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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Caravan Destruction Penalty
What happens when you're a Merchant and send out a caravan carrying gear that you slaved weeks over in gathering/creating, and it is ganked by a group who destroyes your caravan?
Do you lose 100% percent of the stored gear, or only a part?
Do you lose 100% percent of the stored gear, or only a part?
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As of right now they have not declared whether 100 percent of a caravan is looted, but most likely that is the case. Last quote was that successful attackers that gain the option to loot will be given share certificates that they can turn in for a portion of the loot. Until they release details (much further down the line) that is all we have to go on.
Just like the corruption system is in place to stop indiscriminate open world ganking, the caravan as pvp is part of their core gameplay. You may not like it, but it isn't going to change without a large change in vision of how they want the game to play. And as always, you don't have to send goods via caravan, you can sell them in your home node. Risk vs Reward and all that.
That said, if the caravans varied in size based on load we might see a lot of single wagon "caravans" and less wagon-train caravans about. One would, I assume, be easier to hit/destroy while the other would have a much higher payout for success.
Steven has mentioned that carrying capacity is limited by both space and weight. We have seen the space limitations by a grid like in WoW from the A0 game play; The weight has likely not being implemented yet and the sizes of the inventory in A0 are likely no indication to the sizes we will see further down development, we can only form an idea of how the inventory works.
Point being that Steven has said weight is applied to gatherables and materials and not to Currency, that's it, we don't know about stuff like gear but lets assume gear has no weight to it. Meaning that Caravans will likely be used for carrying materials and not gear. Point being you could choose to carry the specially valuable stuff with you in a mule with PvP turned off in low quantities and make more than one trip. Or take a risk for the sake of time and take a caravan.
http://www.aocwiki.net/TheLazyPeon_Q&A_2017-05-15#.5B45:20.5D_Is_there_going_to_be_a_way_to_increase_your_character.27s_base_weight_limit_in-game.3F
This means that players need to take the risk in order to get the reward. This not only will make content for players but it encourage players to team up and cooperate with each other. I'm always so amazed by the amount of people who want to play an MMO with out ever having to interact with other person. Go play Skyrim then.
Setting it up so the reward is such that it's worth that risk is going to be the hard part. Obviously, just getting your cargo somewhere else isn't going to be enough of a reward to risk losing it altogether.
The reward for caravans is the part they conveniently haven't given a single detail about, because it's the hardest part to figure out and is the linchpin of the mechanic working at all.
That allows the fanbois to just keep mindlessly chanting "it's alpha, it's alpha" and "it's not done yet, it's not done yet".
In Ashes it will be very important to help your node not only grow, but keep enough resources coming in to prevent decay. I feel like a lot of people over look this core mechanic as being rewarding.
If a successful caravan run earns you 100% of the rewards, then failure should net you the same amount of loss.
a) get certificates for %cargo reward (certain gain)
b) hijack caravan - no reward, caravan continues from spot where you attacked to further target destination from where it is, and IF you manage to escort it to there you get full cargo reward (full reward but with risk that you will get attacked yourself along the way, and loose it all)
Option B would add a chance for previous cargo owner to track down stolen caravan and grab it back, in which case he also gets to choose A or B, and if he chooses B, then he takes over caravan and continue to escort it, which again opens the caravan for attack.
Caravan remains a target as long as it is not successfully escorted to destination OR someone chooses option A upon victory, destroys caravan and gets certificates for %reward.
If they included this option my only request is you have to declare it before the attack begins, like when you decide to flag purple. Other than that, I love this idea!
Yeah. Excellent idea. So anywhere outside the nodes becomes a football pitch.
The caravans become a football that remain in play until someone puts it in the back of the net (destination node).
Make me wonder about multi team football now, with more than two teams and more than two goalnets all sharing the same pitch.
lol.
I believe it was previously stated that caravan attacks would be a combination of planning, and luck, which won't be easy. There is no single route to a caravan's destination, so spying into a traders plans, by a potential attacker, would fall under "planning". A roving group of bandits who just happened to pick the right road to lay an ambush, as a plump caravan rolls their way, would fall under "luck".
The only way @Gothix's idea would work, is if traders set up "checkpoints" along the caravan's travel route, consisting of small groups of PC's, who would relay to all concerned when the caravan would reach them. If the caravan didn't reach a certain checkpoint in time, then all PC's would begin a "search and rescue" mission.
That's a lot of manpower/resources. Either a large guild, or a guild with a necessary amount of alliances, would be able to pull something like this off. Or, a guild/player(s) with deep pockets, to hire lots of mercs.
Well caravan would always go between A and B (original start point and destination), and it would always go towards further destination from spot where it was attacked, so if previous caravan owner was aware of the attack spot, he would know caravan destination.
For catching up with caravan, friends help come into play. That previous owner obviously needed more help anyway since he lost the battle, so would be pointless to catch it again and attack alone for sure.
Only question is how to decide A or B between number of players that would want different choice. I'd say, at the moment battle ends, if attackers are victorious, whoever from attackers is there would get a vote window, and votes would be counted. Majority vote wins.
If caravan is hijacked, all people that voted either way become caravan escort. And from that point on, hey if someone wishes to abandon escorting the caravan, he can. He will be aware that he is losing chance to get the loot.