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De-Forestation Mechanics and Tragedy of Commons Fixes
Goalid
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
When Steven talks about resources in Ashes, he often talks about it being less "game-y". Instead of walking around the world and finding a random Iron node just laying there above ground, he wants us to go into a mine and mine a vein. And eventually we will even be able to use machinery to mine that vein, so this makes Ashes more realistic. It increases the immersion. And when those resources get depleted, they appear in other mines around Verra. So still a bit "game-y", but much better than finding a huge hunk of iron in a meadow.
Another mechanic I think would aid the game, and make people feel a part of the world, would be deforestation. In New World, you chop down a tree, and then that tree respawns in about three minutes. Not very life like.
So to make it more realistic, chopping down a tier 1 tree should mean removing it. That will make tier one wood more valuable as well, and make it valuable towards end game.
The problem is of course the tragedy of the commons. Even if I know that wood is a scarce resource, and me chopping it will prevent the tree from being replaced, it's still in my direct benefit to chop the wood and take the resources. I'm directly incentivized to deforest Verra, to the detriment of the entire server. Because if I don't chop it, chances are someone else will, and I'll get zero wood, instead of some wood.
But is that where the story ends? No. There are plenty of real life solutions to Commons that can be undertaken to avert these crises. First, I suggest that players should also gain common seeds to replant the forest, to counter the effects of deforestation. This can increase their farming skill, and node reputation. Not enough? In times of tree shortages, only node citizens should be able to farm their node's wood freely, and those who pay for a wood license. That wood license can help fund taxes for the node, and demand for those wood licenses would depend on knowing that wood will be replenished in that node.
Any thoughts on this? We're already going to have a highly changing environment in Verra, so losing and gaining trees in an area really shouldn't be a problem if we think Ashes is going to be a success.
Other thoughts about this:
Quality of trees that can be planted can be based off soil quality and environment, so the server isn't just populated by the highest tier trees. Although, I think this wouldn't be a problem anyway, since Ashes will follow New World in needing a ton of lower tier mats to process higher tier mats.
For launch, Wilderness zones (node tier 0) shouldn't have any tree chopping restrictions. That should come when those zones are vassalized by their parent nodes. So the story of us coming from Sanctus back to Verra SHOULD initially be a story of scarring Verra. There's no way a civilization without even gunpowder, who came to a new world or continent, wouldn't just chop every tree in sight until order and property was established. So having resource depletion be visible within the first week of launch will be striking to players, and fixing that resource depletion will also give a sense of accomplishment to the server.
Obviously the time it takes for publicly planted seeds to mature shouldn't be as long as real life. We can just say "the soil of Verra is strong and filled with Essence!" and have tier 1 trees fully grow in a day or less. And of course just like in Archeage, different trees and rarer trees will need different environments and growth times. We're mostly talking about just the lowest tier trees in a zone.
I would appreciate any comments and discussion on this!
Another mechanic I think would aid the game, and make people feel a part of the world, would be deforestation. In New World, you chop down a tree, and then that tree respawns in about three minutes. Not very life like.
So to make it more realistic, chopping down a tier 1 tree should mean removing it. That will make tier one wood more valuable as well, and make it valuable towards end game.
The problem is of course the tragedy of the commons. Even if I know that wood is a scarce resource, and me chopping it will prevent the tree from being replaced, it's still in my direct benefit to chop the wood and take the resources. I'm directly incentivized to deforest Verra, to the detriment of the entire server. Because if I don't chop it, chances are someone else will, and I'll get zero wood, instead of some wood.
But is that where the story ends? No. There are plenty of real life solutions to Commons that can be undertaken to avert these crises. First, I suggest that players should also gain common seeds to replant the forest, to counter the effects of deforestation. This can increase their farming skill, and node reputation. Not enough? In times of tree shortages, only node citizens should be able to farm their node's wood freely, and those who pay for a wood license. That wood license can help fund taxes for the node, and demand for those wood licenses would depend on knowing that wood will be replenished in that node.
Any thoughts on this? We're already going to have a highly changing environment in Verra, so losing and gaining trees in an area really shouldn't be a problem if we think Ashes is going to be a success.
Other thoughts about this:
Quality of trees that can be planted can be based off soil quality and environment, so the server isn't just populated by the highest tier trees. Although, I think this wouldn't be a problem anyway, since Ashes will follow New World in needing a ton of lower tier mats to process higher tier mats.
For launch, Wilderness zones (node tier 0) shouldn't have any tree chopping restrictions. That should come when those zones are vassalized by their parent nodes. So the story of us coming from Sanctus back to Verra SHOULD initially be a story of scarring Verra. There's no way a civilization without even gunpowder, who came to a new world or continent, wouldn't just chop every tree in sight until order and property was established. So having resource depletion be visible within the first week of launch will be striking to players, and fixing that resource depletion will also give a sense of accomplishment to the server.
Obviously the time it takes for publicly planted seeds to mature shouldn't be as long as real life. We can just say "the soil of Verra is strong and filled with Essence!" and have tier 1 trees fully grow in a day or less. And of course just like in Archeage, different trees and rarer trees will need different environments and growth times. We're mostly talking about just the lowest tier trees in a zone.
I would appreciate any comments and discussion on this!
2
Comments
Different kinds of wood in different areas. It didn’t seem like any kind of wood was more rare than another, but you might have to go into an area with stronger enemies to get it.
I don’t think what we saw in A1 will be what’s at release. Because what they showed us was exactly what Steven said they’re not going to have; random nodes just sitting there above ground. Basically no different than WoW or almost any other MMORPG with crafting.
That suggests that what we’ve had so far is a placeholder. Unless they’ve abandoned their more ambitious plans.
Two different kinds, Redwood and Scotswood iirc. That's all placeholder so I wouldn't pay too much attention to it, Intrepid was mostly making sure the node was gaining experience from gathering.
I am unsold on this idea personally.
I think resource depletion provides a pretty interactive environment with the landscape changing along with resources being gathered. I worry about scope creep too, but I don't know how much having the landscape change would take, I think Steven has said they want to copy New World's system of having everything be gatherable. So you would just have the respawn time be a couple hours per tree instead of just 1 minute per tree.
At the end of the day with scope creep, I leave it up to what Intrepid thinks they're capable of in delivering a game within the next couple years.
My only problem with having a resource depletion system and not addressing tragedy of commons Vox, is then you're getting over-gathering from people who just don't care because it's not their home node. So I think you have to have a system to prevent over-gathering other than just the average person's goodwill.
I'd say that gathering is currently more work in-game if you want to be good at it. There are definitely more risks with PvP compared to the other professions. But just take a look at animal husbandry, a processing profession. I think the risks there are financially based, since RNG will be involved, as well as having to do a ton of spreadsheets behind the scenes to actually be an accomplished processor. You're also probably going to have to travel a lot if you want to get the best, unrefined materials you need for high-quality processed goods.
As for over-harvesting, I believe the goal is to force gatherers to move around Verra to get their resources. I think that's a pretty good system, and won't simply be about getting gatherers killed. Sure, if you're over-harvesting then a member of the node may come and kill you. But, the solution to this is just to take a five minute walk to another node and gather there. Also, before the node has reached its gathering capacity, gathering brings node XP to the node, so it's in the interest of the citizens of the node to let you gather until it hits cap. Every gatherer will have the ability to see if an area is suffering from resource depletion through the surveying tools, so I don't believe that's a huge deal either.
Also, if you're over-harvesting and aren't trying to grief the area, it's to your detriment since the amount of resources spawning in the area will have dwindled due to your actions. We'll see in Alpha 2 how it plays out, but I believe there's a healthy balance here.
I'm aware that certain types of semi-collaborative games have workarounds for Tragedy of the Commons but games normally can't implement them because of the three basic limitations.
1. Players don't have to sleep (and their characters don't really get tired)
2. Players respawn no matter what you do to them long-term (or create alts)
3. Resource respawn rates must be enough for the playerbase
Maybe I missed it but I'm not sure which fixes you were thinking about.
All good concerns.
My fix is that if the survey tool you use tells you that you're over-gathering and causing resource depletion in the future, and you gather anyway, if flags you for combat.
I think for 1, although over-gatherers don't have to sleep, neither do the owners of a node. I experienced this in New World quite a bit, I enjoyed pushing territories at 3 am, but then more hardcore guilds started to do the same and prevent the push. I believe it can be the same for this system.
For 2, although over-gatherers respawn, they're also taking hits via experience debt. So I would hope just gathering normal resources for an average profit on a server, would be discouraged by being routinely killed.
For 3 I don't really know your concern. There's enough resources for the server, but those respawn rates dwindle if a ton of people are just gathering in one area. And only for that node, they'll be encouraged to gather in the next node over for resources since they won't automatically be flagged for combat, and travel time to go to an adjacent node should be small.
My understanding of this post is that the OP is concerned people will gather more mats than what they need.
What is wrong with that? Verra is not a real world, most people will play at most ~15 hours weekly where they have to play the game and gather whatever they want in between. As there is no monetary compensation from playing AoC, people wouldn't likely waste time gathering stuff they dont have a use for.
Common materials are common because they serve only low level needs which the crowd grows out of and then stops farming them. This is how over farming of common mats is kept in control.
I really dont see the why this is a big deal or why this even is a tragedy. Also this is open world PvP, so what do you mean by flagged for combat? Isnt it insane that our combat state would change from green to purple just because we cut some trees? Isnt this straight up griefing of the players by the system? Now anyone can kill them and not get corruption. How will this limit even be defined?
Lastly, if I have to plant trees because I cut some of them for whatever reason, then I for sure wont be playing AoC because I wanna play AoC THE GAME, not do some chores in AoC the real world simulation.
PS: AoC can be made less game-y, but it is a game. You cant make a game not feel like a game at all and expect people to play that game which is not a game
Ah. I support and agree with this one, I believe. I was thinking in terms of fixes I had seen before, not the sort of thing that Ashes could implement uniquely.
I figure there would be some kinks in this from the player psychology perspective at some point, but I can't think of any right now. So I'm all 'for' the situation of over-depletion causing you to 'be flagged' in this way. Perhaps using some sort of specific modification of the guild war system.
"Node A declares 'war' on Strip Logger ChopTilYaDrop."
It's like a mini event.
It's so cool to think about persistence and making long-lasting impacts on the world of Verra. It's something I look forward to when placing my freehold
Was one of the results of the internal town-hall 'more player generated feedback and ideas' or are you just super enthusiastic today?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
I don't like this or else next we are gonna see posts related to climate change and over fishing. Not to mention by this logic there should be a limit on how many of a particular type of mob/creature we can kill as then some species would become endangered as trees aren't the only common resource.
At the end of the day AoC is a game which can be improved but making it anti-gamey is pure non-sense.
I don't quite understand the goals of the land management system. From what I understand one of them is to encourage the movement of gatherers around the world but the whole gathering system involves a lot of movement already. Limited storage, dangerous world (owPvP), limited resources like mines that will be depleted. There are lots of ways to encourage moving around the world (outside of gathering too), by providing greater reward instead of punishing players for staying in 1 spot. Market forces should naturally encourage movement across the world for maximum profit without forcing exploration. The game already does a great job of encouraging movement/exploration.
Also, isn't the whole point of the caravan system to move products from somewhere where they may be cheap to somewhere else that they might be expensive to turn a profit? If every gatherer is always going around the world and local resources can always be depleted (even beyond mines), no hubs can be established. No part of the world will be rich in 1 product while poor in another so prices will be a lot more similar across the map, there will be no silk road and local trade routes will be de-valued. The system just seems opponent to some other game systems while simultaneously being redundant with several others...
@Vaknar Could you clarify the goals of this system/what potential problems it's trying to resolve? At this point, with the information given, it is just a system for the sake of a system that is meant to 'encourage' exploration and movement for gatherers... the profession that already requires tons of exploration and skirting around owPvP...
Feels like a natural consequence of harvesting resources...at some point you may have to move to a new location.
Ashes is a dynmaic world, rather than a static world.
And the system fits in quite well with the design goal of risk v reward. If you harvest too much, you risk depleting the region of its resources.
My proposed flagging mechanic for over-harvesting would be to prevent griefing. If someone wants to grief a node's resources by gathering over the limit, then I think the owners of that node should be able to fight back against that. And everyone would be able to tell what the limits are because we're going to be using "survey tools" as Steven explained the last livestream. Basically, you use a survey tool to tell you what kind of wood is in a forest, or what ore is in a mine. It's a system from Star Wars Galaxies that Intrepid is taking heavy inspiration from.
I would think that land management is similar to ore veins being depleted. It's just the same system that forces players to move around Verra for resources instead of just staying in the same area.
I believe a lot of the systems you mentioned encourage movement of players, but not specifically gatherers. Limited storage doesn't mean it's efficient or effective to store all of your belongings in different regions. Maybe someone can obtain a large amount of storage in one, or two adjacent, nodes. They then sell a large amount of their gatherables via caravans, so the gatherers themselves aren't moving around. OW PvP may force gatherers to move as well, but they'll typically congregate in areas they can peacefully gather if they're not looking for the most valuable material spawns.
I think resource depletion will work a bit differently than you're conceiving it. The goal isn't to force gatherers to move all across Verra, it's to make them move around a certain region. Instead of gatherers just staying in the metropolis node and gathering resources, they now have to go to a village node and gather materials from there. There's still a congregated hub around the metropolis or relevant economic node in that system.
A game design decision that impacts a play-style, in this case staying in a local region and gathering the same (few) resources can be done in 2 ways. 1. it punishes players by having negative consequences to this play-style (i.e. depletion) or 2. it incentivizes alternate play-styles by making them more rewarding.
It is similar yes, in ways that makes it redundant but its dissimilarities are the problem. A mine for a particular resource serves as a concentrated, hotspot of that single resource that can be contested and provides risk vs reward. Making it so that gathering plants negatively impacts everybody else gathering plants in the region impacts every player, independent of how much any individual harvested from that region. It is beyond the plant you picked up re-spawning somewhere else (many games do this) from the sounds of things and impacts all gatherables of a certain class whereas the depletion of a silver mine just reduces silver availability.
Yes and players will be doing stuff other than just gathering and even if they exclusively gather, the world at large impacts their efficiency. Market forces and competition already pressure players to move around the world for gathering. If players congregate, individuals get less resources and prices drop. This is already incentive to move around no? The proposed system, sounds like just an extra layer to try to redundantly accomplish what other game systems already do while unnecessarily further penalizing an already inefficient play-style.
We have received no details unfortunately and they already have stated that spawning of mines and other resources clusters is geographically randomized. Like they already have stated systems that accomplish 'moving around a certain region'. I guess we need more details to understand what it's meant to do and how (hence my question to vaknar)
I do agree that I'd like them to go more into the system, but it may be the case they're still working out the specifics.
If you mismanage harvesting resources, you risk depleting the region of its resources.
So, instead of stripping a region of its resources, at some point you should move to a different location. And the reward for that should be quicker renewal of the resources in the area.
Especially if the devs can emulate cultivating the Three Sisters: Corn, Squash and Beans.
There is no punishment there.
Ashes is a dynamic world; rather than a static world...and it's features like that help prevent the world from becoming stagnant. It also helps foster player interaction because instead of no one speaking with other players because we know where things will forever be, we will want to ask players where the new harvetsing areas are. And it progresses the story. "I remember when corn used to grow near Drythorne, but now it grows over by Winstead."
I want to see resources depleted and renewed (in the same or other location) in varying degrees of time.
I would very much want to see a re-try of the UO ecosystem model if that is possible.
I like the idea of dynamic landscapes:
A can`t have your cake and eat it scenario.
It feels like a stretch to call it 'a natural consequence' when it's literally being coded and was not existent before. Also the whole concept of risk vs reward at this lvl is too much, it's not tangible. If I pick up a flower, I have no knowledge of how many other people have or plan to pick up flowers in that region this week/month/w.e. It's not a 'risk' every time you gather. And if someone does single handedly impact a region by over-gathering, everybody else also pays the consequence and that doesn't feel good. Risk vs reward should be about decisions you make as an individual/party where you are the ones mostly impacted by the consequences. It's hard to feel 'risk vs reward' over a week across who knows how many players gathering.
Let's try this differently, if you are going for realism, resources don't 'move' or 'relocate' after over-exploitation, they go extinct. Local regions have their own eco-systems and geological makeup, you don't randomly find silver where there previously wasn't any. Realism is only good if it's fun. You want people to feel a connection to your world? They should have a vague sense of where resources are based on biome etc. And if the land management system isn't even going to shift the biome in which resources are found, it's a waste of code as the geographical change is too short for it to meaningfully impact anyone.
Most games do already have movement of gathering nodes and with stuff like the mines, you do need to gain new information about where to go already. But this should be done on the basis of depletion of individual nodes (e.g. for each mine) not based on the total number of nodes in a vague geographic region.