How is AoC going to incorporate all level of players in node warfare?

A little background: I'm a avid Eve online player, and many of the systems that AoC is going to have have similar like systems in Eve Online. Eve online however is not a level based system, and that is very good for its pvp playground. Due to Eve online's rock paper scissors systems and role dependancy and specialization options, new players can participate in, and sometimes even perform key roles in pvp. And more importantly no matter what skill level (both player skill and charactar skill point amount) they can all participate in attacking or defending someones home.

How will this be in ashes of creation? If i'm level 20, just got my first tiny house and membership of a node, what will i be able to do to defend my home? Will the level disparity between me and max level attackers make it that i have no chance? will i experiance a dissatisfying time, when i realize that the time and money my character has invested in his or her new home can't realisticly be defended because of level disparity, or will there be options to make yourself usefull?

Here are my suggestions:
Instead of a fixed amount of players, have it set to combined level. Eg 50 lvl 40 players attack, Total pool of levels is 200, the defending team can defend with 40 level 50 players, or 100 level 20 players (Or any combination resulting up to 200 level pool)
Siege weapon efficiency is independant of level or class. This will allow lower level players to partake without having to use immersion breaking scaling effects.
Battleground is split up in brackets of similar levels whenever possible.

When not all levels are equally important in node warfare, the game will become a must be max level to participate, wich will lead to stagnation, and ultimatly player decline and will prevent new player influx

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Comments

Ludullu

In both node wars and sieges every single citizen participates, so it's not lvl-dependent there. The impact of lower lvls will just be smaller. Node sieges might also have the same siege machines that can be operated by lower lvl players, so that could be the biggest role you could play as a lowbie.

In theory Intrepid could add some war goals for purely low lvl characters, but I don't think we've heard about anything like that so far.

NoxVost

>The impact of lower lvls will just be smaller

This simply means that low-lvl are generally useless, and node owner will invite/let-in only high lvl mates into defence

Ludullu

NoxVost wrote: »

This simply means that low-lvl are generally useless, and node owner will invite/let-in only high lvl mates into defence

Like I said, every citizen is the participant in the node war/siege. There's no limit so no "invite". Those theoretical siege machines might just be overtaken by high lvl players just because they want to operate them, but that's not any different from you being a high lvl player and someone else just being faster than you in taking those machines.

But yes, your smaller time investment will be less influential than someone else's bigger time investment.

Kesthely

The majority (~80%) of content in Ashes of Creation is open-world but there may be instanced battles within castle and node sieges where specific groups can participate in small, short-duration objective-based battles for specific waypoints.[7] Livestream, 2022-01-28 (17:50).

Primarily adressing this for the instanced battles.

In many MMO's you don't have a realistic chance of fighting a much higher level. It is a sideffect of level based gameplay.

And its not about time investment either. After a set amount of time a (large) portion of the population will be max level if you join the game as a new player a year after AoC is out, you want that player to experiance the same excitement of beeing able to purchase a home, become a citizen, and participate in home defense. And you want that player to have at least a chance to be impactfull in the battle.

Songcaller

NoxVost wrote: »

>The impact of lower lvls will just be smaller

This simply means that low-lvl are generally useless, and node owner will invite/let-in only high lvl mates into defence

Only 250 people can join a battle at the moment for one side. It might be increased to 500 per side. However, nodes with more than 500 players online will see some not being able to participate.

Kesthely

We know that a Mayor can opt in for defensive measures during node sieges, in addition a good mayor should know a little bit of how much low levels there are citizen. Maybe defensive options that give mandatory objectives to be completed, and the defending mayor can set the max level for the participants of that objective (templated ofcourse). This way lower levels can participate in node defense and still be usefull.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

Only 250 people can join a battle at the moment for one side. It might be increased to 500 per side. However, nodes with more than 500 players online will see some not being able to participate.

That's for castle sieges. Node ones don't have that

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
During the declaration period, individuals or guilds can register to attack or defend providing they meet the criteria.[15][16]
The player who originally declared the siege cannot exclude anyone from joining the attack.[15]
Citizens of the node or provincial nodes being attacked are automatically registered as defenders.[29]
Players do not need to be citizens of the node in order to register as defenders, but they cannot be citizens of a node that is at war with the node they wish to defend.[30]
Citizens of allied nodes cannot register to attack.[31]

Ace1234

Its also important to make sure that gear/level progression doesn't play "too much" of a factor in pvp- that way if a player is behind in progression but is actually more skilled than a player that is further along in progression, they would have a good fighting chance even if at a disadvantage.

Songcaller

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

Only 250 people can join a battle at the moment for one side. It might be increased to 500 per side. However, nodes with more than 500 players online will see some not being able to participate.

That's for castle sieges. Node ones don't have that

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
During the declaration period, individuals or guilds can register to attack or defend providing they meet the criteria.[15][16]
The player who originally declared the siege cannot exclude anyone from joining the attack.[15]
Citizens of the node or provincial nodes being attacked are automatically registered as defenders.[29]
Players do not need to be citizens of the node in order to register as defenders, but they cannot be citizens of a node that is at war with the node they wish to defend.[30]
Citizens of allied nodes cannot register to attack.[31]

I'll wait for the blog entry.

Percimes

I would you feel about if it was possible for citizen characters below a certain level to play as a city guard? Kind of like a monster coin event but for node defence. Level and gear of the pre-made characters dependant on what the city has invest for the regular NPCs guard, although the player controlled ones could be a bit better than those. Officers of the city watch!

Opt in system. Limited spots? Qualifications for those?

Noaani

Kesthely wrote: »

The majority (~80%) of content in Ashes of Creation is open-world but there may be instanced battles within castle and node sieges where specific groups can participate in small, short-duration objective-based battles for specific waypoints.[7] Livestream, 2022-01-28 (17:50).

Primarily adressing this for the instanced battles.

In many MMO's you don't have a realistic chance of fighting a much higher level. It is a sideffect of level based gameplay.

And its not about time investment either. After a set amount of time a (large) portion of the population will be max level if you join the game as a new player a year after AoC is out, you want that player to experiance the same excitement of beeing able to purchase a home, become a citizen, and participate in home defense. And you want that player to have at least a chance to be impactfull in the battle.

From what we know so far, the only thing close to a meaningful impact a lower level player will have in a siege is if they are using siege equipment - which should be available for both attack and defense.

The reason for this is that using such equipment means they are not using their class abilities, which are inherently weaker.

Noaani

Ace1234 wrote: »

Its also important to make sure that gear/level progression doesn't play "too much" of a factor in pvp- that way if a player is behind in progression but is actually more skilled than a player that is further along in progression, they would have a good fighting chance even if at a disadvantage.

Character progression is the sum of how good a player is at the game over all.

If you are better than me in equalized 1v1 PvP, but I am better than you at playing the market (as an example) and so have gear and better consumables than you, and that allows me to beat you, I am better at the game overall than you, and so should win in a 1v1 fight.

Whether you win a 1v1 fight should be based on the sum total of how good you are at the game as a whole, not just on one small aspect of it. As such, if you want to win, put some effort in to other aspects of the game.

Kesthely

I'm not talking about equal or that a lvl 20 should be able to defeat a lvl 50 attacker, i'm talking about a level 20 being able to do something usefull during the siege.

There are many ways how this can be done, Siege equipment, level restricted secondary objectives, bracketed instances, monster, npc or guard coins just something that the lower level player feels usefull, so that after the siege, he or she can look back, and say i did my best and i was usefull, regardless the outcome.

Strevi

I think later after +6 months after release, metropolises will involve themselves in defending or sacrificing each smaller node. Chances are that the important actors will be the best fighters from the entire mini nation controlled by the metropolis. I wonder if they even can help the smaller node to be defeated.
Lower level players are sadly not important in this activity. Also caravan combat might be unbalanced until players reach max level. Probably Steven had no idea how to solve this or he wants the game this way.

Kesthely

If i look at eve online, you see all kinds of groups from small to mega big be in conflict constantly, and that shapes that universe, Big guilds are not going to be a problem, since you will have always another big guild or alliance to oppose them.

After time most of the content will be experienced at max level, that does not however signify that no attention should be spend to new player or lower level gameplay and experiances..

If at low to mid level you lose a lot of assets due to a node siege, and you feel you had no influence whatseover in preventing that, you will lose players, and more importantly will have a hard time getting new players.

tautau

To expand on what @Noaani correctly said above, in Alpha 1 there were siege engines on a wall which any level player could use. I used them to fire giant arrows at the attackers. It was interesting and fun and I felt that I could make a real contribution. Hitting an attacker caused real damage.

Strevi

Kesthely wrote: »

If i look at eve online, you see all kinds of groups from small to mega big be in conflict constantly, and that shapes that universe, Big guilds are not going to be a problem, since you will have always another big guild or alliance to oppose them.

After time most of the content will be experienced at max level, that does not however signify that no attention should be spend to new player or lower level gameplay and experiances..

If at low to mid level you lose a lot of assets due to a node siege, and you feel you had no influence whatseover in preventing that, you will lose players, and more importantly will have a hard time getting new players.

true. But the leveling time in AoC is very short while the Eve system is endless. So Eve had to design the game with such differences in mind. If that would be applied to AoC, ships would be armor sets and equipment, similar to mechs. Each with abilities and specialized to fight against other gear. But is not so. Gear is just armor and the skills belong 100% to the flesh below them which will reach max level after an inconvenient 2 month leveling, which is short for an eve player. Even more, guilds can gift gear to help new players while in Eve you could not fly and use any kind of ship even if you would own it.

Solvryn

Noaani wrote: »

Ace1234 wrote: »

Its also important to make sure that gear/level progression doesn't play "too much" of a factor in pvp- that way if a player is behind in progression but is actually more skilled than a player that is further along in progression, they would have a good fighting chance even if at a disadvantage.

Character progression is the sum of how good a player is at the game over all.

If you are better than me in equalized 1v1 PvP, but I am better than you at playing the market (as an example) and so have gear and better consumables than you, and that allows me to beat you, I am better at the game overall than you, and so should win in a 1v1 fight.

Whether you win a 1v1 fight should be based on the sum total of how good you are at the game as a whole, not just on one small aspect of it. As such, if you want to win, put some effort in to other aspects of the game.

This is a weird take, in Asherons Call a lower level could dominate even the best geared players. Because at the end of the day they fought past the gear, honed their craft and were just better players.

When they caught up in gear and wealth, it wasn't even a close match; they absolutely destroyed the people who were now evenly geared.

Progression =/= Talent or Superiority.

Noaani

Solvryn wrote: »

This is a weird take, in Asherons Call a lower level could dominate even the best geared players. Because at the end of the day they fought past the gear, honed their craft and were just better players.

When they caught up in gear and wealth, it wasn't even a close match; they absolutely destroyed the people who were now evenly geared.

Progression =/= Talent or Superiority.

I don't think you understood the point of what I was saying.

In fact, you are actually agreeing with what I said, you just don't understand that yet.

When you say that the player that originally had worse gear but won in PvP then gets better gear and dominates, that is total agreeance with what I said.

Gear matters. That is what I said, and is also what you said.

The only difference is that you are starting off with a far worse player against a far better player than I was.

In fact, you were probably coming at the situation from a totally unreasonable perspective, as a player that has good gear has already proven to be good at the game in general - that is how they got their gear. Someone that has earned gear in a game is demonstrably better at that game than someone that has not earned gear in that same game. If that second person was as good at the game as you claim, they would have better gear.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

In fact, you were probably coming at the situation from a totally unreasonable perspective, as a player that has good gear has already proven to be good at the game in general - that is how they got their gear. Someone that has earned gear in a game is demonstrably better at that game than someone that has not earned gear in that same game. If that second person was as good at the game as you claim, they would have better gear.

I think they were just working on different time scales. The first player played for longer but just wasn't as skillful at game's mechanics, while the second player was amazing at mechanics but hadn't played as long to get the gear, cause gear usually just means time, unless you have ties to veteran players that can just give you gear.

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