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GM Notes Nov 25, 2022, 12:45 (UTC) Meet the Guilds: Node War Edition
7

 

Greetings, Adventurers!


It's [GM]Corruption and [GM]Ronin here to feature interviews with representatives from a selection of our NA and EU node war guilds! Four NA guilds/alliances (Family, Havoc, Nemesis, Nerds) and three EU guilds (Apollyon, Athanasy, Wannabe) were interviewed. You may have seen their guild icons when hovering over a node! Or you might remember seeing their war declarations at the top of your screen. If you are curious about the node war scene, check out these interviews to learn some node war tips, read advice for starting out in node wars, and much more!

 

* To make for a better reading experience, we briefly want to introduce one of the main terms being used during this interview. Each node in Black Desert has a tier, ranging from 1-4. Therefore the corresponding node wars are referred to as T1/2/3/4. Tier 1 node wars feature a gearscore limit, whereas everything above tier 2 is without limits (aka uncapped). If you are interested in joining a nodewar guild, it's important to keep this in mind!

* Did you know that we also interviewed lifeskill guilds? You can find these interviews [here].

 

Would you please introduce yourself and describe your guild in 3 words?

Family (NA)
Hi, I’m skeptic leader of Family and our alliance is OnlyFams. Three words that I would use to describe family would be: All About Family.

Apollyon (EU)

Hello. I'm Essrile or mostly known as "Gura" in-game these days. I’m the Guildmaster of Apollyon. How would I describe Apollyon in 3 words? We are "Bros doing PvP".
Havoc (NA)
Hey Guys! It’s yo boy Zesquirrel. I am the GM of Havoc and Covah. My two guilds make up the Havoc Alliance. Three words to describe Havoc: Active, chaotic, neutral.

Athanasy (EU)

I'm the Co-Leader of Athanasy, Dark_Wind, and I've played BDO since July 2016. I’m still enjoying the game as if it was my first day (maybe even more).  If I had to describe Athanasy I would say it's a place for friends to become family while fighting our enemies.

Nemesis (NA)

Hi my name is Castro, I am currently one of the guild leaders in Enemy. Enemy is in an alliance with Crawling Chaos to make up Nemesis. I have been in and around node wars/siege for 3 years. I have been learning how to shotcall for the past 2.5 years with still lots to improve. Three words to describe Enemy: Best guild NA.

Wannabe (EU)

Hello! I am Aneya, the GM of Wannabe and I have been managing the guild ever since it was formed. At first, I played on and off but after the guild was created, I started playing regularly with my guildies. I am grateful that throughout my journey in BDO, I could meet a lot of great people and establish friendships that have continued to today. I would describe our guild as Jovial, Unyielding and Ambitious.

 

Nerds (NA)

Hi, I'm Alex from Nerds. We're a T1 guild on NA. My advisor, Fill, got me into the game in Nov. 2019 and I've been with Nerds since day one. Three words to describe Nerds: Welcoming, quirky, persistent.


How long has your guild/alliance been around?

Family (NA)
Our guild became a Family in August of 2021.

Apollyon (EU)

Apollyon has been around for more than a year. We were founded on 6/23/2021. Me & 5 other friends decided to make a guild. We had no idea how successful the guild would be or where it was going to lead to. As for now, only 2 out of the original 6 have stayed since the others have quit the game.
Havoc (NA)
Havoc has been around for 2 and a half years and Covah has been around for almost one year.
Athanasy (EU)
Athanasy was created early October 2018 and has never died since its creation.

Nemesis (NA)

Enemy was created on May 6th 2022. The Nemesis alliance was formed on Sept 30 2022.

Nerds (NA)

We've been around since Nov. 2019 but didn't really start to war until the spring of 2021. And even then, we weren't really competitive until around fall/winter 2021.
Wannabe (EU)
Wannabe was created in November 2019 but we were just a group of new players trying to explore the game. Only later, in 2020, the guild started growing rapidly and becoming more serious.
 

What type of node wars does your guild participate in?

Family (NA)
We generally participate wherever the fights are 🙂.

Athanasy (EU)

We participate in T1 node wars, swapping between both Balenos and Serendia regions since the latest node war region changes. We go where the fights go.
Havoc (NA)
We do T1 Node wars and Capped Sieges.

Apollyon (EU)

We started off as a T1 guild to start with node wars. We had a nice alliance with "Ecchi_Squad". As for now we only do T2 and above as it is preferred by our members.

Nemesis (NA)

Nemesis is a T3/T4 node war guild.

Nerds (NA)

Nerds has been pretty much exclusively T1 and I plan to keep us that way. Potentially if there were to be gear caps on T2, we'll hop back and forth. Otherwise, we're staying T1. A large portion of our members are players who've done uncapped & siege and are just looking to hang around on T1s for a while.
Wannabe (EU)
Wannabe focuses on tier 3 to tier 4 node wars now.
 

Within your memory, what was the most fun guild war? Why?

Family (NA)
My favorite guild war was against Relevance. We had a big showing at orcs from both sides which resulted in a 2-3 hour GvG. After all of the blood, sweat, and tears (all from the Relevance side), Family came out victorious.

Havoc (NA)

So I would say the most fun node wars are typically when I start singing, haha! Last Christmas I shot-called by singing to Jingle Bells for the guild. Why? Because it was funny and everyone had a laugh about it and now have something to remember.  
[Video]

Nerds (NA)

One of our favorite wars was a Serendia team fight. We were getting turbo-pushed in the 3v3 holding on for dear life while Ghost and Null managed to kill one of the enemy guilds to peel pressure off of us. We had 0.6% fort health with Guilty trying to int (die) onto the stick and we managed to hold and complete a full rebuild of the base. That was the lowest percentage we've ever managed to hold at, but we love a good Hodor play. After that war, we had about 15 members push for lower tap timers. Now we use the 0.6% to keep the team from getting discouraged if things look bad.

Athanasy (EU)

My most fond memory of a war has to be before the changes when there was 10+ guilds on North Abandoned Quarry in Calpheon every Sunday. In the days before diplomacy was decided before the war started, when you made diplo work as best you could while you were fighting each other. It was always a mess, but it was the most fun it could ever be, and it was here I met most of my friends who were not in my own guild!
 

What challenges did your guild need to overcome to get into node wars?

Havoc (NA)

Havoc’s main challenge to overcome was how be relevant and recruit as fast as possible. It was started by 3 guys. We wanted to war the first week of guild creation so we needed to form an Alliance with another guild so we could war off rip. We had to tell people we were trying to recruit that we are a fully active war guild in order to pull people in. We ended up forming a temporary Alliance with Nerds with a few set agreements. Within 2 days we recruited 30 people to our guild and within a week we had 10 waiting to join the guild. After a weekend and a half of the alliance forming, Nerds and Havoc split ways and Havoc has been fully active and functional in the T1 scene ever since.

Apollyon (EU)

We started off as a "fresh" 100% Casual guild where everyone was free to join, with 1 exception. We had no rules in the guild. Wars were frequent, so not many people stayed, but those who prevailed are still with us and are stronger than before. To fight the laziness of the people, we decided to make our NWs kinda Mandatory-ish once a week. We had 80+ members but we had to reduce our size due to some of them doing almost nothing and not even trying to participate in guild activities.

Athanasy (EU)

Our greatest challenge was probably getting players who were interested in node wars and PvP in general to join us early on when we were a new guild joining an already booming scene. A guild just joining in wasn't as interesting as a guild with an established name.

Wannabe (EU)

Wannabe started as community guild focused on having fun and creating a comfortable environment for all members to enjoy the game. At first, we were just growing the guild and learning the game. Then, in 2021, we faced our biggest challenges such as completely embracing the PvP mentality and evolving into a full-on node war guild. We had to restructure the whole guild and set up new goals for the future.

We also faced many difficult battles and often had to learn from our mistakes. After we felt satisfied with our position as one of the top guilds in the tier 1 scene, we decided it was time to set our goals higher. We transferred from tier 1 node wars to tier 2 node wars, with a lack of expertise and recognition in the tier 2 scene. We had to face and learn the node wars system as a new tier 2 guild, which created another challenge for our guild.

We have come far since then, but we never stop learning. We believe that dedication and joined growth is the way to go. One of the most difficult moments, for me personally, was letting people who were close to the community go because they did not share the same goals or were not up to the challenge at the time.

 

What specific tips or strategies are vital knowledge for a node war guild?

Nemesis (NA)

Knowledge is king. It’s the same thing with any pvp in BDO, knowing match ups, knowing combos, knowing how to fight with friends/allies.  
 
Have a plan. The plan may fail; the plan may work out. A sense of direction for your guild to follow is much better than going into a node war blind. Always look for ways to improve whether it is through wins or loses to find parts that can be improved on or simply learn new mechanics of the game. Both can be beneficial.  
 
Understanding how all base structures are operated and how they affect a battlefield is the first step to progress in node wars. Be aware of tracking cool downs and looking at timers for flags, cannons, and elephants. 
 
Slowly learn how to make win conditions and realize when you are losing to try and fix the current situation.

Apollyon (EU)

Tips? As a Guildmaster, I recommend other Guildmasters to talk to their members, be interested in them and don't look at them as if they are just a number in your sheet. You give them respect and they will give it back.  
 
Find a good alliance partner you can trust and have fun with (Immortalis in our case).  
 
Have a good flex team that is filled with "carpet" players that run sicils and centaurs to bite enemy structures.  
 
As for strategies, every guild needs a good shot caller that leads his team to victory. But every member has their own purpose from Defense to Cannon squad or Elephant rider.  
 
I recommend doing coordinated PvP training outside NWs in Battle Arena or during GvGs, for example. Everyone needs to trust each other and know each others' strengths and weaknesses in PvP. Gear is not as important as people think. Team composition and strategy is.

Family (NA)

Base Building is Vital knowledge for a node war guild: not only where to place the annexes but also where to place the base itself. A good base is vital to a guild’s success.

Nerds (NA)

Know what kind of guild you want to run and dedicate to it. It's when guilds get wishy-washy on what they want to do that starts to create internal issues. If you want to be a casual guild, great. Stand by that and make sure everyone's expectations are in line with that vision, same with competitive guilds. Find the level of requirements/intensity that's a good fit and run with that. Be open to suggestions & ideas, but don't let anyone else tell you how to run your guild.
 

What is your favorite region or node to war in? Why?

Nemesis (NA)
It’s been a long time since I've fought in Calpheon, Serendia, Mediah, and Balenos. Because of the current node war system all of the fights in NA for the upper end guilds are in Kamasylvia with very few in Valencia. That being said, my favorite region to fight in the past was Calpheon and Serendia. Serendia in particular has nice flat, non-tree infested land. They both had very large node war zones that allowed for less telegraphed node wars; less "rules" to be placed. These rules are made up rules to allow for more even fights. Rules that take away advantageous terrain or unfair cannon locations. Rules are agreed upon by the participating guilds. Still, to this day, I would love to see the return of node war fights on Calpheon and Serendia (uncapped).

Apollyon (EU)

Personally, for me, it's Canyon of Corruption, the node war zone allows some good fort placements that are not that easy to access and require flags or other means. The spot is also really good for cannoning if you have a high ground spot. My second favourite nodes are Kusha or Sausan Garrison as we can effectively use guild ships in node wars.

Nerds (NA)

At the moment, probably Balenos. The fights are a bit more spontaneous and the T1 easy caps feel good for our rat-heavy comp. Unfortunately, our participant numbers and performance are a better match for Serendia. We used to have a lot of fun warring in Calpheon before the node war rework because there's so much terrain differentiation in that region.
 

What advice would you give to new players who are thinking of trying out node wars?

Family (NA)
Start with T1 node wars to get a feel for the fights. Without adequate knowledge of how to play your class during a war, it could become a very miserable experience quickly. T1s are more forgiving for mistakes and will allow you to get a grasp on how node wars operate. 

Nemesis (NA)

Listen to your shot callers and follow the calls. Don't worry about kills and deaths. Be a team player.  
 
Reach out to experienced players. Ask them how you can improve. Ask why so and so is happening during your wars. There are plenty of players that will run you through a node war. Video reviewing is extremely useful to assess areas that need improvement and critique playstyles. All it takes is reaching out.  
 
Each class performs differently in node war. Finding that right fit for your playstyle and incorporating it in with the rest of your node war guild will help make node warring more fun. (Do note that BDO does have a meta. Some classes perform better in node wars compared to others).

Wannabe (EU)

Join a T1 guild now. Do not wait until you have X amount of gear before you learn to PVP. Some people say gear matters more than anything and I will not argue with that because it certainly does matter, but the gear is utterly useless without a good and experienced player behind it. Therefore, get yourself into NWs as soon as you can. Do AoS. Duel on trial characters and fight people with more gear than you on Arsha to gain experience in any way you can.
 

What are two changes you would like to see with the upcoming node war reworks?

Havoc (NA)

1. We need T2s (maybe even T3s) to have gear caps to incentivize gear gains and give T1 guilds, as a whole, an avenue to move up to higher tiers. 

 
T1s being the only GS cap does not encourage gear score gains. Nor does it encourage staying in a T1 guild because T1 is essentially narcillian gear while entry lvl to T2 is 650. But even with an entry lvl of 650 to do T2s, that same 650 that joins is then thrown into 700+ gear score farm zones. 

 

What I am trying to say is we need a progression path in the war aspect to feel that it is worth progressing upward. Silver and items are not what we want. We want our gear to matter and we want to see results using it. That is why Havoc does siege. It provides a progressive path into higher tiers. 

 

2. Nodes switching tiers monthly/quarterly. 

Alot of people have mentioned that they would like to see T1-4 nodes switching around. Most guilds lock into T1, T2, T3, or T4 so we all see the same scenery over and over again. It would be nice to see Kamasylvia have a T2 node and Valencia have a T1 node. So, in short, we would like to change locations monthly/quarterly.

Athanasy (EU)

Seeing as node wars are now region locked, you get stuck with a lot of the same scenery and terrain over and over. I would love to see something like we had before with nodes in each region being for various tiers. That way everyone gets to experience every region with more varied fights. We don't want to be limited by our region. Let us see other areas too! 
 
There is also the problem of people avoiding fights leaving some guilds all alone because they don't want to fight certain people. If the nodes were limited by day with less options on where to go, everyone would still get to meet new friends while killing them in a war!  
 
Right now the incentive to actually start doing node wars or keep doing them is too low. The rewards don't pay for the money you put into your own buffs. If you increase the rewards, more players would probably participate in wars because they get something from it, other than the PvP itself. For many people the game is about money per hour. Node war is always a money loss per hour.  
 
Super special extra request: Please make flags removeable by officers from the map the same way you can remove cannons or elephants during wars.

Nerds (NA)

1. A huge change that I think a lot of us would like to see is the reconfiguration of nodes, specifically merging some nodes to create large areas to fight and undoing the risk-style system in favor of the old per-day system.  
 
After the reworks hit in Oct. 2021 and especially after the 150 man alliances, the social fall-out over the next several months pushed a lot of guilds to retire or ally. Even though the number of nodes were cut in half, there was still not enough guilds to give the nodes a healthy population spread. The community has been struggling to set up fights because we have to worry about people dropping on surrounding nodes that are owned by the fight's participants.

We also have a lot of trouble doing team fights because the nodes are just not big enough anymore to comfortably hold the number of guilds that want to compete together. The huge amount of time that goes into figuring out how to squish even 6-8 of us onto some of these nodes takes away from playtime and frustrates a lot of guilds out of node wars. Reverting to the larger nodes and a free-drop system would be great for gameplay and for the community aspect. It would give guilds the option to partake in community events or just free drop. As it stands, Balenos really seems to be the only region with consistent free dropping. Everywhere else has too many nodes and not enough guilds. 

 

2. Something that'd be really nice to see changed is disabling boat combat during node war/conquest war. Instead of attempting to improve at node wars, some guilds have taken to using boats as a crutch and advantage that seems like it was unintended by the devs. Carrack stats don't scale with T1 and with the hp degradation, can inhibit the type of gameplay node wars are meant to create. It takes away from the content with the time span necessary to craft a carrack and with it not being scaled in any way. Plus, there is no counter except swimming out and axing.

Besides being just a general issue for veteran players, new players to the game coming into T1s can't compete. Some kind of special sea warfare content would be great for ocean-focused players, but node wars shouldn't be the place for that. A possible fix to keep boats in would be adding a wharf annex to cap out the number of summonable ships by war participants and scaling gear.

Wannabe (EU)

I would like to see a couple of things with the upcoming node war reworks. 
 
Firstly, lower player caps in Tier 2+ node wars, such as 25-, 30- and 40-man nodes, leading to more opposing sides in a node war. Instead of having one alliance with 50 people, you might have two guilds with 25 each. It makes the nodes feel more alive and adds a variety of fights. Big fights are still possible but at the same time smaller-scale fights can be enjoyable and accessible to more guilds.  
 
Secondly, improve tier 1 caps and incentives for participation in node wars. The tier 1 scene in EU seems a bit lackluster and dead. It is an important steppingstone to get new players hooked in group PvP and node wars. In my opinion, node wars should be encouraging for the player to improve and climb up the tiers, so it feels rewarding for old and new players alike.
 

Any final words you would like to express?

Apollyon (EU)

I would like to shoutout Jouma and members of the Immortalis guild and our favourite femboy JustPitty(Pitty).

Athanasy (EU)

I'd like to express my gratitude to my guildmates and friends who have been with me, and the guild, along the way on this great adventure of destroying our enemies and eating cookies and/or bacon. Thank you for our late-night grind sessions and dungeon runs that become disasters or movie nights. And, of course, the node wars! We are all part of a well-oiled machine. And I hope they appreciate me as much as I appreciate them, even if I don't always express it in the best way. (Purge night) I'm also looking forward to the T1 sieges coming soon!

Family (NA)

Final words are just to keep up the great work PA and to continue listening to their PVP player base.

Havoc (NA)

Personally, I would like to see War Wagons. Like 4 horse drawn wagons with the wagons armed with 2-4 cannons on the side. It would be a cool thing to see. Or we could have different types of elephants that do different things. 
Ex. Cannon mounted on its back or catapult launcher on its back.

Nemesis (NA)

BDO is a video game. Do not be scared to play it the way you want. Meet people, develop friendships and have fun.

Nerds (NA)

I'd like to thank the T1 community for helping to make sure there's always some kind of content. Even when wars weren't enjoyable, we've managed to keep ourselves entertained. Also thank you to the random guy in BA that came and posed in our photo and the people who just watched on the side and didn't get in the shot.

Wannabe (EU)

As for the idea to make the node war scene more interesting, we suggest spreading the group buffs to more classes, except for Shai (where her main concept is that she offers lots of buffs and utility), Wizard, Witch and Valkyrie who bring the lion's share of group utility. A lot of heals, PA, an accuracy buff, a grab, and a 100% bomb etc. should not be concentrated on one class. Give other classes, such as Guardian, Drakania, Warrior, Succ Nova etc. some of these buffs to incentivize a more diverse main raid composition. Right now, depending on the regional meta, guilds are mainly just looking for Valks, Wizards, Witches, Zerkers etc. Take some of the utility from these classes and give it to other classes. Then compensate them (if necessary) for losing this utility or add more variety of skills to other classes. 
 

All in all, I would like to thank everyone involved in this interview as well as PA for offering us this opportunity. We were excited to share our story with you and hopefully we can meet each other on the battlefield one day! See you around!

 


If you are interested in seeing one of your own GMs participate in a node war, check out the recent stream: [NA/EU PC] Node wars with Endlaive!

 

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