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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
New Ideia for the Caravan System!
Sir Splinter
Member
Hi, from the content about the game I saw in the media I came up with an idea to make your caravan system more interactive.
How about creating a type of caravan that is of the bait type, where it can have traps, soldiers or just be empty. What you think about it?
How about creating a type of caravan that is of the bait type, where it can have traps, soldiers or just be empty. What you think about it?
1
Comments
They would place a single animal pelt in a caravan and run it, and then have players shadow the caravan to jump in and fight should it be attacked.
NPC caravan defense should be minimal.
"Having it, so the name plate is hidden when you are in bushes."
Actually, now that I am thinking about it!
If they could have it, so the nameplate is only visible when you can see the characters face outside of parties. That would open the door to making all of these shenanigans possible.
Hiding in bushes, running close behind a caravan, loosing an enemy in the terrain...
I don't know how possible it would be. I would want to explore all the downside, but I think having nameplates only visible when faces are visible could be an idea worth investigating.
Also, @Sir Splinter, Noaani is right. He described exactly how I would run decoy or ambush with existing game mechanics. It is just hard to hide currently with name plates always visible sticking out above what you are standing behind.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
We will have to learn more details about what kinds of physical protections we can add when we craft a Caravan, the minimum percentage of storage and how many Caravan runs we can have near the same time frame.
Thoughts for other / additional uses are as
Transportation
If you want to go queue and transported between towns.. . perhaps someone could drive a caravan and effectively taxi you and a group of others to a nearby town as an in-game alternative to fast travel.. much akin to the ships in BDO or the L2. Could be active and just sit and wait in the caravan and/or just be afk.
Dummy Caravans
Send out decoy caravans
Higher profile caravans
perhaps a higher tier caravan can be sent between towns.. bigger bounty, bigger transport, higher defence.. etc.
Caravans are already something of a target, if I am getting on some slow moving transport to take me to another part of the game world, I at least want to know I will get there.
Was there not mention about them becoming armoured at one point?
I understand from the wiki and previous discussions that the quest caravans are the "event" caravans which transport from town to town where you can select routes, potential upgrades and as @Dygz mentioned mercenaries.
The event refers to them being a "attackers vs defenders". A PvP indicator appears that the quest caravans are on the move.
Mayoral Caravans
Quest Dirven Caravans
Personal Caravans
Naval Caravans
just in-case anyone including myself needs a refresher on caravans, haha
Yeah, I really don't like the nameplate thing. Not only does it look hideous, but it removes part of the stealth aspect of the game. Even if it was just that the nameplates show up when you hover over the character for 2 seconds, that'd be something. But, constant nameplates is just ugly and makes the beautiful graphics just look cartoony.
But regardless of it, the nameplate clutter becomes visual pollution especially in PvP. Even the icon above their names is too much especially with all the effects going off during combat.
I'd much rather just the icon or smaller name plates. Perhaps something else. Most PvP'rs do not usually go around looking at the name plates of characters during a battle. With the goal for larger scale PvP, it doesn't seem necessary.
In Ashes, I probably also want to know what Node they are from - probably more important than what Guild they are in if it's a Node Siege.
the funny thing is the devs dont want more than two resource bars but they have no issue with having icons, names, guild names etc with ability effects going off across the screen all blending together, but two resource bars is where they draw the line.. lol
There should be a way to limit the amount within proximity but what I have currently seen is just a slot machine of spells going off with alphabets and icons polluting the screen.
Curious to what they decide to go with.
I dunno what the final UI will look like for nameplates.
In L2 pvp was heavily focussed on names and classes, the capacity to be able to identify known targets by who they were and their known roles/abilities became critical even in general pvp but also in sieges.
The gear was very set for each level so that too was a tell before a name tag was visible.
With Ashes, the population will be much higher, so I imagine apart from a select few and a few more in time, there is a likelihood that entering into pvp will be more of a game of chance as you will be less likely to know your advisories well.
I agree with name plate clutter, some sieges that is all you see and not the players.
Another feature NW had was an option to limit the number of name plates. I quite liked that, as quite frankly once there gets to X amount of people in view, it really does not appear necessary to know all names (well at least yet)
That's what I was thinking something along the lines of considering the goals for larger player volumes. With collision being a factor there is less stacking of the names but allows for more spread of those icons and letters. Even stacking like in wow was messy and quite ugly to look at it.