Resource Gathering

ArchivedUser

So i dont have a link to this but i believe it was mentioned that certain nodes can excel at having certain resources that other nodes may not have. This is obviously for emphasizing the economy and trade. For example a node by a mountainside can have access to a certain kind of ore while a node surrounded by a forest has large quantities of wood. 
     
     So my question is what is stopping players from say the "forest node" from going over to the "mountain node" and gathering their ore so they don't have to trade for it or buy it.This would ruin the economy aspect. Aside from distance, there doesnt seem to be any meaningful barrier and distance is hardly a barrier because everyone knows people love to grind in mmos.
 
     My proposed solution is perhaps their should be a limited quantity of resources (which would respawn after a time). This way the distance barrier would be meaningful as players closest to said "mountain node" would have the fastest access to the ore and by the time the players of the "forest node" got there, there wouldnt be any ore left. Of course the flaw with this is that the "forest node" people could camp at the mountain side and just wait for the ore to respawn. Thus i believe that ore respawn times should be given to players who are citizens of said "mountain node" and the "forest node" players would have the respawn times of their wood and so on.

ArchivedUser

What do you guys think of the issue and my solution?

ArchivedUser

Resources are not node specific. An ore deposit may spawn in a particular node, be depleted, then spawn somewhere else. The way people stop others by taking their resources is through "meaningful conflict", meaning you get your group together and kill anyone that comes to take your shinies. This mechanic of non-persistent resource spawns has been confirmed a couple times by the developers. So while node A may be rich in silver this week, once it is depleted it will NOT respawn at the same location, and may respawn totally across the map.

ArchivedUser

Oh makes sense. Thanks for the clarification

ArchivedUser

VoidShadow said:

So i dont have a link to this but i believe it was mentioned that certain nodes can excel at having certain resources that other nodes may not have. This is obviously for emphasizing the economy and trade. For example a node by a mountainside can have access to a certain kind of ore while a node surrounded by a forest has large quantities of wood. 
     
     So my question is what is stopping players from say the "forest node" from going over to the "mountain node" and gathering their ore so they don't have to trade for it or buy it.This would ruin the economy aspect. Aside from distance, there doesnt seem to be any meaningful barrier and distance is hardly a barrier because everyone knows people love to grind in mmos.
 
     My proposed solution is perhaps their should be a limited quantity of resources (which would respawn after a time). This way the distance barrier would be meaningful as players closest to said "mountain node" would have the fastest access to the ore and by the time the players of the "forest node" got there, there wouldnt be any ore left. Of course the flaw with this is that the "forest node" people could camp at the mountain side and just wait for the ore to respawn. Thus i believe that ore respawn times should be given to players who are citizens of said "mountain node" and the "forest node" players would have the respawn times of their wood and so on.

Your solution is already in the design  



Resources are also widely distributed around the map.



Additional information that may be relevant:



Player's carrying capacity is limited and there is limited fast travel. This coupled with the ever-present danger of being ganked, ranging far and wide to gather resources carries risks.

ArchivedUser

Other than the random spawn locations, to answer what is stopping people to simply gather everything themselves? Nothing does, players can gather all needed resources (if they have the required skill for it), but they will also need to count the time to find resource spawns as well as traveling across the map to get to them. 

So simply buying some resources might be easier.

ArchivedUser

They also need to count inventory weight caps, the chance of those willing to take a corruption hit to gain a percentage of those resources, and as mentioned the distance travelled. Risk vs Reward is the name of the game. Your gatherer will also need to be combat ready for the unique gatherables laying in wait as monsters and the inevitable people rping bandits and those just willing to kill someone out on their own for shits and giggles. We won't know until they flesh out the Artisan tier system further how restrictive the whole "you will be able to pursue one path, gatherer, processor, or crafter, not all 3" quote turns out to be.

ArchivedUser

I hope the weight limit will be meaningful/realistic, in a way that theres no need for tiny amount of common recources. As well as slightly slower movementspeed the closer you get to the weight limit, but no ridiculous creeping..
So situations like "you need wood? There are 100 trees, but you cant chop any of them, instead you have to wait 10 minutes for the one chopable tree to respawn somewhere" wont be a thing.
Instead you'd need to visit the forest 10 times to get all the required mats.
And optionaly(to prevent endless grinds) build a slow wheelbarrow kind of thing that can be robbed without penalty if it leaves the owners node.

It would solve the problem with access to other nodes recources, in assumption theres a option for node leaders to disable caravan starts from players without citizenship.
Imo its way more immersive that way and also allows for sneaky expeditions with the wheelbarrow  As well as players coordinating to guard their node's recources from beeing mass harvested by foreigners.
That way players of a node can keep the market share with some effort,
and others could still gather small amount of recources in their bags relatively save (through corruption system) so people that aren't into pvp and economics and just want to create their precious item can do so anyway.

Other more light and rare items like some almost extinct magic flowers would need an extra system, as there couldn't be 100 in the forest and carrying 100 of them on the other hand wouldn't be a problem either.

So maybe these spawn at very variable hidden! places within a node and some npcs talk about their actual position, but they lie/dont talk to players of other nodes.
Maybe make it that depending on the citizens reputation towards the npc/his faction, the npc gives clear or very vague information or even talk in riddles.

Im still thinking about a solution for slightly uncommon recources...

ArchivedUser

VoidShadow said:

     
     So my question is what is stopping players from say the "forest node" from going over to the "mountain node" and gathering their ore so they don't have to trade for it or buy it.

Bagspace.
Bagspace has a carry limit, so sure, you could go and gather it yourself and then travel all teh way back to your node, then go back again and get more again and again. Nothing stopping you from that.
But if you want a large amount you will need to buy it from others and get it transported to your node.
Another thing is that resources are limited and will run out, and it will then take a while before they respawn again. And they will not respawn in the same place as the previous time. So you'd have to go look for them again.

So it all comes down to.. Is the time spent on doing it worth it?

ArchivedUser

there are some suggestions here that look fun to use!

But to answer most of it, like mentioned the limit being able to carry will largely depend on how far people will go and just grind for that in the ZOI other then your "own" ( the one you are a citizen to ) node.

I am convinced that most gathering will be heavily tight in with the caravan system! So you will be able to gather in other zones. But when your limit is reached, you will need to transport! And what then? can you just send a caravan and leave it with only NPC guards! ( i am sure you can do this, question is do you want to?! ). the decision you make to either keep gathering at that time, or choose to defend the caravan will ultimately make for interesting game play! i can't wait for it to find out how this will work out and functions exactly!  

ArchivedUser

Either transport using caravans or craft whatever you need to craft in the node you are in, if you have all the materials on you.

If you're trying to craft something complex that requires materials from all over the world, buying materials from far away nodes might be the best option rather than traveling across the map, gathering and potentially lose your stuff if someone raids your caravan.

ArchivedUser

Since there is no global auction house, calls of "Just go buy it." still have the travel time and inherent danger of transportation for someone involved. If there is no silver (for example) on your side of the world map, you are still going to have to travel to a node where someone has silver set up on their vendor. I can see most people maybe travelling one or two trade centers away to try and cash in on the silver glut in their area to the silver deficient areas. It is always going to be a balancing act of how much danger in caravaning vs the potential profit. If people don't want to move large quantities nearer to you, then you are going to have to ride over, buy what you can carry in the case of a small amount, or caravan a large amount back for you own use, once again, incurring those dangers. All this is going to be a time sink of monumental proportions. If you have to spend 3-4 hours looking at the ass end of your racial mule to get the stuff you need, it is going to get old quick. Then again, this game sold 65 million copies over 40 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game)

ArchivedUser

The planned system is intriguing and will take planing as well as time to implement.  Each aspect of gathering and the market place is intertwined and dependent on others and no one person will be able to tackle it all.  It will take team work and that's what Ashes is all about is it not?  

ArchivedUser

FliP said:

If you're trying to craft something complex that requires materials from all over the world, buying materials from far away nodes might be the best option rather than traveling across the map, gathering and potentially lose your stuff if someone raids your caravan.

To buy something you will have to be in the selling node (no global auctioneer).
And then you still need a caravan to get to your own node with the bought mats, unless you can buy everything all at once in that node to craft it there.
So if you buy or gather mats wouldn't matter much in that scenario..
When you already spend a hour to travel to the node in question, why spend x gold if you get the item for free with another ~10 min effort. The same ~10 min another player of that node would have needed to get to sell you the item.

VoidShadow said:

[...] certain nodes can excel at having certain resources that other nodes may not have. This is obviously for emphasizing the economy and trade. For example a node by a mountainside can have access to a certain kind of ore while a node surrounded by a forest has large quantities of wood. 
     
     So my question is what is stopping players from say the "forest node" from going over to the "mountain node" and gathering their ore so they don't have to trade for it or buy it.This would ruin the economy aspect. [...]

VoidShadow's dobts are reasonable.
There should be a system in place to set citizens of a node in areal advantage to foreigners, otherwise citizenships of particular nodes are meaningless in relation to resources.

lexmax said:

Your solution is already in the design  

lexmax's response isnt quite true, there is no system that sets citizens in a advantage as VoidShadow suggested with timers beeing visible to citizens only.

In fact the first source of lexmax already claims that resources 'won't be locked in node system' aka be independent of the node system.

I think thats sad because as VoidShadow said, the interesting economic aspect between nodes wouldn't/couldn't be existent. And a system that would make economics interesting doesn't even need to be overly complex, while adding huge value to the game.

Such a easy system could potentialy look like the wheelbarrows as i mentioned above, a UI timer as VoidShadow suggested or something completely diffrent. 
My idea with npc's that provide information would need some more effort(even if its only for a few very rare mats), but could connect other fun aspects in the game: treasure hunting, reputation gathering with meaning, word puzzles and ofc economic node interactions. Imo the connection of various little aspects is important to prevent a game to look like everything is just thrown together and coexists somehow.
The actual game design we know about publicly, already scratches some connections between the main pillars, but i havn't seen much connection between minor things at a deep level. But thats the stuff that makes worlds feel alive and imo thats one of the most important parts of a mmorpg, or isnt it?

They at least shouldn't miss out the easy chances to improve game value by alot with little developing cost if they try to revolutionize the mmo genre with just ~33mio$.

ArchivedUser

Uao said:

lexmax's response isnt quite true, there is no system that sets citizens in a advantage as VoidShadow suggested with timers beeing visible to citizens only.

On the contrary,

• Harvesters available for gatherer’s within their citizenship's ZOI
  (Resources over time from resource)
  https://youtu.be/eCvcB4S-tZM?t=35m20s

ArchivedUser

Resources are limited so, maybe a node can harvest some of that one really much but after that it goes away.

To keep enough materials you must have alot of things going on with more nodes and caravans.

ArchivedUser

@Zlitch
Ugh i forgot about this completely, the idea of automatic harvester minigames/bots/passive income is to horrible to keep in mind :x
Maybe also make freeholds phased and loose half your playerbase? WoD anyone?

No really, thats just horrible. I dont have words. 

ArchivedUser

Like many things mentioned six months back, they can be taken as Stevens musings on what he would like to see. The real test is Jeffrey and the others with actual game production experience making it work. So while you have a couple SWG veterans that had automatic harvesters, the way resource spawning worked in that game is radically different from what snippets we have seen so far for this one. Just like the great battle pets debacle, realize that Steven often launches into spiels using jargon in ways that make the underlings cringe. Since anything that is said is taken as gospel they have become much more careful in their word smithing and dropping actual game information. (Paraphrasing) "We will not have soulbound gear, except in the rare cases where we do."

ArchivedUser

So from what i can understand, caravans will be a huge part of resource transportation. Thus i feel i can conclude that this system will be flawed because im sure there will be tons of people robbing caravans for their own gain or for fun. The only defense here is 
1. Caravans are extremely difficult to rob
2. Defend your caravan and dont just send it off with npc guards (extremely time consuming since you can use that time to explore or hunt)
3. Bag space comes into play and you can only rob so much from a caravan. 

number 3 seems the most logical to me. If theres a limit of how much you can steal from a caravan, then there will usually be a profit for caravans instead of outright looting everything. Only way to outright loot an entire caravan worth of goods would be if you gathered a ton of people and convinced them to loot a specific caravan. Only people capable of this would be guilds as i see it so option 3 still seems to have flaws . 

Edit: Option 4, Have a huge cooldown timer between robberies to limit the amount of caravans robbed. by huge i mean by more than 24 hours

ArchivedUser

3. Bag space comes into play and you can only rob so much from a caravan. 

Caravan loot comes in the form of shares that can be turned in at kiosks in cities for the equivalent gold or resource.

ArchivedUser

So why wouldn't you just kill everyone in the caravan and take the wagons and all?

ArchivedUser

ChaosBeer said:

So why wouldn't you just kill everyone in the caravan and take the wagons and all?

Technically, that would be the most logical thing to do, but so far we don't have (or at least I haven't heard of it yet) confirmed caravan riding mechanics. Caravans are operated by NPCs only, so in order to take something from it, the amount will be limited by how much you can carry.

ArchivedUser

I thought we get some percentage of the resources if the attack is successful?

ArchivedUser

Dygz said:

I thought we get some percentage of the resources if the attack is successful?

That is also how I remember it working

ArchivedUser

Same as the two above

ArchivedUser

@Dygz @Zastro @Ziltch scroll up to my response.

ArchivedUser

Which response?
Easier for you to quote what you think is relevant.

I still need to review the Node vids because I recall resources being different based on node location.
Fish aren't going to spawn in a forest or mountain ZOI as abundantly as near a river or ocean ZOI.

ArchivedUser

Sorry @Dygz, I was headed out the door to work and figured that was easiest. I was replying to the last response about caravan loot coming in the form of shares that can be turned in for the resources or gold.

ArchivedUser

What I would prefer is that when you rob a caravan, you need to load stuff up in your own caravan and escort it to city. In this way people that lost caravan still have a chance to recover it if they catch you before you reach destination.

1. Caravan travels from city A to city B
2. Somewhere in between of city A and B caravan is attacked and robbed successfully
3. Defenders force respawn in city A
4. New caravan appears on the spot of where old caravan was lost
5. New caravan starts moving from current spot to city B now with new owners of loot
6. Defeated old caravan owners have a chance to catch caravan and try to regain their losses.

The closer to destination you attack the caravan, the more chance defenders will not catch you in second try, after you robbed them.

But attacking closer to destination, also gives to you only one chance of attack, and no retries also.


I am only not sure how loot would be assigned to new owners. Probably how much certificates you got, that's how much % of loot is yours in new caravan.

If any of the loot owners leaves caravan proximity, his part of loot is equally distributed on rest of defenders.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

How is determined how much certificates are rewarded to caravan attackers?

I think this will be very important issue.

It is not fair that some attacker that joins in but stays at max range, only hits caravan once, and then keeps himself alive, gets equal number of certificates as someone who actively fought.

If it's DPS based, then it will not be fair that tanks and healers get lesser amount of shares than DPS-ers.


I am really curious how this will be awarded.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

Sorry @Dygz, I was headed out the door to work and figured that was easiest. I was replying to the last response about caravan loot coming in the form of shares that can be turned in for the resources or gold.

Thanks!
Your sig pic was too big, I think. I kept scrolling past that post.
I was able to see Steven's Discord quote clearly in Gothix's post.

I like the lore of the writ much better than a new caravan magically springing up.
Or needing to worry about repairing the damaged wagons and acquiring new mounts.

@Gothix
I expect player contribution to caravan/siege/dungeon combat to be tracked by the same mechanic that sends xp to the nodes based on player activity.