Development Update: August 31, 2023

Discussion & Outline Summary

Community & Reminders

• They are spotlighting 1 YouTube comment per development update.
  • This question led Steven to explain that they have not moved away from their hybrid approach of combat. Specifically, that approach is incorporating elements of skill shots, fast and reactive gameplay, that is situationally relevant and incorporates the camera mode of both tab targeting as well as action combat reticle. Intrepid approach of hybridization is going to incorporate things like templated abilities, to dodge, role, and other elements of Action combat that are present. The combat will not be as fast paced as some of the twitch-oriented combat of some action combat system, it is meant to be a blend between the two, so for tab targeting it needs to live comfortably with each other.
• Steven will be joining the Discussion Round on September 10^th at 12PM PST. 
• The Dev Discussion for In-Game Content is still up.
• There are still regular office hours that you can provide input on discord with the team.
• Cosmetics swapping over on September 13^th, 2023, at 11AM PST. (This is going to be the final pre-order pack)

Node Village Update

• The intent of this month’s update is to reaffirm the design choices and explain any changes.
• Citizenship
  • Housing is required for citizenship. The forms of housing in Ashes of Creation are inns, apartments, static housing, and freeholds.
  • Citizenship dues are a recuring fee that citizens must pay with certificates to retain their citizen status.
  • Citizenship benefits include, but are not limited to: reproduce service fees, reduced tax rates, access to relics, and unique vendors based on the node type.
• Losing Citizenship
  • Citizens can renounce their citizenship at the town hall.
  • Citizenship renounced triggers a registration cooldown before you can become a citizen elsewhere.
• It is a expected feature of the game that PvP will affect the world and bring in a breath of renewal, as nodes get destroyed, the refugees status is meant to make it easier to get citizenship elsewhere without much friction.
• If you do agree with your mayor, there will be methods to slow down a Mayors power and changes.
• Mayorship
  • Election Types
    • Scientific: Ranked choice popular vote
    • Economic: Blind bid auction
    • Divine: PvE favor competition
    • Military: Trial by combat
  • Mayor benefits include, but are not limited to: a mayor title, unique mounts, armor, cosmetics, and event abilities.
  • For the military nodes, there will be an election method that leverages the ruin state of nodes as a battle ground instanced, during the week you will be able to participate in a timed event where you can pledge your support to a candidate, or if you are a candidate, you will have objective based gameplay within a window of time within the node proper and you will attempt to go to the objective, execute the require interaction will accumulate points based on your performance in that event, after the given time the person with the highest points gets elected. What that event entails is as you as a citizen can pledge support and you will have open PvP within the node proper that groups of those candidates and their pledge supporters can attempt to secure and combat over the objective over an hour period of time over a number of times throughout a week. That is the intent, this will be tested in A2.
• Mandates
  • Mandates are an energy system to enable the mayor to take actions for the node.
    • Citizenship participation in various activities will generate mandates.
      • Activities include policy votes, construction contribution, mayoral commission, mayoral caravan, node war, and node siege.
    • Certain mayoral actions may additionally cost mandates.
      • Actions include: Taxes, bypassing policy vote, initiating constructions, building expansions, certain policies, and certain mayoral commissions.
• Mayoral Commissions
  • Commission are simple type of quests with a singular objective.
    • Mayors will have the ability to initiate time-limited mayoral type commissions for players to complete that will aid the node in some way.
    • The node will be rewarded based on the amount of players that complete the mayor commission.
      • The node will receive rewards such as commodities, note to node reputation, mandates, and temporary buffs to building or zones.
      • Players will receive experience, node reputation, node currency, and other miscellaneous rewards.
    • Mayoral commissions will cost gold from the treasury for the mayor to initiate.
    • The node will gain access to new commission based on node type location, and building choices.
• Policies
  • Policies can alter a variety of ways the node functions.
    • Functions include: tax and fees adjustments, building and zone buffs, and node to node reputation activities (war and trade)
  • Mayors will propose policies which citizens can vote to approve or deny.
  • Node will have a limited number of policy slots available for proposed and active policies.
  • Mayors can use mandates to bypass the player vote requirement.
  • Policies are unlocked based on a variety of conditions.
    • Unlock conditions include: node level, node type, dominant node race, building choices, location, events, and happiness.
• Service Buildings
  • Default buildings come prebuilt with the node. Constructed buildings must be initiated by the mayor and built by the players.
  • Building Types
    • Active Buildings
      • Active building provide a service or reason for player to visit them.
      • Active building subtypes: Artisanship, Business, Content, and Political.
    • Passive Buildings
      • Passive building provides passive benefits to the node or zone of influence.
      • Passive building subtypes: Civic, Cultural, Fabrication, Scholarly, and Vocational
  • Building expansions:
    • The primary method for upgrading buildings is through expansion.
    • Active building expansions require passive buildings to allow for expansions to be built.
    • Expansion trees are designed so that the building’s specialization narrows as it is expanded.
  • Pathways may be exclusionary, so you may need to build the same build multiple times in order to get access to multiple specialization of the pathway.
    
    
  • Maintenance
    • Buildings incur a regular maintenance cost of node commodities and gold from the node treasure to continue operations.
    • If maintenance is missed on a building, it will enter a state of disarray.
  • Disarray and Repair.
    • If a building enters a state of disarray or is damaged as a result of a siege or event, then players must contribute materials to restore the building to an operational state.
  • Demotion and Downgrade
    • Mayors will be able to initiate the demolition of a constructed service building, or the removal of a specific building expansion they no longer desire.
    • Tis will cost the mayor mandates and require player buy in via a vote.
  • Destruction
    • Constructed buildings can be destroyed as a result of a siege or event.
    • This will reduce them to a rubble state which after a period of time will become an empty plot again and can be rebuilt.
      
      
• Buy Orders
  • Buy orders are the primary way for the node to generate node commodities that can spent on building construction, upgrades, and maintenance.
    • The mayor can initiate buy orders using gold from the treasury.
      • The mayor can manipulate the parameters of the buy order: how many commodities they are requesting, how long the buy order is active, which materials are used to complete the buy orders, and how much players are rewarded.
    • Players are rewarded node currency and node reputation for fulfilling buy orders.
  • Node currency stays in your inventory even if the node is destroyed and is carried with you to your next node.

Node Village Update Questions

• How much player housing will be available in nodes:
  • Those are capped by citizenship dues, which increase over time. Apartments are default and every node have access to them. Mayors can elect to expand the apartments to allow them to have more citizens, and even different types, such as penthouse (which would allow better or bigger furniture). The node stage will dedicate the number of static housing, right now they are still playing with the numbers.
    The relative number of accessible housing is as follows:
    Freeholds < In Node Housing < Apartments < Inns.
• Are instanced rooms and are they player owned?
  • Apartments and inns and instanced. These are shared instances where players can be invited to. Ownership for them does not exist, but only rent (and only 1 person can rent).
• How will players who leave the game be evicted?
  • Taxes are a necessary component, after a period of time of not paying taxes, you will enter a default status after which a period of time, you will lose your property.
• Are all the benefits a mayor can give to a node dependent on the node type?
  • Some things mayors can do are universal, however if your node has a specific dominant race, or in a specific biome there will be specific things.
• Will the mayor get a free home?
  • It is a predicate to be a citizen before you can become a mayor
• What happens if the mayor leaves?
  • The mayor has a period of time to make a decision, if they do not the system will choose. This is not for all choices, but for some in order to limit harm to the node.
• Can enemy of the state be set on any player or are there prerequisite?
  • You can not have an enemy of the state assigned to a player. There are methods that you can have flagged status assigned to different citizens (if for example you are at war), but not any 1 individual person.
• Is there a cap for energy for mandates?
  • Mandates are accrued by actions, and actions have cooldown. That cooldown system will therefore be the pseudo soft cap.
• Can mayors do simple votes/polls?
  • Its not something previously discussed, there will be a message of the day and general chat. There will not be a survey system innately within the mayor system.
• How long are mayoral terms and is there a system for them to get reelected?
  • There is no systemic benefit to be reelected as a previous mayor, other than doing good by your node.
• Can mayors create custom flags?
  • There will be a modular insignia system to create custom flags.
• Can only citizens of the node participate in mayoral commissions?
  • Anyone can participate in mayoral commission, but mandate bonus for the node is only applicable to the number of citizens who complete the mayor commissions.
• Is participation always going to be bigger for bigger nodes?
  • The mayor will not have access to commissions that might outside of the nodes ability from a numbers perspective., (i.e a node 3 mayor may not have access to the same commissions a node 5 mayor has, with 1000 people participation requirement)
• Are policies always majority vote?
  • Yes, expect if the mayor uses their mayoral mandate power (if applicable)
• Do policies affect the vassal nodes?
  • There may be polices that do, but they do not inherently, policies have a wide range of affects, such as just buildings, to as big as the entire ZOI.
• Will you see things change depending on the policies chosen?
  • Certain policies will have a visual representation but not all.
• How much can a nodes government decided where to put a building?
  • The plots are designed in specific places, but you can choose any building to put in those plots.
• Will nodes in certain places have unique buildings and upgrade?
  • Constructed service building is available to every type of node in every location, where the uniqueness is in some of the default buildings, like node type building. In addition to that relics are location dependent; they can be acquired and give you access to certain work stations, those could be closer located based on the POI.
• What is the difference between a commission and a buy order?
  • Buy order is strictly material based, it is something that does not need to be accepted, you can check the UI and you can see them for nodes around you. Commission is a quest you must accept.
  • Will buy order include processed or final goods?
    • It will include process and raw material but not final crafts.
• Can Node NPC be customized?
  • Guards and mercenaries can be customized, those customization options are conferred through buildings like barracks, but changing visuals are not an options.
• Can you kill guards at a node?
  • Yes, however that is a tall barrier to surpass, their skill level is pretty high.
• Are guards going to be active during the siege?
  • Non-combat NPC are going to despawn during a siege, the guard and garrison will be present and take place in the siege.
• Can node-node trade supply some of the commodities?
  • Yes, absolutely.  Node to node relationship is important and there are mayoral caravans that may accomplish that.
• Can we see the empty plots so that we can plan out the placement?
  • Yes, there is a node map where you can see plot location.
• How long does a building take to build?
  • That is dependent on which building is being build and which policies are in place.

Studio Update

• They are continuing to grow.
• The studio had a potluck this month.

Question & Answer

• What is the intent around potions and active content, will there be a cooldown?
  • There will be a cooldown for potion use, as well as meals and drinks. The intent is not to spam, but rather be tactical.
• How will it be evident to players in a PvP scenario what types of abilities they might anticipate from an enemy’s mount if it has a skin of another bread applied to it?
  • Mount abilities are meant to be a learned information source, this is not meant to be something that you can look at amount and know without interacting with that individual what that mount is capable of doing. When they have skins applied, either though cosmetics, or in game earn, you will get a learning for what that mount does by observing tis use case and taking that knowledge forward with you.
• Can a player be stripped of node citizen by any means other than node description?
  • No, they cannot. There is no player agency function to be dismissed form a node.