Steven instructed information from the node simulation to be hidden so that players to be unable to guess the rules based on which a node advances and causes the other to become vassal.
He wants to be very sure that the dynamic happens in a certain way and is not under player's control.
Which just serves to anger even more people honestly, those who not only get vassalized but can't even see why they got vassalized lol.
Just like you are against the corruption system you are against the this restriction imposed by Steven.
As you say, you want PvP "content".
For you he made the deep ocean and the castle sieges and the caravans too.
He will not change these rules. They are important for the game-play as he intends to happen.
Just want to reiterate, I did not make this thread because I want there to be more PvP. I made it because I don't want to see the server stagnate in late game, and that I think the "loyal node citizen" game loops could very well serve as our endgame content in this regard.
Steven instructed information from the node simulation to be hidden so that players to be unable to guess the rules based on which a node advances and causes the other to become vassal.
He wants to be very sure that the dynamic happens in a certain way and is not under player's control.
Which just serves to anger even more people honestly, those who not only get vassalized but can't even see why they got vassalized lol.
Just like you are against the corruption system you are against the this restriction imposed by Steven.
As you say, you want PvP "content".
For you he made the deep ocean and the castle sieges and the caravans too.
He will not change these rules. They are important for the game-play as he intends to happen.
Just want to reiterate, I did not make this thread because I want there to be more PvP. I made it because I don't want to see the server stagnate in late game, and that I think the "loyal node citizen" game loops could very well serve as our endgame content in this regard.
Yet your points were already countered about nodes not being attacked even more so when you didn't make strong points to begin with. And you stick to you want more chaotic pvp lol.
I weighed each up, and came to the conclusion that the best thing to do is not allow vassals to siege (or declare node wars) on parent nodes.
Example:
Intrepid wants there to be one node siege every two weeks. Let's say allowing vassals to siege parents causes a siege to happen every week instead. Interepid can tweak the siege cooldowns/scroll costs/quest frequency until sieges again happen at the rate they wanted.
Right, but now the only people with a valid reason to siege are those in vassal nodes.
If they make it so sieging is less appealing to the general population (which is what your example here does), that means any parent node that is making their vassal nodes content is basically never going to be sieged.
If you have a whole list of reasons to siege a node (as I listed in my previous post), but then you have a portion of the potential sieging population having an additional reason to siege the node that only applies to them (vassals wanting to expand their own node), then the balance has to only take in to account this group with the additional reason, as they are going to be the group that opts to siege first (they have all the same reasons, plus an additional reason).
Thus, as I said above, if those people are content, the barrier to siege has now been increased to the point where it is conceivable that no one would want to siege, and at the very least sieges will be less common.
This would then basically require that metropolis nodes not have a way to appease vassals in order for the game to maintain node turnover.
This would make for a completely shit game. It would be servers full of five groups of players too busy fighting among themselves to ever fight each other.
This is why the best option by a mile (looking at the game as a whole rather than what an indiviual player may want to do) is to only allow the larger population to siege, and set the balance based on them. This means vassals can't siege nodes, but means node will be sieged by outsiders.
This logic is not completely unreasonable, but I have three thoughts about this.
If they make it so sieging is less appealing to the general population (which is what your example here does), that means any parent node that is making their vassal nodes content is basically never going to be sieged.
I don't entirely disagree that the incentives are currently skewed towards the vassals. But the willingness to rebel can be offset and siege effort need not be universal!
All that needs to be done here is to make sieging less appealing to the node vassals:
Give generally better vassal bonuses. <---- (Easiest to implement)
Put rebellion behind an expensive and risky policy.
Give less siege rewards to vassals who succesfully joined the attackers, and more if they defend. <--- (Also easy!)
Only allow rebellion if the siege was declared with a special, more expensive, siege scroll.
These are just some ideas, but if people are fighting too much for a particular reason, then pull the levers which incentivize opposite behavior!
Additionally, if you want everything to be universal, then siege scroll quest effort could slowly decrease over long times of peace. Even if everyone is kept happy, eventually supply will meet demand.
If the vassal system needs to exists, it shouldn't be just generally shit for the vassals to the point where sieging the parent is 100% obvious always.
My second point is more about game design and the underlying sentiment everyone (you and mags included) seems to share:
Right, but now the only people with a valid reason to siege are those in vassal nodes.
Just think about this for a second. You acknowledge that people would absolutely want to siege their masters, more so than anyone else on the server.
So the problem with rebellion is that it would be too popular?
Stopping people from doing what they want for system reasons is always a spooky proposition for a game developer. If the answer to "hey chief, people are pvping too much" is to "oh let's just remove pvp", the system should be re-examined instead.
Tribes was much slower until players started exploiting movement mechanics to "ski". Instead of shutting it down, the developers saw what the player base wanted and it became a mechanic.
The opposite of this is the Blizzard style development.
"People are not playing the new system enough because they find it boring and unrewarding? Our engagement metrics are down?!"
Well now the system is mandatory and grindier so people spend more time with it
I understand that there are many features that players would be frequently use but which would be detrimental to the game. However, what Intrepid has done is regulate those features to turn them into a win/win.
Fast travel is an excellent example that supports the point I'm making. What intrepid has done is put fast travel behind a gameplay system to adjust the usage level. (Scientific metros, family system).
You might say, "You think you do but you don't", but we've seen how that one turned out. People will want rebellion, and it's up to the developer to meet the demand in a way that doesn't break the game.
This would make for a completely shit game. It would be servers full of five groups of players too busy fighting among themselves to ever fight each other.
Even if this would be the end result, I think you give it an unfair spin.
How I would describe it is: A gamestate where there are more small wars constantly going on and stable vassal chain alliances are more rare. Far from a "shit game", it would just be a faster content cycle until large enough groups of people would work together to form large alliances to stabilize parts of the server.
But as has been already outlined, the chaos is a spectrum and IS can control where the game exists within that spectrum.
My points are explained + backed up with information on the game that we know of and direction. You guys don't base what you want on the design of the game and intent. You just say its better because its what you want. You aren't actually logically backing any of your points based on the design of the game.
My points would only be better to you if i agree with you and don't counter out your own points.
Why even make this post? We obviously haven't been convinced by your arguments. In my opinion, your arguments don't line up with the information we have on the game. Many of your words are spent calling our arguments weak instead of explaining why. What further progress are you expecting by making statements like these?
You think the current system would result in a better game, and we've explained many times why we think the opposite.
Being loyal to your node does not mean you have to siege parent nodes which provide the PvE content and security in the area.
No one said that you "have to" attack anyone. We're just asking for the ability to do so, were it seen as a viable thing to do.
The loyalty part of the argument mainly comes as a counter to the "just move nodes" point. How exactly am I showing loyalty to my node if I'm leaving it.
We have to clarify this loyalty concept, to be sure we both refer to the same things.
There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members.[1] – Steven Sharif
If you would want to help your guild siege your own node, the game will prevent you doing that.
In this context, the game will force you to be loyal to the node instead of your guild.
You said you want to be able to siege your parent node. My assumption was that you want to see it destroyed. If you really want to do that more than staying in your own node then you can change to another one.
The game does not penalize you unless you want to run away before a siege:
The open seas were added with a good reason. See... Tenguru is concerned that there will be too much stability and peace. Players who want PvP will go to nodes on the coast, close to the ocean. Players who want PvE will stay away from that area.
I feel like yall's fear of "chaos and endless pvp" is even higher than some people's fear of the PKing feature.
If the parent node is doing everything right and is seen as the greater good by all the vassals - what exactly would be the reason for any of those citizens to rise up?
"Making" an entire vassal node see my point of "let's fucking kill them all and become the next metro" will be insanely difficult, if the parent node is good to their vassals. It's gonna be even harder to do if I'm trying to be sneaky about it, so that the parent node doesn't retaliate against me or my node (cause again, my "illogical" logic here is that I want MY node to succeed, so destruction of my node as retribution by the parent would not be a good thing).
But those kinds of actions are exactly the kind of political scheming that I want to see in the game. It has barely anything to do with the pvx results of my actions. Nodes will still go to war/sieges with any given node, so the argument that "players who avoid pvp don't want this change" is pointless, cause they wouldn't be able to escape pvp either way.
And the pve side of things would also be influenced by outside forces, because they would've already farmed their own stuff, maybe would've gotten some of the current stuff in your kingdom and would then want to see more content w/o changing their own setup.
And in either/both of those contexts, simply renouncing your citizenship to join the attackers is neither interesting nor complex, nor in any real way a "political" decision. "Wanting more pvp" is not inherently a political decision. "Wanting different pve" is not one either.
Wanting your node to be the one that prevails against an already preestablished political landscape - that is a political goal, based directly on the loyalty to your node.
My illogical logic is based on pretty much the entire damn history of humanity. Yall's logic is based on what Steven said in a blog once. Btw, I went to doublecheck this reference and it literally says "parent node enslaves and owns its vassals". So in other words, my position is that I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO BE A SLAVE but I do want to have my node loyalty, rather than being a god damn hobo.
You have to define what means: "If the parent node is doing everything right"
You will not be a slave. That word describes a relationship between the nodes. In another place Steven used the "lock out" expression:
Nodes encompass more land as they grow and will require more effort to be sustained. This system is a main driver for change in the world because it creates scarcity. As Nodes advance in stages of growth they will lock out neighboring Nodes from progressing, and will absorb their zones of influence.
And the pve side of things would also be influenced by outside forces, because they would've already farmed their own stuff
If the node is destroyed, you destroy the PvE content too:
Divine nodes at Metropolis (stage 6) may unlock a procedurally built "mega catacomb" dungeon beneath it that connects to its divine vassal nodes. These may house unique bosses with unique drop tables.[22]
Yall's logic is based on what Steven said in a blog once.
"My illogical logic is based on pretty much the entire damn history of humanity"
...
"Making" an entire vassal node see my point of "let's fucking kill them all and become the next metro" will be insanely difficult,
...
But those kinds of actions are exactly the kind of political scheming that I want to see in the game.
Steven also said:
So he is very aware that players will want to siege the parent nodes and he probably is happy he predicted your desire many years ago. And as you see he wants to "allow for a power struggle".
You will have to use the tools the game provides to help your node and at the same time weaken the parent node. If you succeed, many will assume you are actually loyal to the government of another metropolis zone.
I weighed each up, and came to the conclusion that the best thing to do is not allow vassals to siege (or declare node wars) on parent nodes.
Example:
Intrepid wants there to be one node siege every two weeks. Let's say allowing vassals to siege parents causes a siege to happen every week instead. Interepid can tweak the siege cooldowns/scroll costs/quest frequency until sieges again happen at the rate they wanted.
Right, but now the only people with a valid reason to siege are those in vassal nodes.
If they make it so sieging is less appealing to the general population (which is what your example here does), that means any parent node that is making their vassal nodes content is basically never going to be sieged.
If you have a whole list of reasons to siege a node (as I listed in my previous post), but then you have a portion of the potential sieging population having an additional reason to siege the node that only applies to them (vassals wanting to expand their own node), then the balance has to only take in to account this group with the additional reason, as they are going to be the group that opts to siege first (they have all the same reasons, plus an additional reason).
Thus, as I said above, if those people are content, the barrier to siege has now been increased to the point where it is conceivable that no one would want to siege, and at the very least sieges will be less common.
This would then basically require that metropolis nodes not have a way to appease vassals in order for the game to maintain node turnover.
This would make for a completely shit game. It would be servers full of five groups of players too busy fighting among themselves to ever fight each other.
This is why the best option by a mile (looking at the game as a whole rather than what an indiviual player may want to do) is to only allow the larger population to siege, and set the balance based on them. This means vassals can't siege nodes, but means node will be sieged by outsiders.
This logic is not completely unreasonable, but I have three thoughts about this.
If they make it so sieging is less appealing to the general population (which is what your example here does), that means any parent node that is making their vassal nodes content is basically never going to be sieged.
I don't entirely disagree that the incentives are currently skewed towards the vassals. But the willingness to rebel can be offset and siege effort need not be universal!
All that needs to be done here is to make sieging less appealing to the node vassals:
Give generally better vassal bonuses. <---- (Easiest to implement)
Put rebellion behind an expensive and risky policy.
Give less siege rewards to vassals who succesfully joined the attackers, and more if they defend. <--- (Also easy!)
Only allow rebellion if the siege was declared with a special, more expensive, siege scroll.
These are just some ideas, but if people are fighting too much for a particular reason, then pull the levers which incentivize opposite behavior!
Additionally, if you want everything to be universal, then siege scroll quest effort could slowly decrease over long times of peace. Even if everyone is kept happy, eventually supply will meet demand.
If the vassal system needs to exists, it shouldn't be just generally shit for the vassals to the point where sieging the parent is 100% obvious always.
My second point is more about game design and the underlying sentiment everyone (you and mags included) seems to share:
Right, but now the only people with a valid reason to siege are those in vassal nodes.
Just think about this for a second. You acknowledge that people would absolutely want to siege their masters, more so than anyone else on the server.
So the problem with rebellion is that it would be too popular?
Stopping people from doing what they want for system reasons is always a spooky proposition for a game developer. If the answer to "hey chief, people are pvping too much" is to "oh let's just remove pvp", the system should be re-examined instead.
Tribes was much slower until players started exploiting movement mechanics to "ski". Instead of shutting it down, the developers saw what the player base wanted and it became a mechanic.
The opposite of this is the Blizzard style development.
"People are not playing the new system enough because they find it boring and unrewarding? Our engagement metrics are down?!"
Well now the system is mandatory and grindier so people spend more time with it
I understand that there are many features that players would be frequently use but which would be detrimental to the game. However, what Intrepid has done is regulate those features to turn them into a win/win.
Fast travel is an excellent example that supports the point I'm making. What intrepid has done is put fast travel behind a gameplay system to adjust the usage level. (Scientific metros, family system).
You might say, "You think you do but you don't", but we've seen how that one turned out. People will want rebellion, and it's up to the developer to meet the demand in a way that doesn't break the game.
This would make for a completely shit game. It would be servers full of five groups of players too busy fighting among themselves to ever fight each other.
Even if this would be the end result, I think you give it an unfair spin.
How I would describe it is: A gamestate where there are more small wars constantly going on and stable vassal chain alliances are more rare. Far from a "shit game", it would just be a faster content cycle until large enough groups of people would work together to form large alliances to stabilize parts of the server.
But as has been already outlined, the chaos is a spectrum and IS can control where the game exists within that spectrum.
My points are explained + backed up with information on the game that we know of and direction. You guys don't base what you want on the design of the game and intent. You just say its better because its what you want. You aren't actually logically backing any of your points based on the design of the game.
My points would only be better to you if i agree with you and don't counter out your own points.
Why even make this post? We obviously haven't been convinced by your arguments. In my opinion, your arguments don't line up with the information we have on the game. Many of your words are spent calling our arguments weak instead of explaining why. What further progress are you expecting by making statements like these?
You think the current system would result in a better game, and we've explained many times why we think the opposite.
Here's my verbose answer:
No u.
You literally don't make a argument for it, I've already typed enough stuff in the past pages.
Your response are you want it cause you want it, and trying to rework systems in game to include it. Not actually talking about by design of the game why it would work.
You can't even knock my points down, when your own reasoning comes off as "more rich a experience" which just comes from your own bias of what you want not any actual facts that back that up.
My previous post already brought up many points on why. The thing is when it comes to the design and fundamentals of the game we know none of you can really challenge them. Because you have no actual foundation on what you are trying to push.
Even this post is silly, you are trying to counter points out by saying you reduce the incentive of sieging (which goes against that the op wants). Which means if you need to reduce incentives, etc there clearly is a flaw that you are actually admitting indirectly.
Something the dev's have already solved by not letting you siege any allied nodes with vassal / parent relationship.
You said you want to be able to siege your parent node. My assumption was that you want to see it destroyed. If you really want to do that more than staying in your own node then you can change to another one.
The entire damn point of this thread is that we WANT TO STAY IN OUR NODE and siege the parent. The parent node is not the thing I have loyalty to, IT'S MY NODE. As Steven said, the ultimate loyalty is to your node, so I want to be a part of said node when I take actions that lead to its success.
You have to define what means: "If the parent node is doing everything right"
As I see it: helps citizens of its vassals, has good policies, not insane taxes, protects all vassal citizens from any caravan raiders or wars, etc etc.
I'm sure that absolute majority of vassal citizens will live cushy lives as long as those things are upheld. Of course there'll always be someone who wants to climb ever higher, but they'll be completely alone in the siege because no one else from that node would agree with their position.
And I'd be totally fine if there were penalties for betraying the vassal system, in case the siege fails. This is, once again, more complex and interesting political system than what we have right now.
You will not be a slave. That word describes a relationship between the nodes. In another place Steven used the "lock out" expression:
Nodes encompass more land as they grow and will require more effort to be sustained. This system is a main driver for change in the world because it creates scarcity. As Nodes advance in stages of growth they will lock out neighboring Nodes from progressing, and will absorb their zones of influence.
This context speaks about the mechanic itself, rather than the interaction between nodes post-lockout. Others have already posted what influence the parent node has on its vassals, and to me it seems quite extensive. And, as I've already said, I'm completely fine with adding even more influence to that list, as long as vassal players can do smth about their situation. Because right now - they can't.
If the node is destroyed, you destroy the PvE content too
It's shifted, because a new metro pops up and brings with it a new version of content.
As for divine catacombs, I'd almost bet that absolute majority of vassals wouldn't even think about razing their metro precisely because that catacomb exists. Which creates a difference among node types, where some vassal systems are stronger than others.
Obviously there'd be the danger of everyone wanting a divine node as their metro, but that's Intrepid's job to fiure out a counterbalance to that content.
So he is very aware that players will want to siege the parent nodes and he probably is happy he predicted your desire many years ago. And as you see he wants to "allow for a power struggle".
You will have to use the tools the game provides to help your node and at the same time weaken the parent node. If you succeed, many will assume you are actually loyal to the government of another metropolis zone.
That last sentence in the picture is very interesting in our context.
Say I'm new to the game. I pick a node I like and it just so happens to be a lvl4 vassal. I want to live there, XP there, be a part of its community. What exactly are my direct levers of conflict to make it lvl up? Because right now it's literally only "telling other players to not play the game, so that the node fully decays and the parent, hopefully, follows".
The indirect way is of course going to other vassal systems and trying to convince them that sieging my parent is beneficial to them, though w/o connections and/or money that's gonna be almost impossible to do (unless someone was already planning on doing it of course).
But let's say you did convince someone or there just so happened to be a siege soon. What are your "conflicts" then? Because right now it's simply sitting on your ass and praying and hoping that your parent will fall. You can't do anything else.
There is no "conflict" to resolve this situation.
Which is precisely why some of us think that the design should be shifted a bit
Ready to try and conquer even more Area's of the World ? .
Except there is no conquering in Ashes. At server start vassals become vassals because of a level difference, not any conquering. And near endgame any sieging the citizens of a max vassal network of 13 nodes does is not conquering either, just raiding and pillaging. They do not conquer those nodes once they are at max capacity, they simply loot them and leave.
Thanks for letting me know.
... ... ... ... ... i wonder if that could be expanded somehow, in the Future after the Release.
You think the current system would result in a better game, and we've explained many times why we think the opposite.
People have explained why they think allowing vassals to be able to siege parent nodes would make the game better for them.
None of you are arguing for the game as a whole. Not in a coherent way that sees me feel a desire to respond to it, at least. Every argument has been from the perspective of an individual player.
You agree that allowing this would make stable node/vassal states less common. This makes the game worse. While we don't want node states to be static, we also don't want them to be ever changing. The bigger problem here is that the reason for sieges with this system is not as influenciable as other reasons.
If I am sieging a node for profit, Intrepid can influence that by altering the profit I can expect to recieve. On the other hand, if I am sieging a node because I am butthurt that they leveled faster than my node, Intrepid have very little influence over that. Sure, they can make it cost more, but it will never cost so much that some guild in one of the vassal nodes doesn't have a scroll ready to go the moment the immunity timer is up.
You commented that you think stopping people doing what they want is a "spooky proposition" for a game designer. I disagree - it is the core function of a game designer. For example, as a tank, it is a game designers role to ensure that I can't cast fireballs and heal - both things I would like to do.
However, that isn't what is even happening here. Not allowing a vassal to siege a parent node (to be clear, not allowing a citizen of a vassal node to siege their nodes parent node - we have been using shorthand) doesn't stop that player from sieging that node. The game designer isn't actually stopping players from doing it.
All they are doing is as you suggest they should - adding a cost to it. That cost is your node citizenship - which to me seems about the right level of cost. The suggestions you have made above are somewhat lacking in their actual cost.
You say Intrepid have a win with their stance on fast travel - putting a cost in front of it. That is all they have done here, put a cost in front of you if you want to siege your parent node - all you need to do is make that node no longer your parent node. That is an appropriate cost.
You said you want to be able to siege your parent node. My assumption was that you want to see it destroyed. If you really want to do that more than staying in your own node then you can change to another one.
The entire damn point of this thread is that we WANT TO STAY IN OUR NODE and siege the parent. The parent node is not the thing I have loyalty to, IT'S MY NODE. As Steven said, the ultimate loyalty is to your node, so I want to be a part of said node when I take actions that lead to its success.
Stay in you node then. But you will not siege. There is no "and" possibility because then node wars will become "all vs all".
You have to define what means: "If the parent node is doing everything right"
As I see it: helps citizens of its vassals, has good policies, not insane taxes, protects all vassal citizens from any caravan raiders or wars, etc etc.
I'm sure that absolute majority of vassal citizens will live cushy lives as long as those things are upheld. Of course there'll always be someone who wants to climb ever higher, but they'll be completely alone in the siege because no one else from that node would agree with their position.
And I'd be totally fine if there were penalties for betraying the vassal system, in case the siege fails. This is, once again, more complex and interesting political system than what we have right now.
If your vassal node could siege the parrent node and win, then you are very cappable to defend your caravans too.
You will not be a slave. That word describes a relationship between the nodes. In another place Steven used the "lock out" expression:
Nodes encompass more land as they grow and will require more effort to be sustained. This system is a main driver for change in the world because it creates scarcity. As Nodes advance in stages of growth they will lock out neighboring Nodes from progressing, and will absorb their zones of influence.
This context speaks about the mechanic itself, rather than the interaction between nodes post-lockout. Others have already posted what influence the parent node has on its vassals, and to me it seems quite extensive. And, as I've already said, I'm completely fine with adding even more influence to that list, as long as vassal players can do smth about their situation. Because right now - they can't.
They can. This is a PvP game too. If you can win a potential siege, you can defeat them in any other PvP encounter.
If the node is destroyed, you destroy the PvE content too
It's shifted, because a new metro pops up and brings with it a new version of content.
As for divine catacombs, I'd almost bet that absolute majority of vassals wouldn't even think about razing their metro precisely because that catacomb exists. Which creates a difference among node types, where some vassal systems are stronger than others.
Obviously there'd be the danger of everyone wanting a divine node as their metro, but that's Intrepid's job to fiure out a counterbalance to that content.
Obviously you understand why Steven denies besieging and destroying parent nodes.
So he is very aware that players will want to siege the parent nodes and he probably is happy he predicted your desire many years ago. And as you see he wants to "allow for a power struggle".
You will have to use the tools the game provides to help your node and at the same time weaken the parent node. If you succeed, many will assume you are actually loyal to the government of another metropolis zone.
That last sentence in the picture is very interesting in our context.
Say I'm new to the game. I pick a node I like and it just so happens to be a lvl4 vassal. I want to live there, XP there, be a part of its community. What exactly are my direct levers of conflict to make it lvl up? Because right now it's literally only "telling other players to not play the game, so that the node fully decays and the parent, hopefully, follows".
The indirect way is of course going to other vassal systems and trying to convince them that sieging my parent is beneficial to them, though w/o connections and/or money that's gonna be almost impossible to do (unless someone was already planning on doing it of course).
But let's say you did convince someone or there just so happened to be a siege soon. What are your "conflicts" then? Because right now it's simply sitting on your ass and praying and hoping that your parent will fall. You can't do anything else.
There is no "conflict" to resolve this situation.
You are here since 2020. Is that all you can list?
Think again, players in your node want to siege a higher level node.
They have the resources to create the siege scroll and the siege equipment.
And without doubt are skilled enough to win.
But instead of besieging a node from another metropolis they turn against their parent node which they are not allowed to siege.
If you are in a level 4 node (as you said) and you bribe Steven with some Sweet Ice Rolls maybe he looks away and you get once chance to siege. Then the metropolis will throw all his might against you and you will not have enough Sweet Ice Rolls for everybody.
Your dream to become one day a metropolis is far. Check the simulation, choose with closed eyes a random node and see how long it took to became a metropolis.
But if you are a node level 5, the might of such a node is considerably bigger.
Remember, the assumption is the players are skilled enough in PvP to win.
Let's say you want to be a bounty-hunter so this node is a military node and attracts best PvP-ers.
What can PvP-ers in this "risk vs reward" game do, to make other players' life hard, prevent them getting rich and weaken the metropolis?
The bigger problem here is that the reason for sieges with this system is not as influenciable as other reasons.
If I am sieging a node for profit, Intrepid can influence that by altering the profit I can expect to recieve. On the other hand, if I am sieging a node because I am butthurt that they leveled faster than my node, Intrepid have very little influence over that.
This is honestly the only real issue I see with my suggestion. Like you say, it's easier to tweak the metrics that help determine why outside invaders would siege a node, and that's not as easily done with the Parent-Vassal relationship.
However, that isn't what is even happening here. Not allowing a vassal to siege a parent node (to be clear, not allowing a citizen of a vassal node to siege their nodes parent node - we have been using shorthand) doesn't stop that player from sieging that node. The game designer isn't actually stopping players from doing it.
All they are doing is as you suggest they should - adding a cost to it. That cost is your node citizenship - which to me seems about the right level of cost. The suggestions you have made above are somewhat lacking in their actual cost.
Which is a cost I feel is too much. The cost should be however much a successful siege would cost. I'd hope a small group of players wouldn't have all of the necessary resources available to them to actually siege down a Parent Node, but if they did, isn't that the Parent Node's fault for not paying the cost needed to successfully defend themselves?
But if there are many people under the Parent Node who feel unhappy with the Parent Node, I feel like that's less about the cost I should pay as an attacker, and more about the costs the Parent Node refused to pay to keep their vassals happy with them.
The whole bread and circuses thing, if the Parent Node did not pay the costs of keeping their vassals happy with them in power, then who's fault is it when the rebellion happens?
Stay in you node then. But you will not siege. There is no "and" possibility because then node wars will become "all vs all".
Again, people wouldn't just suddenly start sieging everything simply because they now have a chance to do so. Because if that was true, yall would be scared that every damn node in the game would get constantly sieged, because that can already happen through cross-vassal-system sieging. Yet I'm not seeing everyone complain about that fear.
If your vassal node could siege the parrent node and win, then you are very cappable to defend your caravans too.
Again though, I'm not talking about the entire node suddenly all agreeing with the attackers. There could be only a single group who wants to siege the parent. Or maybe even just one person.
And I want those people to have the chance to take direct actions to do smth about their situation. Sitting on your ass is not a direct action.
Obviously you understand why Steven denies besieging and destroying parent nodes.
No, I don't understand why we can't attack them. If the game already has tools and levers to push people towards certain decisions - why prevent people from having more choice?
But instead of besieging a node from another metropolis they turn against their parent node which they are not allowed to siege.
Because sieging other nodes has no influence on your own vertical progress. My node could destroy the rest of the map and it would have literal 0 impact on its own progress upwards.
If you are in a level 4 node (as you said) and you bribe Steven with some Sweet Ice Rolls maybe he looks away and you get once chance to siege. Then the metropolis will throw all his might against you and you will not have enough Sweet Ice Rolls for everybody.
Your dream to become one day a metropolis is far. Check the simulation, choose with closed eyes a random node and see how long it took to became a metropolis.
We all know how difficult it will be. We all know that it might be near-impossible to win. And as I've stated before, I'd be more than glad to have proper repercussions for failing to succeed.
I simply want a choice in the matter, rather than just sitting on my ass.
What can PvP-ers in this "risk vs reward" game do, to make other players' life hard, prevent them getting rich and weaken the metropolis?
PvP doesn't matter at all here, because you are not using it in the siege. You'd just sit and watch the siege, because you physically cannot attack anyone/anything from the parent node.
This is honestly the only real issue I see with my suggestion. Like you say, it's easier to tweak the metrics that help determine why outside invaders would siege a node, and that's not as easily done with the Parent-Vassal relationship.
The price for the scroll could be higher for a vassal.
And that's the only thing that should be influenced, because all the other approaches are already covered. Vassals can already pay for the scroll to cover the costs for the outsider attackers.
This is also why I keep saying that there should be some form of repercussion to those who participated in the attack as a vassal, but failed to succeed. And this repercussion would be the lever that Intrepid can use.
Multiplier on taxes, on prices, worse relationships with local npcs, lower quest payouts, no XP going to their node - all would go against the desire to support your node and be a good part of its community.
Enemy of the State mechanic is also an unknown, so that could be potentially used as well.
In other words, Intrepid do have the levers to exert at least some form of control over how much the vassals would want to attempt attacking.
It means what? Two weeks of no citizenship before you can join another node?
The "cost" is emotional as opposed to real. It will vary greatly in terms of impact between different players. Some will see this as nothing at all, some may spend a month crying themselves to sleep at night.
At the end of the day though, the practical, real cost is fairly small.
Because if that was true, yall would be scared that every damn node in the game would get constantly sieged, because that can already happen through cross-vassal-system sieging. Yet I'm not seeing everyone complain about that fear.
With the current system, players are like citizens in a town of a nation.
If the town is attacked, the entire nation comes to defend, from sibling nodes too, because they do not see each-other as competitors in the nation. If nodes from within the nation fall, the entire nation gets weaker and can fall prey to the enemies, node by node.
If your vassal node could siege the parrent node and win, then you are very cappable to defend your caravans too.
Again though, I'm not talking about the entire node suddenly all agreeing with the attackers. There could be only a single group who wants to siege the parent. Or maybe even just one person.
And I want those people to have the chance to take direct actions to do smth about their situation. Sitting on your ass is not a direct action.
But instead of besieging a node from another metropolis they turn against their parent node which they are not allowed to siege.
Because sieging other nodes has no influence on your own vertical progress. My node could destroy the rest of the map and it would have literal 0 impact on its own progress upwards.
Yes, so if only you alone would want this, it would have no impact onto the game. It is not even worth being implemented.
But if becomes a feature, whenever a node is attacked, all it's vassals will join as attackers to level up their node.
Enemy nations will just have to trigger the scroll and watch them cannibalize each-other.
Actually each nation will have the same problems and will not function as nations anymore.
It would be a completely different dynamic.
They can. This is a PvP game too. If you can win a potential siege, you can defeat them in any other PvP encounter.
Assuming we can in fact attack caravans of our own vassal system, how is that any different from attacking the node during a siege?
If anything, it's even worse, which is exactly why
I assume we can even attack the caravans of our own citizens.
The difference from attacking the node during a siege is that with the current system you can just weaken the metropolis and make it an easy target for any external attacker. But if you are a lvl 5 military node with strong PvPers, they might be afraid to help you become a metropolis, so they should not destroy the weak metropolis. They should actually siege your node first. The metropolis will join as attacker too because you deserve being destroyed, from their perspective.
It could be politics which will decide if enemies will attack your node or the metropolis.
And you said you like the politics.
Obviously you understand why Steven denies besieging and destroying parent nodes.
No, I don't understand why we can't attack them. If the game already has tools and levers to push people towards certain decisions - why prevent people from having more choice?
You just said that "Obviously there'd be the danger of everyone wanting a divine node as their metro, but that's Intrepid's job to figure out a counterbalance to that content."
Steven figured out already well in 2017 how to ensure different servers to have different evolution. Now after 4 years reading the wiki you have no better suggestion and you say Steven should come up with something else?
If you are in a level 4 node (as you said) and you bribe Steven with some Sweet Ice Rolls maybe he looks away and you get once chance to siege. Then the metropolis will throw all his might against you and you will not have enough Sweet Ice Rolls for everybody.
Your dream to become one day a metropolis is far. Check the simulation, choose with closed eyes a random node and see how long it took to became a metropolis.
We all know how difficult it will be. We all know that it might be near-impossible to win. And as I've stated before, I'd be more than glad to have proper repercussions for failing to succeed.
I simply want a choice in the matter, rather than just sitting on my ass.
Yet you have no choice. It is Steven's game and he wants nations. Why he wants that we can only guess. Maybe he was impressed by some other game where players from multiple nodes cooperated well.
What can PvP-ers in this "risk vs reward" game do, to make other players' life hard, prevent them getting rich and weaken the metropolis?
PvP doesn't matter at all here, because you are not using it in the siege. You'd just sit and watch the siege, because you physically cannot attack anyone/anything from the parent node.
PvP matters if you combine it with politics. You said "But those kinds of actions are exactly the kind of political scheming that I want to see in the game."
When the time comes, be sure it is not your node attacked but your parent node. Maybe holding a castle or controlling a raid area will help you during negotiations.
This is also why I keep saying that there should be some form of repercussion to those who participated in the attack as a vassal, but failed to succeed. And this repercussion would be the lever that Intrepid can use.
I'm perfectly fine with there being a cost if a siege is lost, but it needs to be a bigger cost than dropping citizenship (you are gambling that you'll win, thus should be worse off if you dont).
Having all land and wealth seized seems to me to be about the minimum.
Add in a mechanic to prevent property/wealth being traded prior, and you have something approaching reasonable.
Honestly, this is the level of cost that should be associated with attacking a parent node.
You think the current system would result in a better game, and we've explained many times why we think the opposite.
People have explained why they think allowing vassals to be able to siege parent nodes would make the game better for them.
None of you are arguing for the game as a whole. Not in a coherent way that sees me feel a desire to respond to it, at least. Every argument has been from the perspective of an individual player.
You agree that allowing this would make stable node/vassal states less common. This makes the game worse. While we don't want node states to be static, we also don't want them to be ever changing. The bigger problem here is that the reason for sieges with this system is not as influenciable as other reasons.
If I am sieging a node for profit, Intrepid can influence that by altering the profit I can expect to recieve. On the other hand, if I am sieging a node because I am butthurt that they leveled faster than my node, Intrepid have very little influence over that. Sure, they can make it cost more, but it will never cost so much that some guild in one of the vassal nodes doesn't have a scroll ready to go the moment the immunity timer is up.
You commented that you think stopping people doing what they want is a "spooky proposition" for a game designer. I disagree - it is the core function of a game designer. For example, as a tank, it is a game designers role to ensure that I can't cast fireballs and heal - both things I would like to do.
However, that isn't what is even happening here. Not allowing a vassal to siege a parent node (to be clear, not allowing a citizen of a vassal node to siege their nodes parent node - we have been using shorthand) doesn't stop that player from sieging that node. The game designer isn't actually stopping players from doing it.
All they are doing is as you suggest they should - adding a cost to it. That cost is your node citizenship - which to me seems about the right level of cost. The suggestions you have made above are somewhat lacking in their actual cost.
You say Intrepid have a win with their stance on fast travel - putting a cost in front of it. That is all they have done here, put a cost in front of you if you want to siege your parent node - all you need to do is make that node no longer your parent node. That is an appropriate cost.
You seem to have skipped an important part in my logic.
If your problem with rebellion is that it makes the world too unstable, then my solution is to use the other levers to stabilize it, as I outlined in my post.
If stability is no longer an issue with vassal rebellion, what problem is there left?
It means what? Two weeks of no citizenship before you can join another node?
The "cost" is emotional as opposed to real. It will vary greatly in terms of impact between different players. Some will see this as nothing at all, some may spend a month crying themselves to sleep at night.
At the end of the day though, the practical, real cost is fairly small.
I realize this, just wish it weren't true lol. I just have that idea of being the "loyal node citizen" for a long time, and stuff like, "just drop citizenship, what's the big deal" hurts my soul.
It means what? Two weeks of no citizenship before you can join another node?
The "cost" is emotional as opposed to real. It will vary greatly in terms of impact between different players. Some will see this as nothing at all, some may spend a month crying themselves to sleep at night.
At the end of the day though, the practical, real cost is fairly small.
I realize this, just wish it weren't true lol. I just have that idea of being the "loyal node citizen" for a long time, and stuff like, "just drop citizenship, what's the big deal" hurts my soul.
Maybe staying in the node will help your soul, if some very old statement remains true:
"Citizens and only citizens reap the reward of the Metropolis, gaining the benefits that their taxes pay for. Additionally citizens can gain titles according to their position within society. Most of these are reserved for those who have been with the Metropolis longest, but late comers can earn their way to the top with enough effort and guile."
You meant the "history of humanity" shows how peaceful we humans are?
How many people are willing to fight others when their life is already good? Of course there's the tyrants that we see in our current times, but that is in fact part of the complex politics. Except if vassals in Ashes could directly influence their parent node, when said parent node sends them to war - I feel like we'd have even more freedom than we do irl.
If attacking a few caravans can suddenly lead to an entire metro falling, or at the very least being so damn weak that a siege easily destroys it - I guess I'd be fine with the current setup. But right now I don't see any indications that this would be the case. We'll have to test that in A2 and see.
With the current system, players are like citizens in a town of a nation.
If the town is attacked, the entire nation comes to defend, from sibling nodes too, because they do not see each-other as competitors in the nation. If nodes from within the nation fall, the entire nation gets weaker and can fall prey to the enemies, node by node.
Except this is not really the case. All nodes are in a constant competition with each other. If some parent node falls, there'll immediately be someone to take its place and in the case of lvl5-6 nodes - there's 2 competing nodes trying to do that.
Again, I don't really see where yall taking this idea of "kingdoms". What I see is competing nodes, some of which get to benefit from other nodes by being stronger. And right now there's only a somewhat weak method of outcompeting said stronger node, even if you become stronger than it yourself.
This also relates to power snowballs of nodes. As Noaani has pointed out several times, quite a lot of people will simply look at what's the strongest node right now and will go try be a citizen there, which means that vassals will forever be weaker than their parent nodes.
I've seen so many people spooked by big guilds and their spooky power, yet no one cares about node power differentiation. Though I guess this was inevitable cause no one has really played games where there's a separation between a guild group and a community group (i.e. nodes). We'll have to see how that plays out in practice.
Yes, so if only you alone would want this, it would have no impact onto the game. It is not even worth being implemented.
But if becomes a feature, whenever a node is attacked, all it's vassals will join as attackers to level up their node.
Enemy nations will just have to trigger the scroll and watch them cannibalize each-other.
Actually each nation will have the same problems and will not function as nations anymore.
It would be a completely different dynamic.
This kinda goes against what you said previously in this comment. Are nodes all in kingdoms singing kumbaya or are they all competing?
Or is that kumbaya just a forced mechanic from Steven and not a player-driven political landscape?
They should actually siege your node first. The metropolis will join as attacker too because you deserve being destroyed, from their perspective.
It could be politics which will decide if enemies will attack your node or the metropolis.
And you said you like the politics.
Yes, this is exactly what I want, as long as this strong military node can attack upwards as well.
This is why I said that Intrepid already have levers of controlling people's decisions when it comes to figuring out which nodes should be at the top. And current levers would also promote cross-kingdom socialization as well, because if a divine node happens to be a metro and then a lvl5 military node decides that they've had enough of these weak pvers at the top - the pvers in the divine node can ask for help from other places, saying that their catacombs can benefit those who helps them stay a metro.
All of this is more interesting than this divine node staying at the top simply because at the start of the game all the pvers obviously congregated around it and boosted its XP gain.
Steven figured out already well in 2017 how to ensure different servers to have different evolution. Now after 4 years reading the wiki you have no better suggestion and you say Steven should come up with something else?
And in 2017 the open seas didn't have free pvp, so the initial design is not as concrete as it might seem.
It's precisely because I believe the current tools and levers that I make my suggestion, because I believe that my suggested change would make the game more interesting and exciting overall.
When the time comes, be sure it is not your node attacked but your parent node. Maybe holding a castle or controlling a raid area will help you during negotiations.
Both of those things are guild-related features. Nodes are not directly linked to guilds (outside of the beneficiary mechanic).
And if anything it's gonna be the guilds that push the early nodes to be the highest lvl. And the same guilds will then use the reaped rewards to get themselves castles and control the local pve. And all the other citizens, who can't afford to live in a metro or prefer a different node, won't be able to do shit about their situation.
This kinda ties back to my discussions with Mag about node siege participant limits as well. If currently the node sieges have the same instant limit as castle sieges do - the vassal citizens have EVEN FEWER options to do anything about their parent node. There'll be no uprisings, no revolutions, no true internal drama, no betrayals - nothing. Just boring static nodes that will get some rare siege attempts from some ultra rich dudes who got nothing better to do with their money.
I'm perfectly fine with there being a cost if a siege is lost, but it needs to be a bigger cost than dropping citizenship (you are gambling that you'll win, thus should be worse off if you dont).
Having all land and wealth seized seems to me to be about the minimum.
Add in a mechanic to prevent property/wealth being traded prior, and you have something approaching reasonable.
Honestly, this is the level of cost that should be associated with attacking a parent node.
High risk - high reward. I would definitely be willing to test it.
I'm fucking 99% sure that absolute majority of vassal citizens wouldn't even rise up. If anything, yall's opinions are proof of that (considering we have both Mag and Noaani on one side here). And the crazy ones who do want to truly make their node better will have to work twice as hard to achieve this.
Maybe staying in the node will help your soul, if some very old statement remains true:
"Citizens and only citizens reap the reward of the Metropolis, gaining the benefits that their taxes pay for. Additionally citizens can gain titles according to their position within society. Most of these are reserved for those who have been with the Metropolis longest, but late comers can earn their way to the top with enough effort and guile."
And I have to lose that cus my Parent Node's bein too silly and needs to learn a lesson lol..
The question is, what motivation do vessel nodes have not to be against the parent node?
Perhaps realizing that your node lacks capable PvP players to defend it, it could be beneficial to team up with the parent node and repel the attackers together. If this parent dies then your node could be under a less interesting parent node
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
I'll stick to what ive said before, they want other elements of politics around besides violence. Long story short this increases the bar for people to go right to warring where it was easier before.
Don't see how anyone does not see that, imagine instead of having a dialogue we just settle this disccusion by pvp and not talking. I don't know how any of you feel that is more engaging.
Yes pvp is fun but its part of everything else around it drama, communities, social elements, etc that make pvp fight more engaging The bar being higher will have people socializing than just want to pvp.
Its clear they aren't going for the inner fighting rebellion thing like a hand full of you want to do. Though that doesn't mean people can move to other nods and take the most extreme action of rebelling, or there isn't' soft friction between nodes to cause strengths and weaknesses within the kingdoms. Which I'm sure is also based on other design elements like have already been mentioned.
If your problem with rebellion is that it makes the world too unstable, then my solution is to use the other levers to stabilize it, as I outlined in my post.
As I said, the issue with your fix to the stability thing is that it leaves people neither willing nor really able to siege outside of their own metropolis cluster.
The idea is that clusters of nodes work together. You have the economy, religion and crafting/travel (and what ever military nodes bring), with people being in which ever node type best suits them, all working towards the whole clusters prosperity. This group then looks outwards for "physical" threats, not inwards. The fact that they only need to look outward also means they have the capacity to look Outward in aggression as well - something that wouldnt happen if they were having to constantly look both inwards and outwards for threats.
Making it so node clusters only have existential threats coming from the outside is kind of key to the game functioning as intended, imo.
It means what? Two weeks of no citizenship before you can join another node?
The "cost" is emotional as opposed to real. It will vary greatly in terms of impact between different players. Some will see this as nothing at all, some may spend a month crying themselves to sleep at night.
At the end of the day though, the practical, real cost is fairly small.
I realize this, just wish it weren't true lol. I just have that idea of being the "loyal node citizen" for a long time, and stuff like, "just drop citizenship, what's the big deal" hurts my soul.
As a way of looking at the game, this doesnt work.
If your node loses a siege, you have no node left to be a citizen of. You need to be ready and willing to move to another node should the situation require it for just this reason alone.
I'm perfectly fine with there being a cost if a siege is lost, but it needs to be a bigger cost than dropping citizenship (you are gambling that you'll win, thus should be worse off if you dont).
Having all land and wealth seized seems to me to be about the minimum.
Add in a mechanic to prevent property/wealth being traded prior, and you have something approaching reasonable.
Honestly, this is the level of cost that should be associated with attacking a parent node.
High risk - high reward. I would definitely be willing to test it.
I'm fucking 99% sure that absolute majority of vassal citizens wouldn't even rise up. If anything, yall's opinions are proof of that (considering we have both Mag and Noaani on one side here). And the crazy ones who do want to truly make their node better will have to work twice as hard to achieve this.
I dont think many people will either.
Problem is, this being possible is what will cause node clusters to focus inwards rather than outwards. It doesnt need to ever even happen in order to have the impact I'm talking about.
In terms of "testing" it, since this is a societal thing rather than a system mechanics thing, you cant really test its impact on a test server.
Problem is, this being possible is what will cause node clusters to focus inwards rather than outwards. It doesnt need to ever even happen in order to have the impact I'm talking about.
And I think that focusing inward will make for a much better social basis for the entire game. Any and all node systems that come out on top of this inward focus will easily beat anyone who hasn't gone through it fully.
This is exactly how guilds work, so I see no reason why node communities couldn't.
And as you said yourself, the sieges wouldn't even have to happen in order for this to occur, so there's no danger of "chaos and PKing in the streets".
In terms of "testing" it, since this is a societal thing rather than a system mechanics thing, you cant really test its impact on a test server.
All it takes is having the option and the super high cost. And if even on test servers barely anyone risks their stuff to try and siege the parent node - you'll know for sure that there's gonna be even fewer crazy people on release.
It's the same concept as the corruption system. The penalties are supposedly high, so it's expected that only a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase will use the system, BUT THE OPTION IS THERE.
Problem is, this being possible is what will cause node clusters to focus inwards rather than outwards. It doesnt need to ever even happen in order to have the impact I'm talking about.
And I think that focusing inward will make for a much better social basis for the entire game. Any and all node systems that come out on top of this inward focus will easily beat anyone who hasn't gone through it fully.
This is exactly how guilds work, so I see no reason why node communities couldn't.
And as you said yourself, the sieges wouldn't even have to happen in order for this to occur, so there's no danger of "chaos and PKing in the streets".
I'm not worried about "chaos and PK'ing in the streets". Others may be, but I am not.
If anything, I am worried the opposite would be true.
When looking at a system like this, I always look at it from the position of what I would do - how I would interact with the system. If I were a person of influence within a metropolis, and I knew there was some discontent within the vassal population, there is no way we would be planning a siege or a node war.
This is because I know that if I were a person of influence among those discontent vassals, I'd be waiting for the parent node to start siege preperations, and that is when I'd strike.
Thus, the situation I see happening often is a situation where the vassal is waiting for hte parent to start planning a siege in order to attack, but the parent knows they can't plan a siege, or else they will be attacked. Thus everyone just sits there doing nothing.
I can *honestly* see this exact situation being the status quo in all five metropolis clusters for literally months on end.
To me, that is what Ashes looks like when it's broken.
Simply alter this so that the node need not look inwards for threats, and you now have all five metropolis nodes looking outwards for threads, and for opportunities to attack - which is kind of the point of the whole game.
Your argument of "but they will come out stronger in the end" is kind of irrelevent imo, or a negative thing even. The node leveling process is designed to provide a population with the challenge Intrepid find appropriate. That is the thing they come out stronger at the end of.
As to why it could be a negative thing - nodes may come out stronger in the end - but if that takes every node a year or more to get out of, that means the server has been stagnant for a year or more.
BUT THE OPTION IS THERE.
This isn't a good thing either. More options isn't necessarily always a benefit.
If it were, shouldn't we both be arguing for full on instanced dungeons to exist? I mean, they are just another option, right?
Same with the family summons - it's just another option.
When you add an option, you need to consider the impact it will have on the game as a whole, not just on the people that make use of that option.
Some options are bad to add to games - the above three all fit in to that catagory.
Comments
Yet your points were already countered about nodes not being attacked even more so when you didn't make strong points to begin with. And you stick to you want more chaotic pvp lol.
This logic is not completely unreasonable, but I have three thoughts about this.
First, about this conclusion: I don't entirely disagree that the incentives are currently skewed towards the vassals. But the willingness to rebel can be offset and siege effort need not be universal!
All that needs to be done here is to make sieging less appealing to the node vassals:
These are just some ideas, but if people are fighting too much for a particular reason, then pull the levers which incentivize opposite behavior!
Additionally, if you want everything to be universal, then siege scroll quest effort could slowly decrease over long times of peace. Even if everyone is kept happy, eventually supply will meet demand.
If the vassal system needs to exists, it shouldn't be just generally shit for the vassals to the point where sieging the parent is 100% obvious always.
My second point is more about game design and the underlying sentiment everyone (you and mags included) seems to share: Just think about this for a second. You acknowledge that people would absolutely want to siege their masters, more so than anyone else on the server.
So the problem with rebellion is that it would be too popular?
Stopping people from doing what they want for system reasons is always a spooky proposition for a game developer. If the answer to "hey chief, people are pvping too much" is to "oh let's just remove pvp", the system should be re-examined instead.
Tribes was much slower until players started exploiting movement mechanics to "ski". Instead of shutting it down, the developers saw what the player base wanted and it became a mechanic.
The opposite of this is the Blizzard style development.
"People are not playing the new system enough because they find it boring and unrewarding? Our engagement metrics are down?!"
Well now the system is mandatory and grindier so people spend more time with it
I understand that there are many features that players would be frequently use but which would be detrimental to the game. However, what Intrepid has done is regulate those features to turn them into a win/win.
Fast travel is an excellent example that supports the point I'm making. What intrepid has done is put fast travel behind a gameplay system to adjust the usage level. (Scientific metros, family system).
You might say, "You think you do but you don't", but we've seen how that one turned out. People will want rebellion, and it's up to the developer to meet the demand in a way that doesn't break the game.
The third and final point: Even if this would be the end result, I think you give it an unfair spin.
How I would describe it is: A gamestate where there are more small wars constantly going on and stable vassal chain alliances are more rare. Far from a "shit game", it would just be a faster content cycle until large enough groups of people would work together to form large alliances to stabilize parts of the server.
But as has been already outlined, the chaos is a spectrum and IS can control where the game exists within that spectrum.
Why even make this post? We obviously haven't been convinced by your arguments. In my opinion, your arguments don't line up with the information we have on the game. Many of your words are spent calling our arguments weak instead of explaining why. What further progress are you expecting by making statements like these?
You think the current system would result in a better game, and we've explained many times why we think the opposite.
Here's my verbose answer:
No u.
We have to clarify this loyalty concept, to be sure we both refer to the same things.
There is this page which mentions the affiliations
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Affiliations
There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members.[1] – Steven Sharif
If you would want to help your guild siege your own node, the game will prevent you doing that.
In this context, the game will force you to be loyal to the node instead of your guild.
You said you want to be able to siege your parent node. My assumption was that you want to see it destroyed. If you really want to do that more than staying in your own node then you can change to another one.
The game does not penalize you unless you want to run away before a siege:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Citizenship#Changing_or_renouncing_citizenship
Players that renounce their citizenship during a node siege declaration period may incur penalties.[19]
You have to define what means: "If the parent node is doing everything right"
You will not be a slave. That word describes a relationship between the nodes. In another place Steven used the "lock out" expression:
Nodes encompass more land as they grow and will require more effort to be sustained. This system is a main driver for change in the world because it creates scarcity. As Nodes advance in stages of growth they will lock out neighboring Nodes from progressing, and will absorb their zones of influence.
If the node is destroyed, you destroy the PvE content too:
Divine nodes at Metropolis (stage 6) may unlock a procedurally built "mega catacomb" dungeon beneath it that connects to its divine vassal nodes. These may house unique bosses with unique drop tables.[22]
Steven also said:
So he is very aware that players will want to siege the parent nodes and he probably is happy he predicted your desire many years ago. And as you see he wants to "allow for a power struggle".
You will have to use the tools the game provides to help your node and at the same time weaken the parent node. If you succeed, many will assume you are actually loyal to the government of another metropolis zone.
You literally don't make a argument for it, I've already typed enough stuff in the past pages.
Your response are you want it cause you want it, and trying to rework systems in game to include it. Not actually talking about by design of the game why it would work.
You can't even knock my points down, when your own reasoning comes off as "more rich a experience" which just comes from your own bias of what you want not any actual facts that back that up.
My previous post already brought up many points on why. The thing is when it comes to the design and fundamentals of the game we know none of you can really challenge them. Because you have no actual foundation on what you are trying to push.
Even this post is silly, you are trying to counter points out by saying you reduce the incentive of sieging (which goes against that the op wants). Which means if you need to reduce incentives, etc there clearly is a flaw that you are actually admitting indirectly.
Something the dev's have already solved by not letting you siege any allied nodes with vassal / parent relationship.
As I see it: helps citizens of its vassals, has good policies, not insane taxes, protects all vassal citizens from any caravan raiders or wars, etc etc.
I'm sure that absolute majority of vassal citizens will live cushy lives as long as those things are upheld. Of course there'll always be someone who wants to climb ever higher, but they'll be completely alone in the siege because no one else from that node would agree with their position.
And I'd be totally fine if there were penalties for betraying the vassal system, in case the siege fails. This is, once again, more complex and interesting political system than what we have right now.
This context speaks about the mechanic itself, rather than the interaction between nodes post-lockout. Others have already posted what influence the parent node has on its vassals, and to me it seems quite extensive. And, as I've already said, I'm completely fine with adding even more influence to that list, as long as vassal players can do smth about their situation. Because right now - they can't.
It's shifted, because a new metro pops up and brings with it a new version of content.
As for divine catacombs, I'd almost bet that absolute majority of vassals wouldn't even think about razing their metro precisely because that catacomb exists. Which creates a difference among node types, where some vassal systems are stronger than others.
Obviously there'd be the danger of everyone wanting a divine node as their metro, but that's Intrepid's job to fiure out a counterbalance to that content.
That last sentence in the picture is very interesting in our context.
Say I'm new to the game. I pick a node I like and it just so happens to be a lvl4 vassal. I want to live there, XP there, be a part of its community. What exactly are my direct levers of conflict to make it lvl up? Because right now it's literally only "telling other players to not play the game, so that the node fully decays and the parent, hopefully, follows".
The indirect way is of course going to other vassal systems and trying to convince them that sieging my parent is beneficial to them, though w/o connections and/or money that's gonna be almost impossible to do (unless someone was already planning on doing it of course).
But let's say you did convince someone or there just so happened to be a siege soon. What are your "conflicts" then? Because right now it's simply sitting on your ass and praying and hoping that your parent will fall. You can't do anything else.
There is no "conflict" to resolve this situation.
Which is precisely why some of us think that the design should be shifted a bit
Thanks for letting me know.
... ... ... ... ... i wonder if that could be expanded somehow, in the Future after the Release.
None of you are arguing for the game as a whole. Not in a coherent way that sees me feel a desire to respond to it, at least. Every argument has been from the perspective of an individual player.
You agree that allowing this would make stable node/vassal states less common. This makes the game worse. While we don't want node states to be static, we also don't want them to be ever changing. The bigger problem here is that the reason for sieges with this system is not as influenciable as other reasons.
If I am sieging a node for profit, Intrepid can influence that by altering the profit I can expect to recieve. On the other hand, if I am sieging a node because I am butthurt that they leveled faster than my node, Intrepid have very little influence over that. Sure, they can make it cost more, but it will never cost so much that some guild in one of the vassal nodes doesn't have a scroll ready to go the moment the immunity timer is up.
You commented that you think stopping people doing what they want is a "spooky proposition" for a game designer. I disagree - it is the core function of a game designer. For example, as a tank, it is a game designers role to ensure that I can't cast fireballs and heal - both things I would like to do.
However, that isn't what is even happening here. Not allowing a vassal to siege a parent node (to be clear, not allowing a citizen of a vassal node to siege their nodes parent node - we have been using shorthand) doesn't stop that player from sieging that node. The game designer isn't actually stopping players from doing it.
All they are doing is as you suggest they should - adding a cost to it. That cost is your node citizenship - which to me seems about the right level of cost. The suggestions you have made above are somewhat lacking in their actual cost.
You say Intrepid have a win with their stance on fast travel - putting a cost in front of it. That is all they have done here, put a cost in front of you if you want to siege your parent node - all you need to do is make that node no longer your parent node. That is an appropriate cost.
Stay in you node then. But you will not siege. There is no "and" possibility because then node wars will become "all vs all".
If your vassal node could siege the parrent node and win, then you are very cappable to defend your caravans too.
They can. This is a PvP game too. If you can win a potential siege, you can defeat them in any other PvP encounter.
Obviously you understand why Steven denies besieging and destroying parent nodes.
You are here since 2020. Is that all you can list?
Think again, players in your node want to siege a higher level node.
They have the resources to create the siege scroll and the siege equipment.
And without doubt are skilled enough to win.
But instead of besieging a node from another metropolis they turn against their parent node which they are not allowed to siege.
If you are in a level 4 node (as you said) and you bribe Steven with some Sweet Ice Rolls maybe he looks away and you get once chance to siege. Then the metropolis will throw all his might against you and you will not have enough Sweet Ice Rolls for everybody.
Your dream to become one day a metropolis is far. Check the simulation, choose with closed eyes a random node and see how long it took to became a metropolis.
But if you are a node level 5, the might of such a node is considerably bigger.
Remember, the assumption is the players are skilled enough in PvP to win.
Let's say you want to be a bounty-hunter so this node is a military node and attracts best PvP-ers.
What can PvP-ers in this "risk vs reward" game do, to make other players' life hard, prevent them getting rich and weaken the metropolis?
But if there are many people under the Parent Node who feel unhappy with the Parent Node, I feel like that's less about the cost I should pay as an attacker, and more about the costs the Parent Node refused to pay to keep their vassals happy with them.
The whole bread and circuses thing, if the Parent Node did not pay the costs of keeping their vassals happy with them in power, then who's fault is it when the rebellion happens?
Again though, I'm not talking about the entire node suddenly all agreeing with the attackers. There could be only a single group who wants to siege the parent. Or maybe even just one person.
And I want those people to have the chance to take direct actions to do smth about their situation. Sitting on your ass is not a direct action.
Assuming we can in fact attack caravans of our own vassal system, how is that any different from attacking the node during a siege?
If anything, it's even worse, which is exactly why No, I don't understand why we can't attack them. If the game already has tools and levers to push people towards certain decisions - why prevent people from having more choice?
Because sieging other nodes has no influence on your own vertical progress. My node could destroy the rest of the map and it would have literal 0 impact on its own progress upwards.
We all know how difficult it will be. We all know that it might be near-impossible to win. And as I've stated before, I'd be more than glad to have proper repercussions for failing to succeed.
I simply want a choice in the matter, rather than just sitting on my ass.
PvP doesn't matter at all here, because you are not using it in the siege. You'd just sit and watch the siege, because you physically cannot attack anyone/anything from the parent node.
And that's the only thing that should be influenced, because all the other approaches are already covered. Vassals can already pay for the scroll to cover the costs for the outsider attackers.
This is also why I keep saying that there should be some form of repercussion to those who participated in the attack as a vassal, but failed to succeed. And this repercussion would be the lever that Intrepid can use.
Multiplier on taxes, on prices, worse relationships with local npcs, lower quest payouts, no XP going to their node - all would go against the desire to support your node and be a good part of its community.
Enemy of the State mechanic is also an unknown, so that could be potentially used as well.
In other words, Intrepid do have the levers to exert at least some form of control over how much the vassals would want to attempt attacking.
It means what? Two weeks of no citizenship before you can join another node?
The "cost" is emotional as opposed to real. It will vary greatly in terms of impact between different players. Some will see this as nothing at all, some may spend a month crying themselves to sleep at night.
At the end of the day though, the practical, real cost is fairly small.
With the current system, players are like citizens in a town of a nation.
If the town is attacked, the entire nation comes to defend, from sibling nodes too, because they do not see each-other as competitors in the nation. If nodes from within the nation fall, the entire nation gets weaker and can fall prey to the enemies, node by node.
Yes, so if only you alone would want this, it would have no impact onto the game. It is not even worth being implemented.
But if becomes a feature, whenever a node is attacked, all it's vassals will join as attackers to level up their node.
Enemy nations will just have to trigger the scroll and watch them cannibalize each-other.
Actually each nation will have the same problems and will not function as nations anymore.
It would be a completely different dynamic.
I assume we can even attack the caravans of our own citizens.
The difference from attacking the node during a siege is that with the current system you can just weaken the metropolis and make it an easy target for any external attacker. But if you are a lvl 5 military node with strong PvPers, they might be afraid to help you become a metropolis, so they should not destroy the weak metropolis. They should actually siege your node first. The metropolis will join as attacker too because you deserve being destroyed, from their perspective.
It could be politics which will decide if enemies will attack your node or the metropolis.
And you said you like the politics.
You just said that "Obviously there'd be the danger of everyone wanting a divine node as their metro, but that's Intrepid's job to figure out a counterbalance to that content."
Steven figured out already well in 2017 how to ensure different servers to have different evolution. Now after 4 years reading the wiki you have no better suggestion and you say Steven should come up with something else?
Yet you have no choice. It is Steven's game and he wants nations. Why he wants that we can only guess. Maybe he was impressed by some other game where players from multiple nodes cooperated well.
PvP matters if you combine it with politics. You said "But those kinds of actions are exactly the kind of political scheming that I want to see in the game."
When the time comes, be sure it is not your node attacked but your parent node. Maybe holding a castle or controlling a raid area will help you during negotiations.
Having all land and wealth seized seems to me to be about the minimum.
Add in a mechanic to prevent property/wealth being traded prior, and you have something approaching reasonable.
Honestly, this is the level of cost that should be associated with attacking a parent node.
You seem to have skipped an important part in my logic.
If your problem with rebellion is that it makes the world too unstable, then my solution is to use the other levers to stabilize it, as I outlined in my post.
If stability is no longer an issue with vassal rebellion, what problem is there left?
Maybe staying in the node will help your soul, if some very old statement remains true:
"Citizens and only citizens reap the reward of the Metropolis, gaining the benefits that their taxes pay for. Additionally citizens can gain titles according to their position within society. Most of these are reserved for those who have been with the Metropolis longest, but late comers can earn their way to the top with enough effort and guile."
If attacking a few caravans can suddenly lead to an entire metro falling, or at the very least being so damn weak that a siege easily destroys it - I guess I'd be fine with the current setup. But right now I don't see any indications that this would be the case. We'll have to test that in A2 and see.
Except this is not really the case. All nodes are in a constant competition with each other. If some parent node falls, there'll immediately be someone to take its place and in the case of lvl5-6 nodes - there's 2 competing nodes trying to do that.
Again, I don't really see where yall taking this idea of "kingdoms". What I see is competing nodes, some of which get to benefit from other nodes by being stronger. And right now there's only a somewhat weak method of outcompeting said stronger node, even if you become stronger than it yourself.
This also relates to power snowballs of nodes. As Noaani has pointed out several times, quite a lot of people will simply look at what's the strongest node right now and will go try be a citizen there, which means that vassals will forever be weaker than their parent nodes.
I've seen so many people spooked by big guilds and their spooky power, yet no one cares about node power differentiation. Though I guess this was inevitable cause no one has really played games where there's a separation between a guild group and a community group (i.e. nodes). We'll have to see how that plays out in practice.
This kinda goes against what you said previously in this comment. Are nodes all in kingdoms singing kumbaya or are they all competing?
Or is that kumbaya just a forced mechanic from Steven and not a player-driven political landscape?
Yes, this is exactly what I want, as long as this strong military node can attack upwards as well.
This is why I said that Intrepid already have levers of controlling people's decisions when it comes to figuring out which nodes should be at the top. And current levers would also promote cross-kingdom socialization as well, because if a divine node happens to be a metro and then a lvl5 military node decides that they've had enough of these weak pvers at the top - the pvers in the divine node can ask for help from other places, saying that their catacombs can benefit those who helps them stay a metro.
All of this is more interesting than this divine node staying at the top simply because at the start of the game all the pvers obviously congregated around it and boosted its XP gain.
And in 2017 the open seas didn't have free pvp, so the initial design is not as concrete as it might seem.
It's precisely because I believe the current tools and levers that I make my suggestion, because I believe that my suggested change would make the game more interesting and exciting overall.
Both of those things are guild-related features. Nodes are not directly linked to guilds (outside of the beneficiary mechanic).
And if anything it's gonna be the guilds that push the early nodes to be the highest lvl. And the same guilds will then use the reaped rewards to get themselves castles and control the local pve. And all the other citizens, who can't afford to live in a metro or prefer a different node, won't be able to do shit about their situation.
This kinda ties back to my discussions with Mag about node siege participant limits as well. If currently the node sieges have the same instant limit as castle sieges do - the vassal citizens have EVEN FEWER options to do anything about their parent node. There'll be no uprisings, no revolutions, no true internal drama, no betrayals - nothing. Just boring static nodes that will get some rare siege attempts from some ultra rich dudes who got nothing better to do with their money.
I'm fucking 99% sure that absolute majority of vassal citizens wouldn't even rise up. If anything, yall's opinions are proof of that (considering we have both Mag and Noaani on one side here). And the crazy ones who do want to truly make their node better will have to work twice as hard to achieve this.
Perhaps realizing that your node lacks capable PvP players to defend it, it could be beneficial to team up with the parent node and repel the attackers together. If this parent dies then your node could be under a less interesting parent node
Don't see how anyone does not see that, imagine instead of having a dialogue we just settle this disccusion by pvp and not talking. I don't know how any of you feel that is more engaging.
Yes pvp is fun but its part of everything else around it drama, communities, social elements, etc that make pvp fight more engaging The bar being higher will have people socializing than just want to pvp.
Its clear they aren't going for the inner fighting rebellion thing like a hand full of you want to do. Though that doesn't mean people can move to other nods and take the most extreme action of rebelling, or there isn't' soft friction between nodes to cause strengths and weaknesses within the kingdoms. Which I'm sure is also based on other design elements like have already been mentioned.
The idea is that clusters of nodes work together. You have the economy, religion and crafting/travel (and what ever military nodes bring), with people being in which ever node type best suits them, all working towards the whole clusters prosperity. This group then looks outwards for "physical" threats, not inwards. The fact that they only need to look outward also means they have the capacity to look Outward in aggression as well - something that wouldnt happen if they were having to constantly look both inwards and outwards for threats.
Making it so node clusters only have existential threats coming from the outside is kind of key to the game functioning as intended, imo.
As a way of looking at the game, this doesnt work.
If your node loses a siege, you have no node left to be a citizen of. You need to be ready and willing to move to another node should the situation require it for just this reason alone.
I dont think many people will either.
Problem is, this being possible is what will cause node clusters to focus inwards rather than outwards. It doesnt need to ever even happen in order to have the impact I'm talking about.
In terms of "testing" it, since this is a societal thing rather than a system mechanics thing, you cant really test its impact on a test server.
This is exactly how guilds work, so I see no reason why node communities couldn't.
And as you said yourself, the sieges wouldn't even have to happen in order for this to occur, so there's no danger of "chaos and PKing in the streets".
All it takes is having the option and the super high cost. And if even on test servers barely anyone risks their stuff to try and siege the parent node - you'll know for sure that there's gonna be even fewer crazy people on release.
It's the same concept as the corruption system. The penalties are supposedly high, so it's expected that only a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase will use the system, BUT THE OPTION IS THERE.
If anything, I am worried the opposite would be true.
When looking at a system like this, I always look at it from the position of what I would do - how I would interact with the system. If I were a person of influence within a metropolis, and I knew there was some discontent within the vassal population, there is no way we would be planning a siege or a node war.
This is because I know that if I were a person of influence among those discontent vassals, I'd be waiting for the parent node to start siege preperations, and that is when I'd strike.
Thus, the situation I see happening often is a situation where the vassal is waiting for hte parent to start planning a siege in order to attack, but the parent knows they can't plan a siege, or else they will be attacked. Thus everyone just sits there doing nothing.
I can *honestly* see this exact situation being the status quo in all five metropolis clusters for literally months on end.
To me, that is what Ashes looks like when it's broken.
Simply alter this so that the node need not look inwards for threats, and you now have all five metropolis nodes looking outwards for threads, and for opportunities to attack - which is kind of the point of the whole game.
Your argument of "but they will come out stronger in the end" is kind of irrelevent imo, or a negative thing even. The node leveling process is designed to provide a population with the challenge Intrepid find appropriate. That is the thing they come out stronger at the end of.
As to why it could be a negative thing - nodes may come out stronger in the end - but if that takes every node a year or more to get out of, that means the server has been stagnant for a year or more. This isn't a good thing either. More options isn't necessarily always a benefit.
If it were, shouldn't we both be arguing for full on instanced dungeons to exist? I mean, they are just another option, right?
Same with the family summons - it's just another option.
When you add an option, you need to consider the impact it will have on the game as a whole, not just on the people that make use of that option.
Some options are bad to add to games - the above three all fit in to that catagory.