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risk vs rewards for caravans
Jexz
Member
Didn't see anything on the wiki for it. I know it will all change in 2 years but...
I don't really see much risk for attacking caravans. The rewards are scaleable as you can change the reward %.
But as far as I see the caravan owner is risking quite a bit. I guess for potentially great reward.
Part of the profit will go into guards and the cost sink into their caravan and repair if destroyed.
So is the risk from the attackers just loss of XP (wont matter if they are lvl 50) loss of loot (wont mater if they have nothing on them ) or is the % of the loot going to be so low that it's not worth the time. low risk/reward in attacking the caravan and time spent searching.
I don't really see much risk for attacking caravans. The rewards are scaleable as you can change the reward %.
But as far as I see the caravan owner is risking quite a bit. I guess for potentially great reward.
Part of the profit will go into guards and the cost sink into their caravan and repair if destroyed.
So is the risk from the attackers just loss of XP (wont matter if they are lvl 50) loss of loot (wont mater if they have nothing on them ) or is the % of the loot going to be so low that it's not worth the time. low risk/reward in attacking the caravan and time spent searching.
2
Comments
There's going to be a lot of vested interest in protecting caravans of all types. This means in attacking you'll often be at a significant disadvantage. On top of that, one of the major risks will be being labeled a troublemaker by the community. If you constantly attack caravans, then you probably won't be welcome too many places.
My hope is that assaulting a caravan just because it is there will not be a frequent occurrence. It should take planning, and be very difficult to be successful.
I predict this system will change in Alpha/ Beta. Traders are going to hate that they're getting hit on nearly every caravan they send out. There doesn't appear to be a significant enough downside to just attacking every caravan you see when you have a group.
One way this could be addressed is by allowing bounty hunters to pursue people who attack caravans, but that idea would require a change in how bounty hunting supposedly will work.
You are probably right about being little risk other than death. The main deterrent should be the very low chance of being successful.
Reward - You get the caravan's stuff. You impact the economy of someone else's node.
Risk - Your armor is damaged from all the dying, and you become known in the server as a bandit.
Attacking will be easy, but will it be successful. You and 3-4 of your buddies may be able to kill the guards both npc and players. But, can your dps bust open that wagon loot box with a couple million HP, before a posse can be organized for a counter attack. Busting that loot box open with 4 people could take upto an hour, every thieve I have ever talked to is looking to get away from the scene of the crime as fast as possible.
Unless you are just looking to kill people then by all means go for it.
I like the idea of tying the bounty system into it. Since the current corruption system is too prohibitive to give consistent content to Bounty hunters. Make it so Bounty hunters can see you on the map till you fence the goods. Creating more Risk for the caravan looters and more pvp action. Given bounty hunters probably wont have any loot for the caravan robbers, Bounty hunters could drop scalps/tickets to turn into the thieves guild for a bonus.
While there's a been a lot of discussion about open world PvP and how some pure PvE players dislike the system where they can be attacked at any time, I actually think there won't be much open world ganking because corruption is so punishing in terms of XP loss upon death, potential gear loss on death, any one can attack you, bounty hunters can track you, you can't use nodes, etc.
Instead, I think most gankers basically will become groups of caravan bandits, destroying caravans and leading to a lot of complaints from solo or small guild PvE players whose goods are lost (i.e., "I spent 5 hours gathering ore and 3 jerks came by and destroyed my caravan and made me waste my entire day; I hate this game"). Players may have to join merchant guilds that pay people to protect their caravans, but if my experience in Albion Online is any indication guarding caravans is a boring job that few players will want to do.
Unless the NPC caravan guards are exceptionally beefy at launch, one of my predictions for AOC post-launch is the Intrepid will make destroying caravans more difficult, either by increasing NPC strength, applying a limited form of corruption or stat loss to personal caravan attackers, and/or something else.
It seems to just be a system to force pvp than anything else really.
U.S. East
Now, let's say you attack anyway, maybe caravan's owner gets to see who you are, and now he/she can complain to the attacker's mayor because you're ruining in trading business.
Or this could cause an issue with politics between such nodes.
I'm not entirely sure how does that system work, but even if ALL caravans are open to PvP, there's a risk beyond death that involves other players/nodes.
So hopefully it works out because I'm kind of sick of MMO's being a formula now.
U.S. East