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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Node and Content Question
arsnn
Member
In the past there was a lot of talk on how nodes influence the content in it´s ZOI.
My question is how much impact will that have?
Will it always be possible to breeze to max level, while settlements are at level 1 and crafting stations are still at the novice stage?
Or will higher level content be gated by the nodes at some point, essentially soft locking character progression behind node progression?
I was under the impression the later was the case, but im not so sure anymore as i didnt find a definitive answer on the wiki, there has been hardly any talk about this in the last years and only a few POIs like oakenbane unlock that way.
Right now the progression is as follows:
Rush max level
Gear up
Craft some
Try out some sandbox stuff
With the soft gate keeping you could funnel players into all the other systems in the game.
Progression could look like this roughly speaking:
Node level 1
Get to level 10… hit a softcap bc of unavaible content yet
Gear up
Craft some
Do some sandbox stuff and level your node with crates and your community
Node levels to 2
Get to level 20 … hit a softcap bc higher level content not avaible yet
Gear up
Build up stations
Craft some
Do some sandbox stuff and level your node with crates and your community
Node levels to 3
You get the point....
My question is how much impact will that have?
Will it always be possible to breeze to max level, while settlements are at level 1 and crafting stations are still at the novice stage?
Or will higher level content be gated by the nodes at some point, essentially soft locking character progression behind node progression?
I was under the impression the later was the case, but im not so sure anymore as i didnt find a definitive answer on the wiki, there has been hardly any talk about this in the last years and only a few POIs like oakenbane unlock that way.
Right now the progression is as follows:
Rush max level
Gear up
Craft some
Try out some sandbox stuff
With the soft gate keeping you could funnel players into all the other systems in the game.
Progression could look like this roughly speaking:
Node level 1
Get to level 10… hit a softcap bc of unavaible content yet
Gear up
Craft some
Do some sandbox stuff and level your node with crates and your community
Node levels to 2
Get to level 20 … hit a softcap bc higher level content not avaible yet
Gear up
Build up stations
Craft some
Do some sandbox stuff and level your node with crates and your community
Node levels to 3
You get the point....
0
Comments
So far there's been no indication that the game will be much different from what we've seen in A2. I hope I'm wrong, but I sure as fuck hasn't been on pretty much anything I've said before.
I remember the word gate keeping dropped in the context of "everyone will have access to a node´s services".
But i also found this quote on the wiki (https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Zone_of_influence):
"Dungeons, Raids, World bosses, Mobs, Quests, Events, Resources, Narratives and other content within a settlement's ZOI will have a diverse level range; but will scale with the advancement of that settlement and its racial influence.[54][58][59][2]
Approximately 50-60% of the spawn tables for mobs and resources are static and other portions are dynamic and adapt to settlement development"
And a few other quotes make me believe you are correct.
For me that is a huge let-down. And i agree this makes this game very themepark-ish. Most systems will be ignored before you are max level. Soft gatekeeping could change the game drastically for the good imo, but there are also challenges that come with that i guess, which is probably why they abondened the concept.
Unfortunately this will not be a big topic in the community as it´s too abstract and not flashy at all and barely will receive any attention at intrepid.
The world is currently static, nothing is dynamic in the sense of settlements upgrading. The settlements have 6 stages. The world is capped at 25 right now, and there is a planned increase in level cap this phase. ZOI expands as the settlement upgrades and that can prevent neighbor settlements from upgrading.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Settlement_stages
I can't find anything specific on what mobs if any will change at what stage. Events and some things can change as it upgrades and downgrades stages. Like attacks by mobs if the settlement downgrades.
I'm okay with a having stuff to fight at level 50 from day one. That does make sense. Lets not stop someone's progression because the Settlement progression is going slow. As settlements upgrade more higher level content should be available though.
But that being said the progression from 1 to 25 is about 2 days, pushing pretty hard, can be done faster if a well organized group/guild, but most players could get there in a week of playing. Based off that trend a week for hardcore/well organized, and a month for average to each 50. This isn't close to the approximate from the wiki.
"Leveling from 1-25 is expected to take approximately 100 hours of gameplay"
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Level_cap
100 hours is 2 and half weeks of full time work. That is simply not the case right now. Might be IF you did it solo.
If getting to level cap is quick, then everyone will rush to cap. PvP elements will drive a mad rush for it. Anything that slows the progress will be ignored if possible.
Also Steven states the progress to 10 or 15 should be fast then slow down. But fast progress from 1 to 10/15 completely destroys all early level crafting, it's all pointless. Only way to give it value is drop the loot more or slow the leveling progression between 1 to 10/15.
You come through the portal at level 1, you get asked to do a small nearby task, you get to level 2.
You talk to whoever is next and they express being unsure that you are ready and give you another task and you probably get to level 3, or you grind because you're that type.
You get acknowledged and sent to a waypoint settlement, maybe fight a few things on the way, getting you to level 4, the person tells you to absolutely stay on the road because the area is super dangerous and you will definitely die if you don't (so the mobs anywhere not-near the road can be stronger, depending on Leash design).
You choose a 'waypoint settlement' and head out there to deliver something probably, the mobs around that waypoint specifically aren't too strong, you group up with some people or you wander back the way you came for a bit, some crafting materials or jewelry stuff drops. Hit level 5 and maybe 6.
At level 5 someone acknowledges you at the waypoint settlement and points you at the nearest node you can safely travel to by road, repeating the 'don't go off the road!' warning. They tell you that you can gear up there, or head back to the Gateway where at least a few artisans are.
You do this and get to level 7 and maybe have a bit of gear from mob drops that you can obv manage to craft up yourself because everyone can craft at that level. You know where to go, you can change your mind about direction if you didn't like the look of the region you went to the waypoint of.
You go to the waypoint in whatever region you think you're going to like, hit some more mobs, maybe meet some people, practice your skills you got, you stop getting exp there, maybe the NPCs switch to telling you to go on to the Settlement area.
At the Settlement they send you to the nearest 'safer' PoI and warn you again stay on the road, noting that even the area around the Settlement is too strong for you. They can also give you different quests 'back at the Waypoint' depending on the layout of the region.
Crafting Materials given for this, you craft at the Settlement, put on your gear, level up at the safer nearby PoI or group up to kill stuff just outside the Settlement because they're tuned for full party and your exp leaps up but probably less crafting materials drop from those things (or just make it sane and have the groups need to share the drops, obv).
From here level 8->9 can take maybe 25m, in group, 40m by quest. repeat a few times adding like 5m each time until your gear is too pathetic to beat stuff without crafting, then put the wall.
Players hate the wall. But Crafting requires the wall. So put it somewhere in that 10-15 stretch. Not Hell Levels, I'm talking about 'You need gear or you functionally cannot win often enough to progress'. Make crafting accessible, but don't give people gear that is better than Crafted from Quests or drops.
You can make it so that most players don't attempt to outright skip this if you make it so that they get to craft just by interacting with this path. Our problem right now is that Crafting wasn't achieving that for a while.
It's Alpha so everything is kind of out of wack, like leveling really fast, crafting leveling really slow, missing recipes, just general gaps and flat spots in progression.
For Settlements (previously Nodes). They level up at the pace of the players contributing to their upgrade. Playing in that zone of influence gives the settlement exp.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Settlement
Settlements are pretty involved, you should read the wiki if you haven't yet.
As to how the zone and content upgrades, well that hasn't happened yet. The world is still static in Ashes, we should be getting a level cap increase this phase. I think. You should check the wiki on the planned implementations. Still a lot undone in phase 3, it's a beefy one.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Phase-3
If there's a plan of to how many stages of change of content a settlement upgrade can create, I don't know of it. A settlement does have 6 stages, how many stages of outside content is unknown, at least to me. Each stage the settlement does upgrade to will impact the world somewhat, zone of influence and what not.
I'd prefer them to just speed up the early level crafting. Make it level faster and make processing and crafting less tedious. Reduce the run around, and the lower the number of times you have to do X to level the artisan skill. So it can better keep pace with leveling. IF leveling 1-10/15 isn't slowed down.
I think if they slowed drop rates for gear the loot goblins will cry again. Sadly there's a lot of them. I still say there needs to be a new tier in gear, a grey color for damaged or rusted gear. So common is the lowest a crafter can make, but most gear dropped is grey/damaged. So ANYTHING a crafter makes is better than 90% of the gear drops in the game. Still should be some cool loot dropping from time to time, I'd these to be BoE too.
Other wise, skip all crafting until you get to a town where all the stations a closer together. Just power to 10/15 then turn back to craft the gear you didn't get as a drop. Then you settle into your gather, process, craft loop to progress crafting. Stay organized with your guild so materials are going to the right people and you'll have plenty of gear to go around.