Is preventing Fast travel bypassed by Live Info ?

ArchivedUser

There has been much talk about exposing live game information to the outside world. Its part of the stretch goals.

One of the greatest fears of Intrepid was the idea of zerg balls rolling from one caravan to the other and being exactly where the action was through instant travel. So to prevent that, instant travel would not be possible. So that way no one could swamp a battle area en-masse due to the  lack of time to organise forces. The itinerary and routes would be hidden to enhance this.

Now what if your position was available live so that guilds could track where there players were and what they were upto ? Seems innocent and reasonable. You can organise your forces and play as guild general on the battlefield.

Now the problem. As a large guild with many players, I can also have my scouts following all the caravans from all destinations to gather intel. I also have a live map of all of my players that are following all caravans. So in effect, I know where all caravans are at all times and can therefore know far in advance where all caravans will be and when. I can have all of my forces in place to ambush any caravan at leisure.....including having my zerg balls laying in wait.

So if live intel that is globally accessible makes impeding fast travel irrelevant as I can predict and follow.
How does eliminating fast travel stop the zerg problem when I can prepare far in advance ?

ArchivedUser

This is why you will want to keep your launch times a secret. If your scouts only pick up on the caravan when it launches, then because of the lack of fast travel, your guild will not have enough time to travel to it's destination. 

If you learn of the caravan ahead of time, then yes, you will have time to blow the zerg horn and mobilize but information goes both ways. If they learn that you are getting ready for them they probably wont launch so you could end up just wasting your guilds time getting ready for a caravan that isn't coming. Even if you learn of a caravan, you might want to keep it on the down low. Send a smaller group to avoid suspicion and reduce the chance of a spy exposing your movements.

ArchivedUser

I think that is the key problem...time...and how much of it....determines if the caravans can be zerged.

Heres the thing though. If the caravan only takes 30s to get from A to B. Then yes, not only will no zerg get there in time unless they were already there.....but no one would be able to attack the caravan anyway.

If it takes half hour, you actually make the caravan a meaningful event where there will actually be attacks along the route. But the more time you allow for attacks en-route the more time you give zergs to get into place.

This is where the scout problem lies. If the caravan is too quick no PvP will take place. If the caravan is too slow, it will give guilds plenty of time to prepare and ambush in numbers and zerg the caravan.

There will not be an unlimited amount of routes between A and B. It wont take long to figure out the route the caravan will take. Especially in bad weather where there may only be one route open.

At the end of the day. If you want to get a reasonable number of players time to attack the caravan, you must by default give zergs plenty of time to prepare.

ArchivedUser

I think the initial premise is flawed. It is being based off of the idea that a large guild is going to have the members to place people 24/7 to watch trade routes, then be able to coordinated and pop a moving zerg ball to attack caravans at will. You can believe that people are going to sit around staring at the path they have been assigned for hours on end, waiting to give possible news of a caravan to their guild. Or, you can go with the more likely scenario of that you are going to try and turn the game into something not fun, and your people are going to ignore you and do what they want anyways. More likely it will function how they have envisioned. People will be out doing their regular stuff, see a caravan, and give a shout out about where it was, and where it was headed. Then people could form up and attack. 

ArchivedUser

Guilds would like people doing lots of their stuff 'in town' and ideally as many towns as possible and would therefore notice caravan movement without putting themselves out IMHO. Especially with caravans being a pivotal feature of the game. Nobody has to watch trade routes as all caravans start from a town/node.

If a guilds player can be tracked live, and the player follows the caravan, then the caravan is tracked. The player becomes the homing beacon for the zerg. A node will live and die by those transit lines. Who would ignore them ?

Plus large guilds would be expected to have large populations in many towns to trade. If they know a caravan is headed to the town they are in, it is no issue for them to move out and meet it en-masse. Why pay for goods you can get for free ?

ArchivedUser

I could see 5-15 minutes being a good time frame. It's enough time for people in the area to react but not enough time for a people to travel and organize for it. We don't know enough about how routes work. 

This is my understanding of the system (i'm not the best at explaining but i'll try):

Caravans, at least private ones, are not supposed to be public, pinata, pvp events. They are how players transport resources. They are vulnerable to pvp but every trip isn't supposed to be a massive pvp battle.

The vulnerability is there to allow players to turn them into pvp events. It's a tool. It gives players a way to attack(and damage) their enemies. Yes, the system is open and allows players to play as bandits but i don't think it's there so the server can zerg down every little crafter who wants to transport some goods. 

ArchivedUser

Lol, going to be lots of pissed of mayors out there when their own populations keep ransacking caravans either leaving or heading into their nodes. "Hey, Bobsmacker has his caravan heading out, lets race ahead and wait till we can flag on it. Fuck that guy."

ArchivedUser

Should you track caravans and have enough members (I remember a game with guilds going into the 500-600) it is just a proper distribution of people throughout regions to just zerg almost everything down. The thing is that amount of people someone can in the end commit to it will in most cases (skilled groups apart) give the more populace group the upperhand and most likely the victory. So it goes both ways. How big is the "zerg" guild and how many people can others throw against it to stop them.

ArchivedUser

McStackerson said:

I could see 5-15 minutes being a good time frame. It's enough time for people in the area to react but not enough time for a people to travel and organize for it. We don't know enough about how routes work. 

This is my understanding of the system (i'm not the best at explaining but i'll try):

Caravans, at least private ones, are not supposed to be public, pinata, pvp events. They are how players transport resources. They are vulnerable to pvp but every trip isn't supposed to be a massive pvp battle.

The vulnerability is there to allow players to turn them into pvp events. It's a tool. It gives players a way to attack(and damage) their enemies. Yes, the system is open and allows players to play as bandits but i don't think it's there so the server can zerg down every little crafter who wants to transport some goods. 

'Caravans are not supposed to be public piñata events'

Think about this a minute.
The castle system are 1 week events. They are not constant PvP.
The Siege system is not instant gratification either there is a declaration and preparation period and a timed event. They are not constant PvP.
The arena system does offer instant gratification but it is instanced and not open world AFAIK.
That leaves caravans as the only real open world PvP that is available for constant and instant gratification....but only if you happen to be near a caravan.

Now if I am a PvP playing looking for constant open world PvP ..how do i get it other than the caravan system. The way I see it everyone and their dog will be itching for some PvP action and descending on caravans like a rampant rabbit.

Wrong ?

5-15 minutes might be a good time....but I guess that depends on the distance between nodes with no fast travel available.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

Lol, going to be lots of pissed of mayors out there when their own populations keep ransacking caravans either leaving or heading into their nodes. "Hey, Bobsmacker has his caravan heading out, lets race ahead and wait till we can flag on it. Fuck that guy."

I wasnt actually referring to a mayors own population or the native population of the node. I was talking about foreigners to the node that are there to trade. I dont believe only residents are allowed to enter a node and trade. There is no global auction house.

BUT.... why not lol.

ArchivedUser

This could be a great reason for alts. Leave one by each of the major routes. 

I think this issue is only prevalent if caravans are slow and rare. If there are 60 caravans at any given time and they move at about 2/3 mounted speed then a rolling Zerg ball won't be able to hit a majority. 

The Zerg risk can also be mitigated by a small loot that now has to spread 45 ways

I think we will be ok on this issue

ArchivedUser

Althor said:

This could be a great reason for alts. Leave one by each of the major routes. 

I think this issue is only prevalent if caravans are slow and rare. If there are 60 caravans at any given time and they move at about 2/3 mounted speed then a rolling Zerg ball won't be able to hit a majority. 

The Zerg risk can also be mitigated by a small loot that now has to spread 45 ways

I think we will be ok on this issue

Yep ...we might be ok on this issue. But it doesn't hurt to consider possible problems before they happen.

ArchivedUser

Time is always going to be a factor.

Yes, your scout may detect a small caravan that is inside the AOR for your guild.   However, it may be on the far outskirts of it.  And it may be heading in the oppositie direction of your main forces.

So now, you decide to engage it.  But that's going to pull you thinner.   It also means that you are going to only have whoever you have with you locally to go and hit the caravan.  You won't be able to wait for reinforcements from the center of your AOR to come to you, because by the time they arrive, the caravan will have made it to its destination.

Now sure you have 300 people in your guild.  You decide that you are going to rampage all around an area.  That's fine.  Totally expected that people will do this.

Remember though, this is like Eve.  If you fly 60 mins out to find PvP and fun, you have to fly 60 mins home.   

Its not port from A to B to C to D to E and run the alphabet twice over every night.  You travel way the hell over there to the West for fun tonight.  You have to drag your butt back to the center tomorrow, and you may very well find you spend an awful lot of your "prime" play time moving back and forth from far out targets.  

That's where the lack of fast travel will have the biggest impact.   Its not the stopping them from getting there that's going to be the major deterrent.  its the time they are going to have to spend getting to the NEXT target.  

ArchivedUser

Jahlon said:

Remember though, this is like Eve.  If you fly 60 mins out to find PvP and fun, you have to fly 60 mins home.   

Its not port from A to B to C to D to E and run the alphabet twice over every night.  You travel way the hell over there to the West for fun tonight.  You have to drag your butt back to the center tomorrow, and you may very well find you spend an awful lot of your "prime" play time moving back and forth from far out targets.  

That's where the lack of fast travel will have the biggest impact.   Its not the stopping them from getting there that's going to be the major deterrent.  its the time they are going to have to spend getting to the NEXT target.  

Which actually adds weight to the argument with what you have said. If people dont want to travels for hours every day they will stick to areas. So large guilds will have puddles of players in different nodes. How is a large guild going to exert its influence without sticking its fingers into as many nodes as possible, from a trade perspective alone.

A small guild wont be able to travel all over the place so cant be everywhere at once. A large guild by the obvious property of having a large population, will in contrast have the ability to be everywhere at once. They dont need to get from A to B if someone at A tells the person at B a caravan is on the way to them.

ArchivedUser

Rune_Relic said:

Jahlon said:

Remember though, this is like Eve.  If you fly 60 mins out to find PvP and fun, you have to fly 60 mins home.   

Its not port from A to B to C to D to E and run the alphabet twice over every night.  You travel way the hell over there to the West for fun tonight.  You have to drag your butt back to the center tomorrow, and you may very well find you spend an awful lot of your "prime" play time moving back and forth from far out targets.  

That's where the lack of fast travel will have the biggest impact.   Its not the stopping them from getting there that's going to be the major deterrent.  its the time they are going to have to spend getting to the NEXT target.  

Which actually adds weight to the argument with what you have said. If people dont want to travels for hours every day they will stick to areas. So large guilds will have puddles of players in different nodes. How is a large guild going to exert its influence without sticking its fingers into as many nodes as possible, from a trade perspective alone.

A small guild wont be able to travel all over the place so cant be everywhere at once. A large guild by the obvious property of having a large population, will in contrast have the ability to be everywhere at once. They dont need to get from A to B if someone at A tells the person at B a caravan is on the way to them.

We also don't know what a guild had to sacrifice in order to increase it's member cap. If mount speed or caravan speeds can have points put into then instead of membership cap to I to could go from a worry to strategic fun.

Also I don't believe the caravans have to go in the same path every time. Person at A calls ahead to B but caravan goes to W.

ArchivedUser

Rune_Relic said:

Which actually adds weight to the argument with what you have said. If people dont want to travels for hours every day they will stick to areas. So large guilds will have puddles of players in different nodes. How is a large guild going to exert its influence without sticking its fingers into as many nodes as possible, from a trade perspective alone.

A small guild wont be able to travel all over the place so cant be everywhere at once. A large guild by the obvious property of having a large population, will in contrast have the ability to be everywhere at once. They dont need to get from A to B if someone at A tells the person at B a caravan is on the way to them.

True, but remember, if the large guild has puddles of players in different nodes, and those puddles of players are separated by a significant time delay in receiving reinforcements, then it doesn't matter that they are a large guild.    

As far as intel, well intel is intel.  Still, if you can't follow that caravan, then the best you are going to be able to say is that "Jahlon's caravan left Point A headed West"  unless you are willing to follow it, you have no idea where I go with it.  

Remember, Caravans don't have to stick to roads.  

ArchivedUser

Althor said:

Rune_Relic said:

Jahlon said:

Remember though, this is like Eve.  If you fly 60 mins out to find PvP and fun, you have to fly 60 mins home.   

Its not port from A to B to C to D to E and run the alphabet twice over every night.  You travel way the hell over there to the West for fun tonight.  You have to drag your butt back to the center tomorrow, and you may very well find you spend an awful lot of your "prime" play time moving back and forth from far out targets.  

That's where the lack of fast travel will have the biggest impact.   Its not the stopping them from getting there that's going to be the major deterrent.  its the time they are going to have to spend getting to the NEXT target.  

Which actually adds weight to the argument with what you have said. If people dont want to travels for hours every day they will stick to areas. So large guilds will have puddles of players in different nodes. How is a large guild going to exert its influence without sticking its fingers into as many nodes as possible, from a trade perspective alone.

A small guild wont be able to travel all over the place so cant be everywhere at once. A large guild by the obvious property of having a large population, will in contrast have the ability to be everywhere at once. They dont need to get from A to B if someone at A tells the person at B a caravan is on the way to them.

We also don't know what a guild had to sacrifice in order to increase it's member cap. If mount speed or caravan speeds can have points put into then instead of membership cap to I to could go from a worry to strategic fun.

Also I don't believe the caravans have to go in the same path every time. Person at A calls ahead to B but caravan goes to W.

Yep. Could play on the mechanics with a buff / sacrifice system. Nice point.

The second point I will dispute. 1. The caravan will always end up at a node. So depending how many nodes will determine a valid and probably limited list of destinations. 2. Refers back to the potential tracking issue where the guild scout simply follows the caravan. You dont need to know where the caravan is....just 1 guild scout giving you live updates. Especially if the guild leader has a live map with player pins on it, telling everyone exactly where they need to be heading at any instant, to head off the caravan.

ArchivedUser

Jahlon said:

Rune_Relic said:

Which actually adds weight to the argument with what you have said. If people dont want to travels for hours every day they will stick to areas. So large guilds will have puddles of players in different nodes. How is a large guild going to exert its influence without sticking its fingers into as many nodes as possible, from a trade perspective alone.

A small guild wont be able to travel all over the place so cant be everywhere at once. A large guild by the obvious property of having a large population, will in contrast have the ability to be everywhere at once. They dont need to get from A to B if someone at A tells the person at B a caravan is on the way to them.

True, but remember, if the large guild has puddles of players in different nodes, and those puddles of players are separated by a significant time delay in receiving reinforcements, then it doesn't matter that they are a large guild.    

As far as intel, well intel is intel.  Still, if you can't follow that caravan, then the best you are going to be able to say is that "Jahlon's caravan left Point A headed West"  unless you are willing to follow it, you have no idea where I go with it.  

Remember, Caravans don't have to stick to roads.  

I have tried to answer this in the last reply ^. But;
1. You are right about caravans dont have to stick to roads.....except....the rougher the terrain the longer the duration without the right caravan build. Making you a greater target.
2. The weather will dictate what roads and routes are open. There may only be 1 route in thick snow and ice.

But as @Althor alluded to....If you was given a choice between a lightly defensive but fast caravan or a heavily defensive but slow caravan..what would you choose ? Hope you are fast enough to escape interception or increase the likely hood of interception and try to survive it.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone anyway.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

I think the initial premise is flawed. It is being based off of the idea that a large guild is going to have the members to place people 24/7 to watch trade routes, then be able to coordinated and pop a moving zerg ball to attack caravans at will. You can believe that people are going to sit around staring at the path they have been assigned for hours on end, waiting to give possible news of a caravan to their guild. Or, you can go with the more likely scenario of that you are going to try and turn the game into something not fun, and your people are going to ignore you and do what they want anyways. More likely it will function how they have envisioned. People will be out doing their regular stuff, see a caravan, and give a shout out about where it was, and where it was headed. Then people could form up and attack. 

This exactly. Scouts and stationed players can't be a thing because its not real life and no one has the patience to stick around and sit. Its going to be more like:

1. Spot a caravan
2. Know the route its going or the possible routes it may take if there are forks in the pathways.
3.Alert guild members in the vicinity and set up an ambush.

This requires knowledge of the route and luck in guessing the correct route. It also requires a reasonable amount of guild members to be in said area to set up an ambush which in such a large world is rather difficult. Attacks on caravans will be unlikely but possible i think. Another possibility would be to constantly harass a caravan with a small amount of players to slow its process and allow rienforcements to arrive but zerging a caravan will be nearly impossible unless you just happen to be traveling with half your guild and spot a caravan.

ArchivedUser

Rune_Relic said:

Guilds would like people doing lots of their stuff 'in town' and ideally as many towns as possible and would therefore notice caravan movement without putting themselves out IMHO. Especially with caravans being a pivotal feature of the game. Nobody has to watch trade routes as all caravans start from a town/node.

If a guilds player can be tracked live, and the player follows the caravan, then the caravan is tracked. The player becomes the homing beacon for the zerg. A node will live and die by those transit lines. Who would ignore them ?

Plus large guilds would be expected to have large populations in many towns to trade. If they know a caravan is headed to the town they are in, it is no issue for them to move out and meet it en-masse. Why pay for goods you can get for free ?

     If your guild resides in a town and sees a caravan coming to said town and decides to attack thats great and all. But know that youll likely only be able to pull that kind of horse crap a few times. You will damage diplomatic relations and no one will trade with you because your node will be known to function like pirates causing your node to suffer economically. Also you prob wouldnt want to attack caravans from other nodes within your nodes zone of influence.

ArchivedUser

No one here seems to have considered players defending a caravan. You can easily hire players to defend your caravan which would require the attacker to have even more numbers to successfully pull of an attack. Not to mention counter ambushes. If a node sends a crap ton of resources in 1 caravan and really needs this caravan to reach its destination well you could get guilds to set up a counter ambush. The thing here is that the attacker is at an intel disadvantage. They require organization time and dont have exact knowledge of where a caravan is heading. While a counter ambusher (caravan defenders) know exactly where a caravan is going and when it will arrive. The only thing a defender doesnt know is the location of the attack but if you see a large group of players assembling or running towards the relative location of your caravan then its pretty obvious. Also if scouts tracking is an issue, assasins killing scouts to throw them off is a counter to this issue. The only problem being that assasins can be costly to hire because killing a person out of suspicion hes a scout will get you corruption.

ArchivedUser

VoidShadow said:

Rune_Relic said:

Guilds would like people doing lots of their stuff 'in town' and ideally as many towns as possible and would therefore notice caravan movement without putting themselves out IMHO. Especially with caravans being a pivotal feature of the game. Nobody has to watch trade routes as all caravans start from a town/node.

If a guilds player can be tracked live, and the player follows the caravan, then the caravan is tracked. The player becomes the homing beacon for the zerg. A node will live and die by those transit lines. Who would ignore them ?

Plus large guilds would be expected to have large populations in many towns to trade. If they know a caravan is headed to the town they are in, it is no issue for them to move out and meet it en-masse. Why pay for goods you can get for free ?

     If your guild resides in a town and sees a caravan coming to said town and decides to attack thats great and all. But know that youll likely only be able to pull that kind of horse crap a few times. You will damage diplomatic relations and no one will trade with you because your node will be known to function like pirates causing your node to suffer economically. Also you prob wouldnt want to attack caravans from other nodes within your nodes zone of influence.

Why trade with others when you can steal it ? I am sure there are many players and guilds that will be just fine setup as highway man and still trade where they can. Most people at the end of the day want to sell goods more than worry about who they are selling to.  And just because one guild has a dim impressions and 'experience' as they say, doesnt necessarily follow that everyone will have the same view.

ArchivedUser

VoidShadow said:

No one here seems to have considered players defending a caravan. You can easily hire players to defend your caravan which would require the attacker to have even more numbers to successfully pull of an attack. Not to mention counter ambushes. If a node sends a crap ton of resources in 1 caravan and really needs this caravan to reach its destination well you could get guilds to set up a counter ambush. The thing here is that the attacker is at an intel disadvantage. They require organization time and dont have exact knowledge of where a caravan is heading. While a counter ambusher (caravan defenders) know exactly where a caravan is going and when it will arrive. The only thing a defender doesnt know is the location of the attack but if you see a large group of players assembling or running towards the relative location of your caravan then its pretty obvious. Also if scouts tracking is an issue, assasins killing scouts to throw them off is a counter to this issue. The only problem being that assasins can be costly to hire because killing a person out of suspicion hes a scout will get you corruption.

Ever heard of an inside job ?

But yes counter intelligence will be a thing. Good point anyway.