Race Representation in a Node's Architecture

Like in any other MMO, some races will be more popular than others. In AoC this will have great repercussions because the number of players of a certain race that are active in a node's zone of influence, will determine that node's architectural style. There are also talks from Intrepid that a node of a certain race will give some kind of benefits to players of that same race. Regardless, the issue remains that certain races will be underrepresented and maybe even completely nonexistent. We might never see a Metropolis of some races.

A solution I would like to suggest to this issue would be to give races a bonus to their representation in a node’s architectural style decision based on the region/biome the node is in.

We know that each race has its starting zone and there are certain biomes that “belong” to certain races. So for example let’s say that we have 40 Dunir dwarves working on a node in their foothills in the northwest and 50 Ren’kai orcs are also working on that node, but the Dunir dwarves get a 50% bonus to their racial representation in that region because those foothills “belong” to their race. The 40 Dunir dwarves would now count as 60 Dunir dwarves and they would win the architectural representation over the 50 Ren’kai orcs.

The numbers would obviously need to be tested.

What are your thoughts on this topic or the proposed solution above?

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Dygz

VmanGman wrote: »

Because part of playing a MMO is to scour Discord and the forums to find groups of people that can help you overcome the game's design flaw? What happened to just playing the game. You know that the vast majority of players don't interact with forums and outside community building tools, right? Especially not before they get in game. Your solution is so abstract and so far removed from what the experience is supposed to be like and what the experience is actually like for the vast majority of players.

Lots of people will already be part of guilds from previous games before starting Ashes and will form strategies about race preferences.
Lots of people will do so based on twitch communities and discord communities and YouTube communities and other social media communities.
Vast majority doesn't necessarily matter. You just need enough to be able to form an alliance large enough to get a Metro on one server.

We will be able to filter Ashes character by race to find other characters of the same race and we will likely be able to determine the population spread by server to help determine which server has the best chance to gain the numbers we desire.

I dunno what you mean by "what the experience is supposed to be like".
This the kind of stuff that gamer guilds and streamer communities and discord communities and other social media communities do.
People already have their racial rivalries. Some based on other games.
We have Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Humans and Tulnar. And we have 5 Metros per server.
So... this whole concept of least popular race never being able to get a Metro on any server isn't really a thing.
There's all kinds of ways for players to band together to raid one server enough to get a Metro - even for the game-wide lowest pop race.

VmanGman

@Dygz I've done my best, but it doesn't seem to be enough. Have a good one.

HumblePuffin

This is one of those things where I can definitely see it being an issue, but I almost don’t want them to do anything about it for a while. I want to see what players can do to effect this. If we just include from the get go a toggle or vote to change what kind of influence structures have we take away a lot of that natural progression that made this game sound so interesting, where player choice influenced the world, including that players choice at the creation screen.

If we add this now it would be a lot harder to take away than I feel it would be to just add sometime down the line if it really becomes an issue.

What if it turns out your assumptions on race population is wrong? We won’t know until all the races are in and the games been going for a little bit, and we don’t know if this actually will turn into a problem. Def could, but we don’t know.

I feel like a more natural solution to this would be to lock/give more weight to the architectural influence from a lower stage instead of tallying it all together between each stage. So if a group of a Nikua got a node to the village stage they’re progress isn’t totally wiped out when it changes to a town just because a bunch of empyreans showed up.

This is a quote from the wiki so they are definitely aware this could become an issue, but I like that they are trying to do it in a more fluid way than just a vote/toggle. I’m sure once they have all the races in they will be able to gather more concrete data to see what issues might arise and what is the least intrusive way to solve them:

“There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in.”[60] – Steven Sharif

CROW3

Dygz wrote: »

CROW3 wrote: »

Because part of playing a MMO is to scour Discord and the forums to find groups of people that can help you overcome the game's design flaw? What happened to just playing the game. You know that the vast majority of players don't interact with forums and outside community building tools, right? Especially not before they get in game. Your solution is so abstract and so far removed from what the experience is supposed to be like and what the experience is actually like for the vast majority of players.

…

@Dygz - just FYI, I didn’t write that. 😉

Dygz

CROW3 wrote: »

@Dygz - just FYI, I didn’t write that. 😉

Haha. 4:30 AM is too early in the morning.
And... it didn't seem like something you would write.

HazardNumberSeven

Freehold appearances aren't locked to your race, so even if you don't see nodes on your server with the racial theme you want, you can always see freeholds that do have that theme.

I for one am excited to play in a world that is constantly changing. Just because there isn't a dwarven node (let's say) now, doesn't mean there can't be one in the future. You could even take it upon yourself to start a big guild of only dwarves and all settle in the same undeveloped/recently destroyed node, so that you can build it up yourselves.

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