Let's chat about the (the future) mechanics of the caravan system

Greetings piles of ash~!

I want to talk about the mechanics of the caravan system and some of my opinions on it.

To begin with, I know of the current system in place and I'm not asking about how it works.

So, It is my opinion that the current system is a good first iteration, but there is so much more that could be done with it.
The 1 major aspect of the current system that I find restricting is that flagging for caravan PvP is only done only withing LOS of the caravan. I personally think that this restriction makes this system too shallow for long term play-ability.

To understand where I'm coming from, one of the games I have played in the past had a really good trading caravan system was Silk Road Online (Don't bother with the rest of that grindy bot infested game though...).
A quick overview of that system was that there were 3 factions: Traders, Hunters and Thieves.

Traders would have a hauling mount and would buy trading goods from once city and haul them to another city to sell at a (guaranteed) profit. Along the way, npc thieves would occasionally spawn forcing the trader to deal with them.
Hunters are automatically allied to traders and can defend traders from npc and player thieves. They may or may not take compensation for this. Hunters wear an ID tag to identify themselves as hunters.
Thieves are at open pvp with traders and hunters. Their goal is to kill the traders hauling mount, spawn their own, steal the dropped goods and sell the goods at the fence npc in the thieves guilds hideout. Thieves wear the Thieves Armor to identify themselves as a thief. Thieves can also create alias which they would plunder under, hiding their real identity.

For Hunters and Thieves, when you have your job item equipped (Id or Armor), you are pvp flagged globally to each other (except for in cities).
This pvp flag was separate to the global pvp flagging system. This allowed for dynamic tactics and map positioning battles between the factions.
(FYI SRO's flagging system is that you can alt+click on any player above lvl 20 and attack/kill them and doing so puts you in a murder state)

I believe AoC's system could benefit much from modelling after SRO's. More specifically the global flagging mechanics that is outside the regular global pvp flagging mechanism.
Let me list what I might want the system to eventually look like:

Traders load up their caravans with goodies as it is now.
People can register as one time guards for the caravan in the node before the caravan leaves.
People can register as trader guards for either that nodes region or perhaps globally.
People can perform a quest-line triggered from an npc in a town node or above which leads them to a hideout/shady merchant either in that node or somewhere within that nodes territory.
From this hideout, you can globally flag as a merchant thief.
If thieves manage to break a caravan, instead of that caravan dropping the loot directly, it drops goods crates which need to be looted, transported to and opened at a thief hideout/outpost.
Thieves can be intercepted by guards before they reach a hideout/outpost and the items dropped for either the trader to come back and collect them or left to de-spawn.
Thief outposts change location randomly within a region to prevent these places being camped.
Thief outpost locations are known only to thieves.

Having a global pvp flagging system around the trading system could bring in more depth and strategy to this. Instead of just a big battle around the caravan all the time, we could see smaller skirmishes between scouting groups and ambushing groups.

Anyhoodles, what do people think about the current system and/or my proposal? What are your dreams and aspirations of the caravan system?

Cheers all~!

edit1: Update SRO thieves description with alias system.

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Comments

tugowar

Not quite what you're talking about, but there are "global flags" too. Nodes can be at war with other nodes, so they are flagged against each other. Guilds against other guilds, etc. There's a whole hierachy.

I assume that if you are in Guild A and I am in Guild B, that first Guild B is a much much cooler guild, and second assumption is that I will automatically be an attacker against your caravan if we are at a guild war. We're already at war.

Likewise, I can be an outline in a node's ZOI if I'm from a warring node. I would expect our caravans to already be tagged.

Noaani

Botagar wrote: »

Instead of just a big battle around the caravan all the time

I don't think you understand the caravan system.

Most caravans will get to their destination without incident - this is by design.

The design of the caravan system is that the only real threat you are supposed to face are groups that are passing through the area to get to content.

Caravans are not supposed to be giant flags that yell "PvP HERE!".

phdmonster

Well, the line of sight thing is a bit silly, yes.
I don't see why i need to be able to see the caravan directly. Or if i am say on a hill and i can see the caravan moving in the distance i can still get the prompt? Otherwise it's not line of sight, it's within a certain range and line of sight.

Personally, i think just being in a certain range around the caravan is good enough to get a prompt to pass/defend/attack. Then there would be a fun little game of finding where exactly the caravan is so you can join the fun.

The requirement for line of sight kinda ruins ambushes and surprise attacks in general.

Botagar

noaani wrote: »

Botagar wrote: »

Instead of just a big battle around the caravan all the time

...
Most caravans will get to their destination without incident - this is by design.
...

I don't know if we (or the devs) can assume this.

The fact that there is a specialized pvp system being worked on around caravans tells me that the devs anticipate some kind of conflict around it. I'm just trying to expand on it.

tugowar

What we can assume is that my guild b is superior to your guild a.

Let's not just breeze by my jokes. Good jokes are rare for me.

Botagar

tugowar wrote: »

Not quite what you're talking about, but there are "global flags" too. Nodes can be at war with other nodes, so they are flagged against each other. Guilds against other guilds, etc. There's a whole hierachy.

I assume that if you are in Guild A and I am in Guild B, that first Guild B is a much much cooler guild, and second assumption is that I will automatically be an attacker against your caravan if we are at a guild war. We're already at war.

Likewise, I can be an outline in a node's ZOI if I'm from a warring node. I would expect our caravans to already be tagged.

I know of the current global flagging systems proposed for the game. this would be another one.
There's something i forgot to add from SRO's system was that Thieves could create alia's for themselves so you wouldn't know who it was attacking you. So in theory you could have people from the same guild on opposite sides of this conflict.

HazardNumberSeven

Since there's no fast travel you would both have to know when and where a caravan is traveling to attack it.
If a caravan is spotted, even if that person tells all their friends, it might take them too long to get there in which time you can respond to being spotted (if you know) by also trying to get reinforcements.

There will likely still be groups that patrol travel routes hoping to stumble across caravans. I expect most of the time they will find nothing ... I imagine you and your friends would go out on a patrol and try your luck, but chances are there's not even a caravan being moved right now.

The advantage is always with the transporter because they get to choose whether to transport or not. You can simply wait until your enemies are scarce and your allies aren't .. beef up with as much defense as possible and head out. This gives you the upper-hand because you have the information of 'when' and the enemy doesn't unless they spied it out of you. 'When' is a very powerful tool.

Botagar

@hazardnumberseven Theres 2 aspects you haven't mention here

If you've ever played EVE or Darkfall or other games with heavy PvP focus, you'll find that people are willing to put in HOURS of searching for a tiny bit of pvp. If its possible, it will be done.
To add to the previous point, people will flag as a faction for casual group pvp that doesn't involve their more personal alliances (such as guild members). I saw this first hand in my time at SRO

I don't think it's a bad thing that the advantage is with the transporter btw.

Noaani

Botagar wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Botagar wrote: »

Instead of just a big battle around the caravan all the time

...
Most caravans will get to their destination without incident - this is by design.
...

I don't know if we (or the devs) can assume this.

The fact that there is a specialized pvp system being worked on around caravans tells me that the devs anticipate some kind of conflict around it. I'm just trying to expand on it.

We kind of can, and they have kind of said.

With no fast travel, players can't really organize themselves to take on a moving target with any sort of numbers, so the only threat are the people that are already there.

There is conflict around it, for sure. There will always be a risk that your caravan will happen across a larger group that are willing to take the time out to defeat you.

In Silk Road, the system at play was one of money - you risk some in order to make more.

In Ashes, caravans are about moving resources to the place where the next step in their production can happen. It isn't a source of profit, it is a step in crafting.

HazardNumberSeven

Botagar wrote: »

@hazardnumberseven Theres 2 aspects you haven't mention here
If you've ever played EVE or Darkfall or other games with heavy PvP focus, you'll find that people are willing to put in HOURS of searching for a tiny bit of pvp. If its possible, it will be done.

To add to the previous point, people will flag as a faction for casual group pvp that doesn't involve their more personal alliances (such as guild members). I saw this first hand in my time at SRO

I don't think it's a bad thing that the advantage is with the transporter btw.

True, and I agree. Thanks for adding those aspects. I for one am one of those players. Me and my friends are pretty used to roaming/patroling our territory and even enemy territory all day without encountering a single hostile and it's still fun for us because the 'possibility' is there, and if we don't search we don't find.

Botagar

noaani wrote: »

With no fast travel, players can't really organize themselves to take on a moving target with any sort of numbers, so the only threat are the people that are already there.

I suspect that given the terrain is mostly fixed, optimal travel paths will be discovered/developed. So in theory yes, the search space is near infinite but in reality we are lazy, stupid creatures who fail to learn from our mistakes and thus I can see common hot spots of conflict forming.
Think Eve online. A common trade route is Jita to Amarr. Park yourself and a few friends along that route as a gank squad and eventually something juicy will roll on by.

noaani wrote: »

In Silk Road, the system at play was one of money - you risk some in order to make more.

In Ashes, caravans are about moving resources to the place where the next step in their production can happen. It isn't a source of profit, it is a step in crafting.

True, SRO's system was designed for playing to generate in game currency. AoC's is designed to move goods around. But ultimately if there's resources to be gained, then people will plunder. It is a form of profit (the hauler make more money from certificates and perhaps better prices on raw materials; the attacker get free stuff).

I'm not suggesting that we take the caravan system as it is now and make it into what SRO had. They fulfill different purposes. I'm suggesting that we could probably take aspects of the SRO system to deepen the AoC one.

Noaani

Botagar wrote: »

I suspect that given the terrain is mostly fixed, optimal travel paths will be discovered/developed. So in theory yes, the search space is near infinite but in reality we are lazy, stupid creatures who fail to learn from our mistakes and thus I can see common hot spots of conflict forming.
Think Eve online. A common trade route is Jita to Amarr. Park yourself and a few friends along that route as a gank squad and eventually something juicy will roll on by.

While this may be possible, there are a few specific points.

Since resources shift often, exactly which routes caravans take will also shift often. We could well be talking about daily occurances.

Also, since the resources that come in a caravan are used to generally make the destination node more powerful (in several direct and indirect ways) it wouldn't be that out of place to assume that if players saw people skulking around a road looking like they wanted to take out a caravan, they would jump in as defense if they are there when a caravan does show up.

Also, there will be multiple routes that caravans can take. It has been said that options for different routes to teh same destination could open up by a lake freexing over in winter and such - which suggests that following roads is not required. Thus, players hiding out in one spot are likely to miss more caravans than they catch.

Botagar

noaani wrote: »

While this may be possible, there are a few specific points.

Since resources shift often, exactly which routes caravans take will also shift often. We could well be talking about daily occurances.

Can you expand on this? My understanding is that people will be gathering resources within the boundaries of a node, and the resources themselves stored in that node center.
The caravans would be used to transfer resources from node center to node center (which are fixed on the map) or node center to player housing (more variable but still fixed on the map).
Is it expected that caravans are used in say logging operations? General PvE?

noaani wrote: »

Also, since the resources that come in a caravan are used to generally make the destination node more powerful (in several direct and indirect ways) it wouldn't be that out of place to assume that if players saw people skulking around a road looking like they wanted to take out a caravan, they would jump in as defense if they are there when a caravan does show up.

Yup always a possibility.

noaani wrote: »

Also, there will be multiple routes that caravans can take. It has been said that options for different routes to teh same destination could open up by a lake freexing over in winter and such - which suggests that following roads is not required. Thus, players hiding out in one spot are likely to miss more caravans than they catch.

We're talking player tactics at this point, not system mechanics.

Noaani

Botagar wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

While this may be possible, there are a few specific points.

Since resources shift often, exactly which routes caravans take will also shift often. We could well be talking about daily occurances.

Can you expand on this?

Resources spawn, resources are harvested, resources despawn, resources respawn in a different node, somewhat at random.

Players will harvest them and move them to storage - which may be a freehold, a house, an apartment, or a bank in the closest node, or one that is near.

Then as the player has enough materials, they will put them on a caravan and move them to a node that has the infrustructure to be able to turn those materials in to useable crafting products - at which point they will be loaded back on a caravan and moved to a node that has the infrustructure to turn the materials in to a finished product.

There is some potential for the refining and finishing points to remain somewhat static, but that is likely to be withing a large metropolis cluster where attacking a caravan is likely to be fairly dangerous (everyone in the area will know the player running the caravan - or at least their guild - and it is likely to be high traffic).

Since the resource spawn points will often shift, the node that resources are coming from will often shift, meaning the route will shift.

Also, I believe caravans don't always need to start and finish at a node - they are able to start and finish at player freeholds. This means it would be possible to not even use roads at all when running some caravan routes.

Botagar

@noaani Much comes down to how the maps are crafted so its impossible to know right now.

We aren't really discussing the merits of the idea's I've put forward. I'm guessing you are more in favor of the current system?

Anranir

From what I understand I don't think the intention is to make caravans a constant PVP activity, rather that the option is there.

That said I can't imagine many people will move valuable resources without some sort of heavy convoy of guild members etc. If you happen to stumble on a caravan and organise a dedicated attack to it in time in a world without fast travel then good on you but seems like it won't be a super common thing.

Noaani

Botagar wrote: »

@noaani Much comes down to how the maps are crafted so its impossible to know right now.

We aren't really discussing the merits of the idea's I've put forward. I'm guessing you are more in favor of the current system?

I think your ideas would take the caravan system and turn it in to something that is no longer suitable for it's job.

The ideas would work fine for a different system, but it runs hte risk of making the caravan system in to something too convoluted to perform the actual function that it is there for - being a catalyst for random world PvP.

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