"BANDIT Advancement" Question - & NPCs List is Already Available!

Tyranthraxus

After the mention of the Bandit-advancement system mentioned by our Creative Director in the latest update, there were 2 things that come to the fore-front:

1) Have we had mention of this, before? When he took the question about Risk vs Reward on the part of the attackers in Caravan PvP, I didn't expect Steven to have an answer. It's really good to know that there WILL be some risk to attackers' advancement, in this form!

2) In trying to find information about it on the Ashes Wiki, a whole list of NPCs is already available, for the "Shifting Coin Bandits". Here's the link - and it includes some lower-level bosses, as well:

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Shifting_Coin_Bandits


Wasn't able to find anything on the Wiki about Bandit-advancement, though; Does anyone know of any previous information we've had, on this?

Dygz

Yes. We've heard of it before:
The caravan defender role is going to have its own progression questing and rewards associated with it that are going to attract a certain subset of players and then you know vice-versa wise we're going to have incentives that appeal to the more highway brigand type players; and you know you might not always be on one side or the other: that might change depending on what your interests are in the at the time. But obviously you know those types of systems need to have robust you know consequential type rewards and benefits associated with them in order to compel the player; and that's something obviously we're going to test in alphas and betas and see how performant it is in actually attracting players to participate and make sure it's not just one-sided so-to-speak.
---Steven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGQWEQK2iWI&t=4581s
Mark 1:16:21

Goalid

Damn, didn't see that he already had a sort of answer in the past, now feels like I wasted a question

You think you've read the wiki ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Although, I do feel as though most players have overlooked that system, so it's nice to have it more front and center of people's minds.

Dygz

Haha!
Honestly, I was a bit surprised when I heard who asked the question.

Tyranthraxus

Thanks, @Dygz ! I recall watching that update - but definitely didn't quite catch that mention.

From the wording, I'm not sure if one can follow both focuses at one time, or if you'll want to advance up caravan defender / caravan bandit roles to completion, before starting on the other. Either way, it's good to know that -sometimes- it just won't be worth it for people to mess with caravans, since they will be integral to Node advancement.

Dygz

Seems like we should be able to since we will want to attack rival Caravans and defend allied Caravans.
We'll see.

Ludullu

Goalid wrote: »

Damn, didn't see that he already had a sort of answer in the past, now feels like I wasted a question

You think you've read the wiki ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Although, I do feel as though most players have overlooked that system, so it's nice to have it more front and center of people's minds.

I still feel that the worry of imbalance of risk is present. Obviously we'll have to see how they balance that progression system and how the social part of the game will influence players, but I still feel like losing hours/days-worth of materials is not quite the same as just losing a few points on the social org ladder (if you're even a part of that ladder in the first place).

Noaani

To me, the question here is "do we have to sign up for either path in order to attack a caravan?".

Because if you do not need to sign up as a bandit, and you can still attack caravans, that kills off that risk element.

Unless there is a reward at the end of it that is more valuable than what I could get from hunting caravans, I fail to see why I would take that path if the option to not take it is present.

Dygz

You defend allied Caravans and attack rival Caravans.
If you are participating in Castle Sieges, you will want to attack those Caravans in the first three weeks leading up to Castle Siege in order to weaken Castle defenses.