Ashes of Creation showcased the Node War system on the most recent development stream, featuring the challenges of the war and events system, and laying out how things are planned to work.
This feature is one of the big ones, and they break down some of the elements of how it works. Everything is still a work in progress as they head to Alpha 2 late this year, so things are not final, and in particular, they reiterated the need for feedback.
When it comes to the system, a mayor can pick from mayoral commissions that essentially set a quest goal that players can complete, based on what that particular node needs at that time to continue to grow. When they do that, there will be a reward and certain buffs or advantages within that node’s zone of influence for a time afterwards, like increased gathering speed for 24 hours. The commission board they showed off also had a War preparations commission on it. All of this is intended to be part of the events system for people to do en masse. Yet, it does take a few steps to work towards the full on war declaration.
They showed off what it looks like when players turn in and complete a commission, getting a War token for a territory war. You can then declare war on another node using that token. Intrepid is planning on including different war types for this step. Once they declare war, We get to see what it looks like. During a territory war, you'll flag nodes against each other and everyone from both territories will battle over different points and fight for control.
Ultimately, the Node War system is going to foster open world PVP and competition for those who want it. It will support different war types that they have in development, using some of the existing systems like the game event system. Issues they ran into was performance, particularly when dealing with a large number of players on screen, so that's another thing they want feedback on in order to make sure performance is solid.
The full video goes much deeper into the system as it is, including what they’re working on, but there is more to come before and with the feedback they get in Alpha 2. As for feedback from the showcase itself, over on Reddit, someone declared, “It's great that the team continues to reiterate that their vision is to bring the "massive" back into MMO because many MMOs these days really feel more like a solo game but with other people running around”. Some on the Ashes of Creation forum, requested more PvE elements.
