Although the system has only been put in place for a few days there are some glaring issues experienced already with the current format that make Node War PvP very restrictive and fail to enable the intended goals. There are positives to some of the concepts behind the changes; removing the expansion system for more placement freedom and reducing the total number of nodes (and increasing the node war area size) would be key to more variety, more fights and less snipes - however, the implementation of these concepts falls short of accomplishing this in a constructive or sustainable manner to allow both new players/guilds to access the system and end-game guilds to be competitive.

I will not be able to cover every detail that could be adjusted or changed, I will just provide some broad focus points and what I think should be the philosophy of the system, with some starting suggestions.

In this new system the vast majority of node war is now gear capped with only T4 remaining uncapped, to the extent that apart from Sunday there is only one T4 per day (and this is ignoring the fact that the nodes selected are some of the most unenjoyable for larger scale, uncapped PvP).

The concept of capped can be healthy to allow more players to access and learn Node War, there should be a space for relatively new players to take part in this content so no one is excluded and they can get experience in PvP the same way they need to take time to progress other parts of the game (grinding, lifeskills, gear etc). However, the current system has a few flaws which prevent this being the case:

- If majority of gameplay is capped and there is not a significant difference in rewards for capped/uncapped competition, where is the motivation to progress/improve

- The way gear is currently capped still benefits players who have more gear, just in different manners and using cheese builds. Stats need to be looked at in more detail and capped so they don't still benefit better geared players or result in certain classes being obnoxiously strong on certain caps (not expecting perfect balance, that will never be the case, but you can prevent completely overtuned scenarios)

- Due to lack of uncapped nodes, stronger guilds who are better coordinated and have higher gear feel forced down onto capped nodes to ensure they get reasonable fights versus similar level/size guilds. Not only do many of the players enjoy this less than uncapped but this makes capped nodes redundant as no longer is it the players with lower gear/experience accessing or moving up the system with them, rather it's the same old players blocking that space.

The philosophy in my opinion should have entry level caps (T1), a second tier cap which is closer to real gear and in line with a softcap of sorts that is fairly quickly obtainable from an active player (T2) and then uncapped tiers with varied rewards/settings to show competitive differences and give reasons to push up in all aspects of the game (T3/T4). Capped nodes should be there to involve and encourage players/guilds to improve and want to move up, not to be a replacement format that gives no incentive to play further or better.

The current strength of Node War bases is incredibly flimsy. Due to the way gear is capped, different types of damage that aren't capped still shred buildings that now have been made squishier due to lower AP caps.

- Capped Tiers (T2/T3 especially) are having the fort towers shredded in seconds, encouraging bodythrow and avoid-fight gameplay rather than actual coordination. Yes, enemy raid scouting should be important but a fully built base should not be as vulnerable as it is right now. Combination of increasing the strength of annexes/tower HP and/or fixing gear caps would resolve this.

- Uncapped tier (T4) is in a better place for this but the soft annexes (everything but flame/hwacha) could be bit tankier. However, this would have to be in relation to the number cap of the node rather than the tier. EU basically did not have 100cap Node War scene on the previous system and with large nodes seeing some life again the bases need to reflect this.

- Upgraded Hwacha damage seems out of sync on all tiers. From experience on T4 it feels like it does a lot more than before and one shots players even with very high gear amounts. It's good to have a strong defensive turret to keep a base safe but it shouldn't be almost a bigger factor than the enemy raid itself when pushing near their fort. Would need further info on the damage to be sure about this, felt it was worth noting as well.

Node number caps are something that will have divided opinions based on your preference of content (small, medium, larger scale), your region (ie. one region having more small-medium attending raids, another having more larger raids) and how the game performs on these different scales (which in an ideal world would work pefectly regardless of participants but that's another topic). It's important there are provisions for different scale content but also that it is recognised that numbers and strength are not identical - a guild with 30-40 people could hypothetically be stronger than a 60 person raid, but there needs to be a reason to compete based on strength rather than just number or else a guild has no reason to go to any node that they do not max out or believe they will stomp. With this in mind, I can't say exactly how many of what scale nodes would be best since this will vary, but I will say that the following should be kept in mind:

- Rewards should scale on number cap size as well as tier. 100 cap sharing the same prize pool to split up between participants (silver wise for example) as 40 cap is nonsensical, and if a smaller guild pulls a win on a larger number cap node then they deserve massive spoils (hence encouraging smaller stronger raids to consider larger nodes too and bring other smaller guilds with them to create varied fights)

- Annex strength should slightly scale on number cap size as mentioned before

- By removing one of the capped tiers and making only 3 gear layers (T1 caps, T2 capped, T3/T4 uncapped) you have more nodes available for different number fights. It was good to lower the total number of nodes to reduce snipes and push more fights, but only having 1 available node at 1 available size stifles the chance of different setups (both in terms of different opponents, scales and also it being boring to do the same damn areas every week).

This is just a hypothetical to give a physical format to my above commentary. There would be far more details to tune in terms of capped gear restrictions and which node war areas are chosen for different number cap scale nodes, but this is to give a vague insight and concept to how the current system format can be kept but adjusted to better achieve the intentions of many of the well-meaning changes:

- T1:Beginner: Slightly sub season gear (similar to its current level). The point of this is to allow anyone who is sub 1-2months to the game to try stuff out or a completely new project of players who have never done Node War before begin learning how it works.

- T1:Intermediate: About in line with season gear/some capotia (roughly full TET). Annexes should be slightly tankier than Beginner and rewards begin to be shaped to encourage coordinated efforts from new guilds/players. This way Beginner is only used to literally learn the game and Intermediate is that stepping stone to move out of the learning phases.

- T2: Somewhere between 670-680gs based on current gear curve I would guess (variable per region), roughly the current T3 cap level. Doesn't take ages to obtain if actively playing and scales appropriately for a more chilled player working their way up as well with still too big of a gap to uncapped players. This would need adjusting over time based on what new systems have been introduced to assist gear progress and essentially creates a new 'softcap' before gear progression difficult steepens. This should have a proper NW shop to help players complete gear parts that take them to uncapped levels, but shaped in a way that isn't worth for a player above that cap to do them really.

// T1 would qualify for Balenos Siege (with Intermediate caps). T2 would qualify for Serendia Siege (with T2 caps). These siege rewards could aim to be about 1b total worth roughly (considering the gear progression stage and that Bal/Ser doesn't have a castle buff for grinding //

- T3: Uncapped gear. 40-75 cap node sizes. Make annexes as tanky as current T4. Rewards are NW shop but upgraded from T2 slightly, mostly in caphras/LS department I would assume. Make guild (or individual maybe) silver rewards more worthwhile so competing on uncapped has a clear value compared to capped nodes so people want to advance to this stage because time spent competing in PvP is actually rewarding. There should be 2-4 of these nodes available per day (depending on the popularity of the day, eg. on EU Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday are most popular Node War days).

- T4: Uncapped gear. 50-100 cap node sizes. Make soft annexes as tanky as siege, defensive turrets same as current T4. Same format of rewards as T3 but significantly higher, make it so these rewards would be worthwhile for the average end-game pushing players so they have something to seriously compete over during the week. As said above, all rewards and annex tankiness should also scale with node number cap size. There should be 2 available T4 nodes per day imo.

// Calpheon, Mediah & Valencia sieges qualified by having T3/T4 node. Uncapped gear. Silver rewards need to continue being adjusted over time to not result in it becoming negligable like the OG silver castle rewards did. //

With all this said there is also the slight issue with the nodes being reduced so much and nodes liberating so the number of guilds qualifying for siege to actually participate rather than snipe is limited (since the guilds that want to compete on uncapped siege shouldn't be the same ones that were needing more access through gear caps nor should they be the ones forced to snipe themselves) - but hopefully the adjustment of more nodes similar to the above example might resolve this issue as well without pulling away from there being actual forced fights too.

Appreciate this is a long post and I don't have an explicit tl;dr because the node war system is such a layered thing with many players of different gear, size guilds and preferences wanting their place in the system. I think the current system massively misses the mark despite some solid intentions but can be significantly improved just with some broad changes for accessibility and motivation.

- Edit 14.01.2023: Noted with siege today, as it currently stands, if a guild were to win Valencia Siege (the current uncapped gear siege) then they will be unable to participate in T4 nodes on Monday, Tuesday & Thursday. Meaning they are forced to do capped wars and the alternative nodes are lower capped so having to exclude more players from participating.

- Edit 16.01.2023: Added comments about the global patch. Found at top page 4.
- Edit 22.01.2023: Added comments from Ryky's feedback podcast. Found at bottom of page4.

- Edit 06.02.2023: Added comments after further changes and conversations with other leaderships in PvP community. Page 5.

- Edit 23.02.2023: Added update. Page 5.

- Edit 07.03.2023: Added comment towards lack of changes since pre-season. Page 5.