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Family System abuse?
KaelinTV
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
The more I sat and pondered on the Family teleport system, the more concerned I have become, just wanted to open a thread where possible abuses can be discussed. If the proper restraints aren't in place, I believe the system could be easily abused. Not for the common "Summon guild/groups for raid" concept that everyone discusses often on the Discord. But for monetary advantages in game.
Now you can do this with a group of friends, or pay for an additional one or two accounts which will tie into multiboxing. I'll go into a bit of depth. Keep in mind this is all theory crafting as I don't have access to the alpha. But just going off what is known so far about the game.
Let's say your main character's node that you are a citizen of is rich in Iron ore, and a few other mats. Across on the other continent, or far off distant node, said node is low on these resources. Have a friend or guild mate that will always be on that side summon you, sell materials you have on hand, buy materials there to bring back that are rare at your parent node, and scroll/hearthstone back to your main node (if the game has a return to citizen node function). If the game does not have a return function, you would just need another in your family to be back at your main node.
Can be used as a p2w mechanic in game as well with multiple accounts. If there is no return to citizen node function, you would need 2 additional accounts if you wish to do so without assistance and relying on other people, if the return function exists, just one additional. In the former scenario, Main character would load up on loot. Have a secondary account on a far off node that will maximize your income. Have a secondary account summon primary, sell goods, buy goods that are rare in the citizenship node, have third account summon you back to your primary node. Sell, and repeat on the hour (if the cool down is an hour).
There are probably other means in how the family system can be exploited. So please do discuss so Steven and the team can get possible scenarios not thought up of just yet. Now once again this is all theoretical, if they they restrict the ability to travel, or force a prompt that all resources will be lose before teleport (keep in mind we are talking raw mats/processed goods which can be sold in auction house), this will solve that problem....Which I severely do hope is the case =P.
-Edit
Forgot to mention, this will also solve the problem of people summoning for raids after they complete one. Won't allow them to chain summon for raids if they are loot teleport restricted, 5head =P.
Adding Strawpoll link for community response on system.
https://strawpoll.com/f82as5r57
Now you can do this with a group of friends, or pay for an additional one or two accounts which will tie into multiboxing. I'll go into a bit of depth. Keep in mind this is all theory crafting as I don't have access to the alpha. But just going off what is known so far about the game.
Let's say your main character's node that you are a citizen of is rich in Iron ore, and a few other mats. Across on the other continent, or far off distant node, said node is low on these resources. Have a friend or guild mate that will always be on that side summon you, sell materials you have on hand, buy materials there to bring back that are rare at your parent node, and scroll/hearthstone back to your main node (if the game has a return to citizen node function). If the game does not have a return function, you would just need another in your family to be back at your main node.
Can be used as a p2w mechanic in game as well with multiple accounts. If there is no return to citizen node function, you would need 2 additional accounts if you wish to do so without assistance and relying on other people, if the return function exists, just one additional. In the former scenario, Main character would load up on loot. Have a secondary account on a far off node that will maximize your income. Have a secondary account summon primary, sell goods, buy goods that are rare in the citizenship node, have third account summon you back to your primary node. Sell, and repeat on the hour (if the cool down is an hour).
There are probably other means in how the family system can be exploited. So please do discuss so Steven and the team can get possible scenarios not thought up of just yet. Now once again this is all theoretical, if they they restrict the ability to travel, or force a prompt that all resources will be lose before teleport (keep in mind we are talking raw mats/processed goods which can be sold in auction house), this will solve that problem....Which I severely do hope is the case =P.
-Edit
Forgot to mention, this will also solve the problem of people summoning for raids after they complete one. Won't allow them to chain summon for raids if they are loot teleport restricted, 5head =P.
Adding Strawpoll link for community response on system.
https://strawpoll.com/f82as5r57
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Comments
However, at this point, caravans can carry 100x the amount of one character. The load from your character will not be that earth shattering. Cool down timers are still to be determined but are expected to be on the order of several hours, 12 hours, or once daily. I believe changing families is an option but the cool down may be in the range of days.
A character can only belong to one family and using that family on something other than being able to join your regular group is very limiting. Apparently you will not be able to take advantage of fast travel to high value group content as it is intended. That might cause a loss to how much your making while trying to abuse the game system.
Also if you are multiboxing. You can easily have them all in your family. Literally allowing one person to do this all him/herself.
They just need to implement early "quicker travel" and allow people to influence approximately what region they start in. I think some of that is already planned. New players trying to link up with friends can meet up at the starter regions, then use quicker travel (such as NPC Ground transport) to get closer to where they're going. This makes it more of an adventure, and less instantaneous, which imo is a very good thing.
There shouldn't be gamey teleport functions like "summon family" because it detracts from the world and in the current implementation plan, from what I understand, doesn't make much sense within the game world. You perform a summoning ritual, but it takes a minute and you can only summon 1 of a handful of people. Why is a tank or rogue able to perform a summoning ritual? Why not lock this behind summoners performing a high level skill? Or behind tech nodes that have advanced sufficiently?
There should only be in game solutions to the problems that this system is designed to fix.
I understand where you're coming from. But adding fast travel locations will do the exact thing you are worried about. Make the world smaller for everyone. Honestly, I'd rather have a well designed family system rather than fast travel. The limited fast travel there is, being linked to Metropolis level scientific nodes, is a very nice touch imo.
Didn't say "Fast Travel." I said Quicker Travel, and also clarified that doesn't mean instantaneous travel. In my mind Quicker Travel is faster than a personal mount, and much slower than a teleport. It should be a physical and interactable system that players can encounter / stop / travel with while on main roads. I don't see any good reason why this should be locked behind advanced nodes. Just let the quicker travel be upgraded, with more routes, that are faster, and more frequent, as a Node progresses.
The problem as I see it is that Family Summoning doesn't make sense within the game world. It also opens up avenues to exploit the game -- which detracts from the experience.
There will be limitations on what can be brought or not, but I don't think that's enough to prevent some obvious exploits of the system. For instance -- you could fill your family with alternate accounts, and while multiboxing (which is currently permitted) you could summon your main account to any of the places that you positioned your alternate accounts at. So in effect, you'd have a free teleport to any location of the world you want. You'd only be able to bring your gear, from what it sounds, but that could create a ton of problems considering the nature of the game.
Imagine that you're from Node A, and are at war with Node B. Node B has people watching the routes between Node A and B to prevent Node A from slipping in and attacking their gatherers / etc. The members of Node A have alternate accounts that were prepositioned outside of Node B, and are also members of the same family as their primary character. They are then able to bypass the physical preventive measures that Node B took by using a gamey system and just instantly teleporting their main accounts.
This is just one example of many scenarios that will absolutely come to pass if the system isn't changed.
An early "quicker travel" option roots players in the world, while fulfilling the need to help players get together, and gets rid of pretty obvious exploitation.
Why do you think a teleport that anyone can perform makes more sense than in game travel systems?
With the family tp system sure you can run multiple accounts and use them to tp once then have a long cd but it won't really the much affect economy too much if you can't take resources with you, plus you lose the ability to use it to meet up with guild mates or friends to do content.
If they make it so that say your node is at war with a family members node you can't teleport you can reduce the exploiting of tp ambushes though not remove it completely, also having one player tp into their region isn't going to do much if the gatherers are in groups mining larger resource nodes.
I think that having a distance limit isn't a bad idea as it incentivises people to have their families be in nearby nodes instead of across map.
As far as breaking immersion you can always have lore saying that people are bound by magical forces or by the gods or whatever and this allows magical teleportation (its a fantasy world anything is possible).
edit: grammer
I personally believe this limitations to be very good already. I think 80% of the abuse possibilities could be denied with that.
However, I do strongly believe, that there should be another limitation set in place.
“Both Family Members have to be within the City Walls of a Node”
I think this would eliminate the other possibilities for abuse. Examples would be:
* teleporting to somebody when you believe that you might be attacked within the next minute. * teleporting someone in if you plan to attack somebody soon * teleporting someone in, when you expect your caravan to be attacked soon * teleporting people in when you see that a World Boss has respawned or a dungeon is up * teleporting somebody in, when you find a Resource Vein to gather.
When a family member wants to teleport in, then both should be forced to return to the closest node, use the teleport and return to whatever place they want to go together.
I get you. I'm glad fast travelling is not allowed, it really shrinks the immersion and world to a huge degree. I believe a taxi travel system also does the same to be honest. Yes it may not be as quick, but considering the scope of the Ashes is trying to achieve, I like the idea of not having it in. Now we don't know if it will be included or not. But if not, and there is no return to citizenship node feature, then being summoned somewhere far off still leaves you stranded from getting back to your node. Which may seem a bit absurd, but also heavily forces the feeling of scope of how large the game world really is.
Doing so will make players want to stay close to their metropolises nodes and vassals, allowing the separate kingdom feel that the metropolis/node system imo is trying to achieve.Of course large guilds will venture to other major nodes to contest and take content, which is a good thing in terms of the life of gameplay, a sense of adventure. I honestly would be completely fine with no family summon system, no taxi/quick travel system. But it may be too harsh for more casual players if such a summon feature doesn't exist.
Keep in mind though. If they do add a faster/taxi travel system. You won't be able to bring along resources with you, as that would completely nullify the point of taking resources through the world. At that point...what even is the purpose of a faster travel feature? All it does is make the world smaller...Which reduces the scope of the metropolis system if you can just faster travel around to a bunch of places. I'd rather have a more limiting family system with a cooldown, compared to just allowing everyone to flight path or what not around the place. Now do I think the Summon system is perfect? Absolutely not. As long as it's heavily limited, I would be fine with it.
Regarding your scenario, the current one minute or so timer and long cooldown isn't harsh enough if they can just chain summon each other. I'd be fine with a one minute cast time, but would like it very much so to share a global cooldown for anyone in that family from summoning. That would completely nullify the aspect of gaming the system, whether that be CD be 30 minutes, an hour, is up for discussion. But this will eliminate the ability of massive teleport chains, but still allow a family to bring a bud that was coming home from work the capability to hop in and get summoned. If it ends up being two people hopping on, "Yo bro, just chill for like 30 minutes, will summon you as soon as the CD is up", not too harsh. This method will stop abuse. It would also restrict guilds from separating their members into families that would be 4 primary characters, and 4 alt secondary accounts for those 4 people in the family. If one would summon, hour long cooldown for all the rest. They would have to have a 2 person family per person with their alt account to game it, yes they can all summon themselves to their alt secondary account, but would completely lock themselves out from summoning guild members to one another due to the limited family selection, which is much more restrictive and punishing than just using the family system as intended. I think overall, this would be the best conclusion to reign in the system.
I'm sure this is something intrepid will keep their eyes on data wise to see what needs to be done. But I have faith they'll get the system right, hopefully...
I must not have made it clear what I meant, but to add on to what I was saying, the problem with people abusing this system for teleports lies in the fact that groups of people will organize and set up these teleport spots in advance. One person teleporting into enemy territory isn't a problem, granted, but how about an entire squad? Or an entire clan? If this system exists, then it will be absolutely meta gamed. It will be a requirement in all competitive clans to have strategically placed alternate accounts. These will be used to fast travel the main amounts en masse.
This will absolutely impact the economy. If a caravan is spotted headed from node C headed to D, and the guys from A want to raid it, then they'll have the option to teleport to either node with their group by abusing the family system to intercept the caravan. Organized groups will absolutely abuse this system.
I'd also prefer no fast / quicker travel personally. But there appears to be a need for some system like this for casual players trying to link up with their friends.
I think that the way the family system will be abused is that guilds will establish predetermined "alt teleport points." In less confusing words, if there were 5 main cities that they cared about, then they'd station an alt outside of all 5 of those locations. The entire guild will have alts at the same locations -- if those alternate accounts are in their family system.
If the guild needs to mobilize everyone at Node B, then they'll tell everyone to have their Node B alt summon their main account. If accounts can bring their combat gear with them, then this is with total certainty going to be the meta.
Agreed. If the system isn't modified and there is no shared cooldown. That would definitely be the case. But can be solved with just a shared cooldown among all family members if a summon happens within those 8 members. As long as it's long enough to limit abuse. Thirty minute to an hour would be long enough to completely negate abusing the system. This will allow the system to work as intended, while punishing those trying to abuse the system.
The system already kind of prevents this by limiting the number of characters in a given Family. For this situation to work, essentially everyone would have to have a second account - which would also require a second computer so they didn't break the rules on multi-boxing - that is solely dedicated to leaving alts at specific places for the purposes of teleports.
Will some guilds be able to do this? Certainly. But if you don't have everyone (or, at the least, a very significant number of members) in the guild with a secondary account solely for this purpose, then you're going to be spending 30 minutes having people relog over and over onto alts to summon other people.
Also, don't forget: While a guild could potentially chain-summon a decent group of people to another guilds' area, you are now in THEIR territory. They would have a much easier time to field an even larger group than you have to fight.
Another thing, by having a multi-boxed account setup like this, you'd also be negating any other potential benefits that the Family system could be implemented to have. While it doesn't look like there is anything there right at the moment, that could easily change. Then you'd have to decide if these benefits are worth more than summoning chains.
The only rule currently against multiboxing is that you must control the character and not use this party programs / scripts to control your characters. As in all movement must be manual input. Otherwise it's totally allowed.
I don't understand why everyone is so focused on guild chains using the family system when the much more likely and superior way to abuse this system is to just load your "family" with your own alternate accounts/ characters, then station the alts in tactically advantageous locations. I keep bringing this up but no one understands how bad this will be if not prevented.
Intrepid's stance on multi-boxing, per the stickied forum thread:
As far as I know, they haven't said anything in regards to VMs and the like, but nominally, you'd need at least one additional computer to legitimately multi-box in AoC.
Most of the issues with the summon when used solely by yourself are a non-issue. If you look at the quote from Steven that Warth posted earlier in the thread, you can't be summoned if you have materials, gatherables, or certificates on your character. So, essentially, you'd be paying another sub fee (and need a second computer) to be able to teleport around the world - but not take anything at all with you. Yes, you'd be able to fast-travel around, but to do anything really meaningful, you'd still have to rely on non-summoned movement throughout the world.
People focus on guilds chaining these summons to get huge tactical advantages in some way or another. Simply because of the restriction of needing a second computer to legitimately multi-box, I don't think this will be a massive issue - it's much easier for a guild to require members to have a second account, but much harder for them to require every member have a second computer. Not impossible, but quite a bit harder and more impractical.
You could kind of get around this using single accounts and lots of logging on/off alts that are all in different families with different guild members, but that would be a logistical nightmare. You'd not only have to figure out and manage which people are on which characters, so they could summon certain members, but also you'd have to account for any members not online, because then any of their alts couldn't be used to summon. Building in redundancy could make things work for offline people, but then you have issues with less alt locations in most/all of the various families. Each bit of redundancy added would be one less location you could zerg to.
I don't think that's needed at all. Casual players only need to link up once, then they can stick together in the same part of the map. Organized Casuals will make sure to spawn in the same part of the map in the first place.
Also, its not a logistical nightmare, dedicated guilds have figured out far more complex systems in the past.
Agreed. If the system isn't modified and there is no shared cooldown. That would definitely be the case. But can be solved with just a shared cooldown among all family members if a summon happens within those 8 members. As long as it's long enough to limit abuse. Thirty minute to an hour would be long enough to completely negate abusing the system. This will allow the system to work as intended, while punishing those trying to abuse the system.
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I dont think you can login with 2 characters of the same account at the same time while only people online can be teleported.
With that everyone in that guild would have to pay 30€ a month just for the posibitly to farst travel to a note to siege it. Add to the computer and it would be very expensive indeed.
Sieges have declaration time of 1 to 5 days so the entire guild will sit there for 1 day not beeing able to do anything.
They also have to travel the entire distance back by food or a wait for the cooldown.
They also would not be able to bring siege equitment with them.
Worst is however that they cant use the system the intendet way, to meet up with your leveling group and save time that going to a meeting point and waiting for everyone would have done.
So they level slower then others.
I see a lot of negatives for very little to no gain for abusing the system right now.
It is allready well tought out and with testing will be polished into something that will give abusers little to no gain.
Making it hard to abuse is only 1 site of the coin after all.
Making it more attractive to use the system as intended is the other.
If abusing the system yields me less then using it as intended, then hardly anyone will abuse it.