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Comments
I was assuming you could only be part of 1 family. Hopefully it will be "exploited" to the extreme during the tests. Like many of the examples above from goods transportation, loot carriers, monster certificate porters etc.
Even multiple accounts, not sure if that is avail in alpha/beta testing, but if the system was to be as is now, id buy an additional account just to have a "main" character summoned around the world with alts.
I would hope that you couldn't tele while holding certs, or they drop on teleport or something.
So, I can still have a friend park an alt in each metropolis, and get instant travel to any of them. I can see there being a lot of alts parked in both economic and scientific metropois nodes - to the point I don't think the airships would be necessary at all.
This means one character would be able to easily list finished items for sale in all metropois markets, unless you need to be a citizen in order to list - in which case it still allows people to easily buy from any market, as long as they aren't buying materials.
It kind of means there is no good reason to not have a postal service as well, just make it one where materials and certs can't be posted.
Also, I have to assume that along with the summons not working if the target is in a siege, it also wouldn't work if the caster is. Otherwise, a single stealthed character could get themselves in to a useful spot and then summon a full group in - but yeah, I would assume that can't be done.
Then there is the question of a stealth character making their way to the bottom of a dungeon all stealthily like, and summoning a group there. Prevents the need for the group to fight their way down.
People will attempt to summon others in to instances. While we currently have no idea what form or content type instances will take, you do. I'm sure you have thought of this.
I would also hope invites to families can only be done if the characters are in visual sight of each other. If not, I can see people parking alts in specific locations and offering ports for sale. While I am not sure where, it would end up being anywhere people want to go that is designed to be out of the way - or it could even just be to a distant metropolis. If it is an alt that only exista for this purpose, the period from dropping one family until you can join another is meaningless.
That is a few of the ways I can still see it being abused, and that is without seeing it in action, or without seeing the game.
There will be more.
If you have to run all the way back to a warehouse to drop stuff off in there, it would make this pretty worthless to use not because you wanted to exploit anything but because your family goes we need to summon and you go ok give me 20min to run back to town and drop off my stuff...whatever they wanted to summon you for would be long over by the time you got to town and deposited all the stuff you can't have on you.
It reminds me of the people calling themselves ATMs back in EQ, since coins had weight they’d exchange gold for silver and copper at a small markup.
I can't see most people ever using this system for it's intended purpose. I mean, in order to use it, you kind of need to always group up with the same people every day. Even when I only group with guild members, I am still grouping up with different people every day.
I've played dozens of MMO's that didn't have anything like this, and there was never an issue in any of them.
Most people will look at this and try and find the best way to abuse it for personal gain rather than using it as intended.
I remember that. Along with 'splitting the loot' by giving the newbie all the copper.
I think there are a small number of small groups who game together - not lots. When you look at the number of people that play in such groups vs the number of people that play, it is a very small portion, and gets smaller as the game progresses (these groups join guilds and start grouping with more people from the guild).
Only able to summon a family member within 5 or 10 levels of you(no low level alt summons)
Week long cooldown on joining/leaving a family
18 to 24 hour cooldown, so you really have to think about when you want to use it
Can't see a really easy way to abuse the system if all the above are put in place along with everything Steven has said is already planned.
Prove me wrong! :P
The post above that I replied to Steven had five immediate and obvious ways to abuse the system as it stands. They are;
Keeping alts at metropolis nodes to port friends
Porting allies in to a siege (as opposed to out of a siege, which we know can't be done).
Porting allies to the bottom of a dungeon.
Porting allies in to an instance.
Selling ports to others.
None of the proposals you made above would prevent any of these.
They would slow down how often ports are able to be sold, but wouldn't prevent it. If anything, all it would do is see more people with more alts offering this, and the price would be higher.
The level restriction isn't that much of a deal breaker - it wouldn't take long until these porting alts were level 40, meaning they could port characters from level 30 to level 50.
I mean, if people are willing to pay money for a convenience (which history shows, they are), then it isn't that much of an issue to level a few characters up a bit in order to be able to offer that service.
-I don't see the need to limit what content a family choose to do together based on level.
-There is already a cooldown for switching families and a week doesn't sound resonable.
-I've already stated why I'm against this.
Another option would be to limit the amount of summons a family can do instead of an individual in the family and make the timer longer than 30 minutes. So each family would get get say a total of 2 summons on 2 hour timers.
My biggest fear is people will use it as a exploit to sell their gathered mats and turn ins.Grind up north, get a summons from a family member in the south, sell goods in the south, grind in the south, get a summons in the north and so on. This way people will be able to maximize profit while skipping the travel time.
Can you explain in more detail how it would make it easier? I could see it still happening but more inconvenienced than anything. I suppose they could also only allow one character to be in a family the way I believe they handle citizenship.
You are suggesting lowering the time it takes between leaving one family and joining another. This is the time it would take between being able to sell ports - the lower it is, the more someone can sell.
You also suggested makign the cooldown family wide, rather than putting a cooldown on an individual player, preventing them from being ported again for a long duration. If I can be ported twice every two hours, that means I can much easier buy items at any metropolis node I desire, and port right back home again - using my two ports that I have every two hours.
I never suggested lowering the family change cooldown. I don't know the exact cooldown, but I based it on the wiki which says days not a week.
Currently each family can summon seven times every 30 minutes and the change I threw out there would limit it to 2 times every 2 hours.
What I don't get is - why can't there be a cooldown of 6 months on that?
I mean, the idea is that this cooldown is there so you can join the people you always play with, people you come to the game with and will go to the next game with. There is no reason to need to leave that family and join another in any kind of rush unless you plan on misusing the family system.
I have never been in favor of changing the family swap cooldown.
*Rereading what you wrote and I think I must just be confused on what you are taking about or we are talking about 2 different thing.
You were against increasing it, which was stated as being a way to slow down how often ports can be sold - which is a good thing even if it doesnt eliminate that particular form of abuse.
What I still want to know is, what reason do you have for feeling you will need to change families in a matter of days that is not an exploit of the family system?
I am under the impression that it already takes days to complete a swap and if people want to use a process that slow for some kind of exploit it's whatever to me. The controversy is how people are going to exploit the teleport systems and I don't see how a multi-day lockout isn't enough to just make foot travel more efficient. If you can give me ideas maybe you will change my mind.
When I'm going to play the, it is going to be with only one other person I know so the rest are going to have to be people I meet, and this may mean I desire to switch families more at first. In my opinion adding 3-4 days is an inconvenience that doesn't in anyway fix an exploit.
I fully disagree with the solution you are proposing 4 people can still summon 4 people so your logic that you'll only ever have to summon 1 or 2 people being the idea of the mechanic is already flawed since there would be no reason for more than 4 people in a family to go to a dungeon under your system. Being able to summon another 3 at that point is trivial. Your proposed solution also does not deal with the issue that a group of people in the middle of nowhere can double immediately at the exact position that a fight has broken out as a countermeasure to world PvP.
My proposed solution to continue allowing you to summon your entire family under the rule that you can only summon them at points of interest and not just anywhere in the world would deal with both of these issues. A coincidence that an attack happens to occur near a point of interest would be few and far between and people out PvPing would be aware of the mechanic and avoid points of interest if they wanted to stay unnoticed anyways.
Those points of interest would have to be limited otherwise people could summon a zerg at the nearest location to their target.
Uh not entirely sure you thought all of this through.
Your five points:
1st: Each family would have to level an alt, that's a lot of time invested just to get a port once every 18-24 hours. If you do teleport to some far away metropolis, you still need to get back to your metropolis. Just using it to get back to town quickly(without any resources) once a day isn't really an abuse.
2nd: Steven has already said this is impossible, you can't use it inside a siege or outside.
3rd: This isn't an abuse, kind of part of the intended system. If you made it to the bottom of a dungeon then yes you can summon your family member so they can play with you.
4th: Also part of the intended system, so that your family member can quickly join allowing you to play together.
5th: Uh, with a week cooldown on joining new families, you'd only be able to buy a port once a week. So uh sure go for it. There are systems like zeppelins that won't make you miss out on the ports from the actual family you play with regularly for a week.