of this discussion)
valuable reward system (xp/silver/gear/faction rank) for doing normal things while faction flagged, even pve or gathering, so people want to be flagged all the time, even if you lose fights/gear some of the time
allows you to easily form ad-hoc groups without lfg, which I think is helpful for large scale pvp and even smaller skirmishes and dungeon crawling
its a clear system that has no surprises - you won't suddenly be thrown into pvp because there is a war at the city gates

People who aren't flagged are typically new, gathering in enemy territory, or transporting.

From a game loop perspective, especially an end game loop perspective, AO factions allow new players to participate in a low risk/high reward way, even in full loot lethal zones at lower levels. They can mix with experienced players and learn without level penalties, and they don't have to commit to a guild just to do content.

AoC feels like it's doing the opposite for reasons that are unclear to me. You can end up in pvp all of a sudden, you have to pay taxes to be a citizen instead of being rewarded, and you have to spam the chat or be in a guild to do a lot of content. And of the 150+ hours I've played the game, the town I am in has had maybe 1 'war', so I'm currently in the 'what's the point of this' category. AoC needs to work on this system some more.

I certainly think GvG should have a place, but if AoC is going to onboard casual players and new players or have ad hoc large scale wars, they need a place to learn to pvp, and for experienced players and new/guildless/casual players to mix and node warfare looks like a good spot for it in this game. In fact, I think that there should be ready options for 1v1, 2v2, party v party, GvG and ZvZ pretty much all of the time. I would worry about a GvG focus, unless they become large enough to turn into proxies for factions.

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