First Impressions on the new City System

spoletta

I would like to share my first impressions of the new city system after looking at the introductory video.

First of all, it looks like this change in design was made to make the game more friendly to solo players and small groups of players. In this, I think that this new solution surely is good. As much as we love our guilds and would like a game centered on them, a huge amount of players that approach a sandbox are usually organized in groups of 2-4 friends. Without them, this game has no future, so this change is surely a good step in the right direction.

Now, this obviously rises some concerns from the those that prefer a guild centric system, and I find those concerns to be justified.

In particular, the "value" of putting together a city has now dropped considerably. Right now the value of a city is represented by the crafting stations and the natural resources, which can be accessed only by the citiziens. If those are available to everyone, then having your own city or just being a resident of someone else's city, doesn't make that big of a difference. We could have a leeching problem. Sure, owning the city will allow me to steer the direction of the tech tree, and I will have processing facilities dedicated only to the citiziens, but many will just prefer not having to build and maintain the city.

Also, if the spawn times of minerals are kept like the current ones, all big guilds will PK on sight anyone getting close to the mines. The minerals are too rare to be shared with other players.

With all the previous considerations, I would like to share a proposal which could potentially solve some of these issues.
The main point is to restore the "value" of owning the city and to lessen the impact that residents in your area have on your resources.

Increase the spawn rate of natural resources, or make it client side. Right now the limiting factor in how much stuff you can craft per day, is the natural rate of resources spawning. If many players have to share them, this limit should be moved to something else (point 2). At the same time, increase the mining time required to turn a node into a resource. Extracting minerals should be a time consuming activity, so that the raw ore keeps a part of its value and so that you create a window of opportunity for potential attackers to raid the miners.
Move the limiting factor to the processing step. Processing facilities (like smelters) inside the city as far as I understood are only for citiziens. Allow a resident house to have a limited amount of such facilities, so that owning the city comes with the "value" of having a widely increased resource production capability. In order to do this, we need all types of crafting to require a "processing" step. Right now only leather and metals have such a step. We need woodcutting and weaving facilities and relative processes. High level enchanting materials could also potentially be obtained with refining processes.

This way, you can create this environment of big guilds and small groups coexisting in the same region, since you make them beneficial to each other.

Having your own city allows you to produce many more resoruces (which, afterall, was the same concept of the last alpha test). This allows you to equip your guild with much more ease, making wars with other regions a more feasible activity.

Players playing alone or in small groups can still access all content, and they can organize between neighbouring houses to put together small productions.

The residents impact on the guild's resources will be a lot lessened, which makes having residents actually a good prospective. They provide you with additional population for the tech tree and with gold for your maintenance. They are also potential future citiziens.

Cities will have a constant production or resources, which makes raiding them profitable. Right now the cities rarely stock resources, they are immediately used.

Leeching off another guild will be detrimental, since if you don't develop your own city and try to live just as a group of residents, you will be crushed by the other guild's production capabilities (while providing them with your gold). If you want to be an enemy of that guild, you have to make your own city.

Meziljin

i suggest to move resource spawn timer on client-side, not global timer, this allow:

everyone can gather resources, managing only his personal timer, allowing all citizen to do their part (global timer could reduce gathering only to 1-2 players per spot if they manage wisely timer spawn)
More citizen, more resources, more output, a client side timer give a sense of growing for cities while a global one stuck city rise.
Pvp for resources make more sense, since mineral spots allow more players to gather same time, while global timer force to be only 1 to take it all, hard to recognize and raid
Global timer force people who want resources to move in isolated spots to have more chance to gather, abandoning cities too populated because chance to get minerals are lower proportionated to the number of players around.

Prometheus

@spoletta said in First Impressions on the new City System:

Increase the spawn rate of natural resources, or make it client side.

It will be done, there are both going to be more minerals (they'll be scattered next to the edges of mountains, so not only inside of nodes) and they will respawn faster.

@spoletta said in First Impressions on the new City System:

Move the limiting factor to the processing step. Processing facilities (like smelters) inside the city as far as I understood are only for citiziens. Allow a resident house to have a limited amount of such facilities

If the city has completed the relative research, all players with a land parcel in the region can place private processing stations (tubs, smelteries) inside of their own land parcel. I've stated that in the video!

@Meziljin said in First Impressions on the new City System:

suggest to move resource spawn timer on client-side

Nothing in an online game should be controlled "client-side" I think what you were trying to suggest is making the timer "personal"? And then what happens, you see another player mining a deposit but don't see the deposit getting emptied and the resource spawning, so all of a sudden a block of stone just appears in the other player's hands?

Meziljin

@Prometheus yes i mean personal timer, and yes when i see an empty rock another could gather something because on his side the rock is full, then i can decide to let him gather or kill him to get double resources lol. Otherwise the spawn timer should be really faster, but in this way we can't avoid campering spots doing nothing until they pop up, so most of time we will be forced to get only 1 mineral or two and run away before someone try to get them from our chart. Yes this mean much less gather and much more travel, this way people get bored...

Nekrage

@spoletta said in First Impressions on the new City System:

Increase the spawn rate of natural resources, or make it client side

You're kidding right?

I'm not even going to....no...just no.

spoletta

@Prometheus

I do remember that being said in the video, but is there a limit on how many you can build per land parcel?

As long as the true limiting factor in crafting becomes the processing step, and you can't just spam processing stations in the residential area, then this system could work. Owning a city should provide a significative boon to your production capability.

Edit: I'm talking about regions which have that resource obviously. If you need to import that resource, then the limiting factor is the raw material.

Logain

Sorry for the stupid question, but where is that video? I don't see anything posted in news/dev updates/ design journal...

Shivashanti

@Logain On their yt channel. Or just click here

LonelyCookie

Time to do my part here as well and not only discord. Sooooo...

Lets start with the good stuff.

I like the reduction of number of cities. It is bit drastic going from 120 to 30-something, but atleast the cities are not one-pump-chumps (I assume the territory has more than one resource in its borders now)
Compression of the wilderness plots into residential areas around the cities. Will make the cities more alive without forcing solos to join guilds.

Now onto the bad stuff.

Enemies within our territories. Thats just a massive no-no. There has to be a blacklist system on guilds and individuals (accounts) where we can ban specific accounts and guilds from using the processing/crafting stations and living in the territory.
Everyone being allowed everywhere. Previous system was extremely guild-centric, current one basically takes away any reason to have a city. Why stress yourself (and it is stressful to have a city, be it as a vice/governor or guild leader) when you just ignore all of it and basically function as a leech. Just...why bother So, here I propose a change to it to satisfy the guilds and keep the solos untouched while keeping the "new cities".

Allow us to set how open our territory is. Closed - Selective - Open. Combined with incentive system with bonuses for guilds that go Open such as buff to HP/dmg, significantly lower upkeeps, advantage during defense sieges (e.g less attackers allowed in battles), with such incentives, I belive most guilds would, at the very least, choose not be to closed.

Closed obviously...closed, basically "citizen-only" option. They would end up hurting themselves in the long run, no bonuses + lack of wide industrial/crafter base.
Selective...only some options closed and some open, such as solos allowed in residential area, but not allowed to use crafting stations.
Open obviously...opened. Anyone can settle in residential, anyone can use the stations etc.

I feel like this would work really well, blacklisting for enemies (thus not worrying about them) and incentives to stay as open to solos and randoms as our insecurities allow

I am a person that tries to avoid unneccessary PvP and kill-on-sight as it just creates toxicity everywhere, but jesus, under the new (and IF unchanged) system, theres no way to live peacefully anymore. Kill on sight will be the go-to mindset, resulting in even more pain for the solos/randoms//tiny guilds than before. Pleeeease, consider changing it to accomodate both (maybe as I suggested above ), because right now, it helps noone, but it will hurt everyone

EDIT: Alternatively, incentive system can be turned on its head, and put debuffs on the Closed. Debuff to HP/dmg, higher upkeeps, disadvantage at defense sieges. Buuuut...I feel like using sugar and not a whip always works better (unless youre into it...kinky)

Ostaff

@LonelyCookie

Totally agreed. There needs to be something done about the residential area, Cities need to have more influence over who can reside within their territory. Rather it be outright permissions on who can settle there, taxes on use of their assets, the ability to turn on/off pvp on residential plots, or the destruction of residential plots/property when the city falls.

Otherwise...you will have ths scenerio.... a player will go to a top tier city, settle in a residential area outside, build all the stuff on their plot... and then help their "guild" to destroy the city while keeping everything.

@Prometheus statement about "not good being in enemy territory" does not work well as you can not be killed on a plot or within the city... so the player only needs to plot hop until they get close enough to the city and then "relocate" or run to the city and vice versa. Also, this means that the city would have to post a 24/7 watch just to try to keep them from doing so. Another... and this is major... their spawn point is RIGHT BACK AT THE HOUSING PLOT! so... they can place their stuff in a bank if they see opposition and return later to pick it up. Not only that, but say the city is a 30 person guild, and a 20 person guild sets up camp outside of the city... that 20 person camp is in a much stronger position than the 30, since their stuff can not be destroyed or lost.

I understand trying to cater to solo players.. but this IS a MMO. Solo players must make sacrifices to play solo. Being a citizen of a city is NOT a big sacrifice nor is having to support a city to be able to "use" what they built. Yes.. some of their maintenance "gold" goes to the city coffers.. but please...that's ridiculous... there has to be more cost to being able to live near a city and use all of its resources.

Regardless, the devs will fnd that they will need to implement measures to keep "leeching" at a minimum, or the game will die out very quickly. At the bare min, have the housing plots be destroyed if the city is destroyed.

PS. With all that being said.... I think over all the change they made to the city structure is awesome. They just need to fix a crucial problem with it is all.

mickio1

I do wonder if itll help or not with having players keep going back to maintaining cities. There's nothing sadder than a sandbox online game filled with empty pristine but half-built outposts. Its like minecraft public servers.

d3Sync

In my opinion, there are two things that need re-evaluated.

Enemies able to roam freely through your city and being able to purchase residence.

My solution : Cities are no longer 'safe areas', and all enemies are immediately flagged for PvP upon entering. The introduction of a system that allows governors to remove access to services (including purchasing residential plots) from enemies. And obviously, the ability to name those enemies, be it guild, alliance, or nation. This way, you don't have to play games attempting to trap those enemies as they leave your city. You simply remove them by force. Even if safe areas stay, enemies must not be able to roam freely.

Harbors being detached from cities.

I don't have a solution for this one. I don't quite understand their end goal with them. Logically, it doesn't make sense that you no longer have to repair and manage the harbor. Is it possible for large guilds to all port in from across the map (albeit costly), and rampage through your lands? I feel that you should still have to choose to repair the harbor, and manage it. It should still be part of the city tech tree. Governors should be able to close their harbors from their 'enemies'. As well as set taxes for using them. I don't know much about how this is going to work. So I am withholding judgement for now.

Ostaff

@d3Sync

In the live Twitch Stream they had last Sunday, Prometheus stated that governors will be able to turn PvP on/off within their cities and they can also use a "application for use" on their crafting assets where crafters will need to "apply" to be able to use the stations which is approved by the governor.

GamerSeuss

The detaching of Harbors from Cities was made as a decision so that they didn't have to worry about a bunch of harbors going unbuilt/repaired. This way, harbors are usable from the beginning and are independent of whether the city invests in them or not.

Elex

I believe that a lot of cities become empty because its an alpha, people just want to test content and leave, this system could be a good option now, but if we estimat numbers maybe we have 20-25% of the community playing, maybe less. Like I said in another topic, guilds like TSE and OT will not like this, because they are guild focused, this content for winter alpha will help solo players and small guilds, but nobody thought in a possibility of the guild that control the city buy all plots around the city to diminish numbers of enemies or unwanted players, and in my point of vision it will be done.
A city claimed by a guild have a less probability to drop the alpha than a city made by a lot of guilds, and about other forum messages, you all are right, lot of players do not help or work together to build the city or help in the maintenance. Sometimes in our own guild have players that do not like it, imagine in a city with different guilds and different languages the probability of it be done is relative high.

Ostaff

@Elex said in First Impressions on the new City System:

a possibility of the guild that control the city buy all plots around the city to diminish numbers of enemies or unwanted players, and in my point of vision it will be done.

Actually, we thought of that, as that is exactly what is going to happen. Large guilds will have their members own all the residential spots.

At the same time, the smaller guilds that have alliance with each other, will also buy all their residential plots up near their city as well. After all, who is going to let possible enemies in their backyard?

Farlander

I believe the point of allowing people to settle in cities at will is to help solo and small group play. If governors are allowed to turn on/off crafting stations that is in effect creating the same situation that already existed in that these players will be ostracized from the settlements. I'm assuming the pvp option is for the human and demon planets because if this applies to the beast world then again you have the same scenario where the player is forced out of the settlement.

If a guild wishes to control a city then they plan for all their members to join at the same time or actively recruit the solo players that move in. How about reinforcing cooperation rather than discrimination of the players in the game.

Elex

@Farlander This system will be only for humans and demons, in Arboreus maybe only in city raid to conquer it, but it was not explained yet. Well, I was talking about it in another forum but solo players and small guilds will have difficulty because they will be focused and killed when try to mine resources, so the system will be broken again.
About what you said, smaller guilds will be raided and probably will lose the city, the difference between smaller guilds together and a big guild is huge, the game style, the focus in fights, all is advantage to them.

spoletta

There are 2 different ways to run a city.

You are a big guild (big enough to own all the plots). In this case, you don't need external help, you play with your members and what they bring. The crafting stations get set to citiziens only and you are good to go.
You are not a big guild. You WANT solo players and small guilds to take plots in your residential area. They are additional resources and contribute to your economic system. You leave crafting stations open to them, and probably keep the taxes low, because you want players to come live in your region. For the same reason, you don't hunt them near resources. Again, solo players and small guilds are an asset which will be contended between regions. Who has more of them has the advantage over the neighbours.

There will be a new player global chat in game, which means that new players will now which regions are friendly and which are not. I don't see an issue.

The only issue that I see, but only because we lack any kind of info on this, is that big guilds could try to conquer everything. We don't know if there is a limit of some kind, or how hard it will be to prepare a siege.

Elex

@spoletta Yes, you are right. But there is a difference between a group of random players and a big guild focused in pvp. In a random group of players, with luck a half of them will protect and help in development, the other half will not fight and help, they will just use the workbenchs and play to ownselves.