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Possible Caravan Attack Workaround?
SaltyOnigiri
Member
I think it’s interesting that “Anyone may loot the caravan's wreckage.” I’m assuming that after the caravan is destroyed the pvp zone disappears meaning combatants that were say non combatants outside the caravan zone would revert. I would hire a non combatant to grab my stuff if the caravan is destroyed and attempt to run back to the city with it. If the attackers, kill the player, half the resources from the wreckage would drop but they would also go from a combatant to a corrupted. This creates a chance for them to drop gear upon death. Even better I’d ask a bounty hunter to also follow the caravan so he can immediately go after the now corrupted player in exchange for him taking any profit that drops from the attacker.
On one end I’m posting this because. if it worked, I would feel cool but on another end I think this may discourage attacking a caravan, which I know is a big feature of the game. Basically, if what I said above can be accomplished, you may want to adjust how large the caravan pvp zone is around wrecked caravans and have it remain for longer to ensure attackers have time to kill anyone running away with their hard earned loot.
On one end I’m posting this because. if it worked, I would feel cool but on another end I think this may discourage attacking a caravan, which I know is a big feature of the game. Basically, if what I said above can be accomplished, you may want to adjust how large the caravan pvp zone is around wrecked caravans and have it remain for longer to ensure attackers have time to kill anyone running away with their hard earned loot.
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I do not see any benefit to making the wreckage FFA at all. We'll see in A2 i guess.
Forcing an irreversible decision of "attack, defend, ignore" when entering a 50m radius would also work. By the time the other player gets close enough, the attackers will have looted their fill. Obviously, selecting nothing would equal the "ignore" decision.
But even if we disregard that, I'd be happy if this was the case, cause right now I don't see any real disadvantages to raiding caravans. Yes, Steven told us about the raider ladder and there's the gear decay (which is just yet another question too) and the potential loss of reputation in the node - but if the caravan has a ton of valuable resources - none of that really matters. So I'd rather have some ways to put as much pressure on the attackers as possible, cause so far the only real pressure is on the sender/owner of the good being transferred.
Also I’d like to think that the BH and people I’ve hired to carry my stuff if it’s destroyed are the entourage I’ve hired to defend the caravan. I mean I’m not paying them to stand there and watch. They should defend until destroyed. They just have their orders if they are unsuccessful.
Overall, It seems like the owner of the caravan has a lot more to lose at this point and the possibility for free spoils would almost incentivize people to not help.
That depends on the caravan type, @SaltyOnigiri.
If it's a regular node caravan, I'm sure the node populace has interest in seeing it successfully through ... and will guard it with whatever capacity they can.
If it's a personal caravan, then yes, it may not be as heavily defended.
Of course, we'll have to see it play out in Alpha 2 and Beta.
Problem solved.
Of course this is all speculation anyway as like @Taleof2Cities mentioned we don’t know how the system is currently in place and will have to wait until the Alpha 2 and Beta.
1. Can Caravan owners mitigate the loss from an attack by hiring or just having friends on standby to grab their loot in case of failure.
2. Will having the wreckage completely free for all incentivize players to watch how the battle unfolds or join in on the attack.(essentially creating a group of “looters” who travel around)
3. Are attackers really punished for losing if they attack a caravan as much as caravan owners are punished for losing.
4. Are smaller group of attackers punished because they are unable to leave with their hard earned loot due to a lack of inventory space.
5. Are personal caravans going to be eye candy for attackers and looters as their nodes(and therefore players) are less likely to help them.(essentially making it useless to use a personal caravan).
6. If your caravan is almost to its location, will defenders have enough time to respawn and rejoin the fight.(would kind of be unfair)
These are all things the AOC team would need to consider for their caravan system! Once again I am excited for the game and really just want this thread to bring any possible concerns to the teams attention while also letting us stave of our boredom with speculation and ideas.
You misunderstood me a bit. He's agreeing with me exactly. I believe that looting the caravan will not be safe and free, and keeping the PvP zone active during that phase would cause exactly that. It would require safe and free looting for your workaround to function.
No-one is going to go loot a caravan alone. If your allies had enough power to defend the caravan, you'd do far better to have them do that. If they can't stand up to the attackers, the attacking party or guild will probably just kill their own competition as well.
This sort of "steal the boss" style "PvP between two sets of attackers" is specifically intended in raids. There's no reason it wouldn't also be intended here. Attackers are going to be coordinated. A party or guild can take down a caravan and walk away with 8 full inventories worth of materials. A single player wasn't going to walk away with many of your resources in the first place, with only one inventory to fill. But if you can stop the party... you should have just done that in the first place. If you can't, they'll kill you before you can take their hard-earned loot. Just like in an open-world PvE raid.
That’s an interesting dynamic between attackers, defenders, and looters. I just am not sure attackers would be strong enough to fight off defenders and then protect their spoil from looters as well? If it’s a close fight, they do all the work and the looters can just steamroll over them after to take the spoils.
Then again that’s possibly the point. However, that also kind of sucks for caravan owners who are just starting out or don’t have the backing of guilds. I’m curious if over time the ability to caravan would only be for the really wealthy or extremely well connected merchant.
We want to remember that their are guild wars and I’m not sure if its AOC intent to have large scale wars over caravans which I feel like would happen over time. For example, Guild A wants to help their member move extremely valuable items across the node so the whole guild walks them down. Guild B in the adjacent node doesn’t want that for numerous reason. The scale of that pvp fight is gonna be wild.
Orrrr because it’s kinda hard for Guild B to pinpoint exactly when the caravan items would be moved. Guild A has no problems moving their items and attackers go after smaller businesses and citizens who are just starting to get up and running. Meaning being in a large supportive guild becomes a requirement for moving your items.
Only if their friends on standby can kill the attackers and take their loot before the attackers (who are now the defenders of the looting area) can haul it off themselves. If they can? That's exactly the kind of conflict Ashes intends to promote, and it's a risk the attackers will consider when planning their assault.
Yep! And that's probably completely intentional. Such is the risk/reward. If you can take the caravan, but can't get away with the loot you earned, you should think twice about attacking with "followers" nearby.
Probably not. There might be an incentive to spend more resources to defend your caravan, the more valuable it is. If attackers think they're just going to be taking death penalties, they probably won't attack. If they think that the odds are 50/50, but there's not much loot to gain... they probably won't attack.
I won't argue that the incentives are perfectly balanced right away. But they probably can be. We'll have plenty of time to test.
If they were attacking a caravan that they could only barely take over, when people were following to gank them after? They probably should be punished for it. Otherwise, they get away with one full inventory of loot per person. Plus however many lower-level guildmembers were waiting in the trees to help them carry it away. Or if they have people who can secure the location while they make a few more trips. Their reward is based on their planning and investment.
This seems likely enough. Except that... personal caravans probably have less loot on them and are therefore less valuable. People who can afford to send high-value personal caravans can afford to pay a lot of mercenaries to defend them. Same risk/reward. Same planning/investment. The core intent of the game.
We're... back to "the attackers waited until the worst possible time to start their assault". Poor planning, poor outcomes. Why'd they wait that long? If they were forced to by good planning from the defenders? They probably should have trouble. If they just were lazy about it? Honestly? Same.
A lot of this balances itself in certain ways. All that you need to do is balance the incentives and close any broken loopholes. And that's what testing is for. The core design suits the intent, and the adjustments required will mainly just be tuning. And that's always the space you want a design to be in.
I agree with all your points! I personally think this system can definitely work as long as they really balance the risk vs reward system and have a really balanced currency system in place. I just don’t want this method of making money to die out because it’s “too risky”.
I can definitely see videos in the future titled “Guaranteed way to make money in AOC when starting out” and it’s just a guy recommending you leg it on a fast inventory mount several times to the node rather than use a personal caravan because it’s “dangerous”.
This was fun and I definitely agree that this is kinda why the thread is here in the first place. we are just coming up on Alpha 2 and I definitely hope we can test all of this and give recommendations for any adjustments needed. I personally don’t have a key so I can only go based on what others post after!
If you’ve got a key let me know in a post how the caravan system worked out!
-If the defenders of the caravan are all killed, they lose, we know that. But it is probable that many of the attackers of the caravan also died. Maybe the fight is 20 vs 20 and the attackers lose 17, three surviving, and all dead respawn too far away to run back. Three surviving attackers can't carry much.
- Isn't the caravan PVP zone a 'non-penalty area' so those who die don't lose experience, etc.? Or am I mis-remembering that?
- If the caravan is hiring mercenary PLAYERS to help defend, the caravan master will have to tell them when to be at the departure point. But a wise caravan master will certainly not tell anyone (even guildies and node citizens since there will be spies) the Route of the caravan or the Destination. Sure, roads are fastest, but through the mountains might reduce possible ambush sites, deserts might increase visibility, rather than take the direct land rout go to the beach and hop a boat, and there is always the possibility to go through the Underworld caverns. In other words, finding a caravan won't be easy if you are dealing with smart folks.
- Speaking of those spies, tell the new guy in the guild that the caravan is leaving at 3 PM when it really leaves at noon. Then after 3 check the route and see if the new guy set up an ambush. If he did, then that dude is KoS forever.
- The smart caravan master will have a line of mounted scouts out ahead of the caravan wagons. If they see an ambush up ahead, the caravan can take a different route, or the guards can go ambush the ambush. You should have the scouts ahead of the caravan AND another group of scouts start at the destination and sweep the road towards the caravan. Have flankers and a rear guard as well.
- Ten minutes prior to the caravan leaving your node, send a scouting party out of the gates and start scouring on both sides of the road. The wrong road. So, if spies are trying to scout out your route, they are fooled.
- One big caravan or three small ones? I would consider the three small ones, with two of them being full of cheap garbage and one with the valuable stuff.
Man alive, this game is gonna be fun. Yeah, I got a lot more ideas, but I am only putting the obvious ones out here.
Well, do be sure to give your feedback in the appropriate thread. There should be one of those (former) sticky "[Player Feedback Request]" threads for Py'rai.
@tautau I’m so hyped for this. I didn’t even consider the idea that turncoats within your guild might be in cahoots with attackers. There’s some very smart business decisions in that comment that can make or break a successful caravan trip.
I'd absolutely take it. I want a subtle, not a "beaming" effect though. Same with luminous hair.
Attackers could take the risk of trying to kill Non-Combatants. Sure.
None of that is a work-around. It's all fair play.
Could be that Caravans will be a draw for Bounty Hunters. Yes.
Another concern is release upon death and distance you are respawned. I would hope for caravans that respawns would be far enough away that you cant jump back into the fight over and over. I would say the easiest fix for this if the devs wished, they could make you unable to release from death until the caravan raid is over. Or depending on how exactly the mechanics work, attackers and defenders have to wait a bit longer to release to get back to the spot. Otherwise if attackers can continuously respawn and run back to join the attack, I dont think any caravans are going to make their journey successfully.
And I mean it’s not like it can’t be a game mechanic as it would add risk for the attackers. However, it may also ruin rewarding attackers for their success. If six bounty hunters are sitting there, any non combatant is just gonna be able to grab their stuff and go. Based on new information I’d actually have a few non combatants state their claims as attackers and hold low attacking equipment and hit us a few times. Pretty sure that would give them access to the loot window faster and then they could ensure I keep my stuff. (And yes I know that means hiring or having extra friends who “could’ve” been useful in defending the raid just stand around or help minimally).
I think they would only attack if we had a good chance of winning. I like to imagine some days we’ll get swarmed by a group of attackers way larger than what I could possibly defend.
This is also all heavily dependent on how long the pvp zone lasts after the caravan is wrecked because the zone automatically reverts non combatants to combatants, making them fair game.
@Dolyem that is a good point. “The wiki says Non-corrupt players always respawn at the closest active respawn point (to their death).“
If that respawn point happened to be pretty close; technically defenders can also respawn and rejoin the fight as well so it “might” be balanced(although that’s gonna be a long fight).
@SongRune talked about how attackers should be planning when to attack so maybe they wait to strike until caravan is far enough away from respawn point to successfully raid? Or close enough to drag out the fight?
I’d also imagine that the vast majority of attackers wouldn’t know when the carravan is coming and so they prepare perfect “ambush spots” along roads and wait during prime caravan transport time to see if anyone moves goods.