Caravan "Finish Line"? | New Caravan and Trade System Changes

Steven spoke at the end today's live stream about how trade caravans would change. My focus went to his words about how nodes would have a "finish line" that, upon crossing, would end all events for the caravan, guards would come out of the node, and the caravan would be escorted inside.

I just wanted to give my two cents on this idea, because one of my main excitements for this game's economy is its involved realism. What I'm hoping for, concerning the caravan "finish line" is that it doesn't make caravans invulnerable, but simply increases the risks for attackers, here's why.
Rather than a "finish line" for caravans that would make them invulnerable, the finish line should become an influence circle that severely damages the caravan attacker's reputation if they choose to keep attacking the caravan even after passing into the sphere of influence of a node.
Meaning that the risk for attackers substantially increases, but those who are willing to take that risk can finish their task and trade off their standing with the node for the reward of a successful caravan attack. You could even implement the event of attackers perusing caravans past the "finish line" as a sort of minor raid on the node itself. If, as Steven said, guards come out to usher in approaching Caravans, those node guards would likely end up in conflict with the caravan attackers, making what the attackers are doing an "effective raid" on those safeguarded by the node.
I am a fan of this idea because it would increase immersion for both defenders and attackers by doing away with hard boundaries imposed by code, and it would open up a new realm of thrill for attackers who were misinformed and could barely catch up with an evading caravan. It would also give caravan defenders the chance to turn the tides on attackers with the help of node guards, and gain something back from the troublesome assailants.

Sorry for the block of text. I invite you all to discuss if you also have opinions on this.

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Comments

Scarbeus

I like this idea, but I think the caravan should become invulnerable once it gets inside the caravan building itself. Note that not all nodes will have one of these until they reach a high enough level or maybe one just hasn't been built by the mayor yet.

Fynsil

Scarbeus wrote: »

I like this idea, but I think the caravan should become invulnerable once it gets inside the caravan building itself. Note that not all nodes will have one of these until they reach a high enough level or maybe one just hasn't been built by the mayor yet.

I agree that caravans should become invulnerable at some point, and i think it's a good idea for that to be when entering the caravansary. I was thinking that attackers should become classified as raiders by nodes when passing through the circle of influence because if a caravan is valuable enough, or a node's defense is weak enough, it would make little sense why a large enough bandit party should stop their attack simply because of "the existence of a node".

Sigtyr

I think that it’s fine the way it is personally. I can imagine as an attacker the intensity and urgency ramping up as the caravan closes on the city in the distance. The magic of that moment kind of goes away if you can just continue attacking as it enters the city.

Warth

Navigating the Caravan through the nodes with collision, tons of players etc. would be scuffed as fuck.
Good change.

This shows, that they are moving on from a design phase full of wishful thinking to a practical stage where your original designs have to be reworked in order to be practical.

Fynsil

Sigtyr wrote: »

I can imagine as an attacker the intensity and urgency ramping up as the caravan closes on the city in the distance. The magic of that moment kind of goes away if you can just continue attacking as it enters the city.

Yeah, urgency and intensity will be something that makes being a bandit really attractive to a lot of players. But, that urgency wouldn't just go away.
There are still node guards, node mercenaries, and the caravan defenders who can fight back and kill bandits who are too reckless.
If the caravan was under-prepared, it wouldn't have been an interesting fight anyways. But implementing a fight with node guards could actually make attacking a weak caravan more interesting from taking the risk of fighting the gaurds of the node.
The idea of AoC is "calculated risk vs reward", and making intelligent decisions that reward the players who choose them. This just encourages more of that intelligent thinking and punishes those who are reckless.

Fynsil

Warth wrote: »

Navigating the Caravan through the nodes with collision, tons of players etc. would be scuffed as fuck.

Maybe you're right about diffuculty with collisions and navigating through crowded city areas, but what I was referring to was a mechanic where caravan defenders have the chance to turn the tides on attackers when outside of nodes, and attackers have to make a high-stakes decision on whether or not to continue attacking a caravan while within the influence of a node.

BaSkA_9x2

I don't think Steven's idea is necessary at all. Why not simply make it so that when the Caravan enters the walls of the destination Node it becomes invulnerable/event is over? Making guards escort the caravan or whatever else they have in mind feels just unnecessary.

I played a lot of Silkroad, and did a lot of "caravans" in that game. All differences aside, the battle was just to get inside the safe zone. Of course Ashes doesn't have safe zones for characters, but why not have safe zones for caravans?

Diamaht

Fynsil wrote: »

Sigtyr wrote: »

I can imagine as an attacker the intensity and urgency ramping up as the caravan closes on the city in the distance. The magic of that moment kind of goes away if you can just continue attacking as it enters the city.

Yeah, urgency and intensity will be something that makes being a bandit really attractive to a lot of players. But, that urgency wouldn't just go away.
There are still node guards, node mercenaries, and the caravan defenders who can fight back and kill bandits who are too reckless.
If the caravan was under-prepared, it wouldn't have been an interesting fight anyways. But implementing a fight with node guards could actually make attacking a weak caravan more interesting from taking the risk of fighting the gaurds of the node.
The idea of AoC is "calculated risk vs reward", and making intelligent decisions that reward the players who choose them. This just encourages more of that intelligent thinking and punishes those who are reckless.

I see where you are coming from with this idea, but I would have to disagree. People will simply do the math on how many folks they need, and caravan raid groups would simply become large enough to overcome the guards. Then they wouldn't have to anticipate where a caravan was coming from or track its movements they would just wait outside the building and jump anything that approaches.

You see this in Eve Online with gate camps. That's what would eventually happen here too. Lower tier nodes would simply become Low Sec and I don't think that is the intent.

Edit: It would also take the focus away from PvP. You are not really planning out how to attack players, you are planning how to wipe out guards before you get to the players. I would have a small scout team initiate combat at the "border line" while the main force is near the Caravancery (sp?) wiping out the guards. Once the guards are dead we would then proceed to clean up the players.

Sengarden

@BaSkA13
From the way Steven described it, it sounds like the guards don’t currently come out to defend the caravan. I think he was just saying they appear when you enter the safe zone as a visual representation of immunity. To give some visual, immersive backbone as a reason why attackers can no longer continue their assault.

Personally, I think the idea of attacking guards from another node for an extra thirty seconds of DPS sounds like fun if you know for sure that the caravan is carrying something good.

However, that sort of behavior would arguably be in the territory of node wars, where there are strict guidelines in place for how they’re declared and launched. There’s a reason we have time-gates after node wars are declared before we can assault each other’s resources and tax-payer-funded NPCs. Caravansaries are part of those node resources, it’s a node building operated and maintained by the mayor. So for the sake of maintaining those boundaries, I don’t really agree with this idea.

Asgerr

BaSkA13 wrote: »

I don't think Steven's idea is necessary at all. Why not simply make it so that when the Caravan enters the walls of the destination Node it becomes invulnerable/event is over? Making guards escort the caravan or whatever else they have in mind feels just unnecessary.

I'm pretty sure they do become invulnerable once they enter the node walls. The rest is basically cosmetic, so that your caravan doesn't just poof out of existence once it crosses a threshold. They bring it into the parking lot for caravans (caravancery) and there maybe it disappears, but it at least looks realistic and immersive.

Dygz

NPC guards as escort delivers more immersion.
I wonder how long Bandits wait to see if the Caravan is at it's final destination or if it's just making a pit stop?

BaSkA_9x2

Thanks, @Sengarden, I watched the stream and I was wrong indeed, you're correct.

Fynsil

Diamaht wrote: »

People will simply do the math on how many folks they need, and caravan raid groups would simply become large enough to overcome the guards.

Isn't that what bandits would do when planning to subjugate caravan escorts anyways? Bandits would need to plan on being able to fight through any escorts in order to succeed in an attack in the first place, and if the node guard assistance system is more exploitable than it is helpful for immersion and freedom, then it can be modified.

Diamaht wrote: »

Then they wouldn't have to anticipate where a caravan was coming from or track its movements they would just wait outside the building and jump anything that approaches.

Are you talking about bandit groups sitting inside a node's walls and waiting to attack an incoming caravan? I think there should be a system that prevents offenders like bandits from entering nodes they've attacked(attack on sight guards) so something like that won't happen. And if it's too intensive to implement, have caravans become invulnerable when passing inside node walls.

Diamaht wrote: »

You see this in Eve Online with gate camps. That's what would eventually happen here too. Lower tier nodes would simply become Low Sec and I don't think that is the intent.

The corruption and bounty systems will have a hand in preventing something like this, especially if some of the bounties on bandits are specific and only claimable when they are in the act of attacking a caravan.

Diamaht wrote: »

It would also take the focus away from PvP. You are not really planning out how to attack players, you are planning how to wipe out guards before you get to the players. I would have a small scout team initiate combat at the "border line" while the main force is near the Caravancery (sp?) wiping out the guards. Once the guards are dead we would then proceed to clean up the players.

You are right about this idea taking some of the focus away from PvP, but I would argue that it adds additional options and concerns for both attackers and escorts. Your idea of a small scout team initiating combat while a main group kills guards until depleted and cleans up the players would be taken care of by a city reputation system. A reputation system that prevents the large group from entering inside a node at all to do this more than once, and the smaller scout group should easily be defended against until it enters node the walls, or even is killed off by escorts if they aren't careful.
Keep in mind that if a large group of bandits wants to attack a small, weak, unprepared caravan, then that caravan is going down no matter what. The node guard circle of influence idea serves to offer more options and risks to players for closer fights where escorts and attackers are both in an enduring battle rather than a system where "they've crossed the finish line, you can't do anything now even if you're 10 feet away with nothing stopping you."

Dygz

Bandits don't have Bounties...unless they are Corrupted?
I wonder how the Bandits would know the end location and race there in time to hide?
Why wouldn't there also be Caravan defenders camped at the end location as well?

Fynsil

Dygz wrote: »

Bandits don't have Bounties...unless they are Corrupted?
I wonder how the Bandits would know the end location and race there in time to hide?
Why wouldn't there also be Caravan defenders camped at the end location as well?

All good points @Dygz and maybe I was wrong about how the bounty and corruption systems work.

Sengarden

I think we might be needlessly inflating this issue. With the most recent updates to map size and average travel time, we now know that nodes will be a five minute walk to their direct neighbor. We know that caravans move at walking speed. We know that only nodes of a certain level (I'm guessing 3 or 4 and above) will have access to caravanserai.

With all this in mind, there will be a sort of gap in this "safe-zone pit-stop" defense mechanism, going by the logic of vassal node level caps.

Visualized:
6 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

I think it's safe to say that the (2 1 2) zone, or potentially even the (3 2 1 2 3) zone will not have any of these pit-stops available. So, given that caravans receive better payoffs the further away they travel from their home node, I think you'll often see players traveling at least as far as the nearest major parent node, crossing this pit-stop gap at least once per journey.

Within the (2 1 2) gap, you'll get an uninterrupted 15-20 minute shot at taking it down, and a 25-30 minute shot if stage three nodes are not allowed caravanserai. There's also the potential for certain nodes to not have built a caravanserai yet, further extending this window of vulnerability. This would most likely occur with stage three nodes, being smaller and with less tax income, even if building them there is theoretically possible.

That should give you plenty of time to launch an assault and be successful if your team is actually up to the task. If you were "misinformed" and the caravan "evaded" you, you should get better scouts and organize better caravan-raid preparedness. Not launch an assault on the city housing one caravan which your team failed to destroy in the open.

TLDR; I don't think we need to be debating this intensely over an extra 60 second window in which you're allowed to break lines of political immersion by attacking city guards without major consequences for the sake of downing a caravan which you and your allies failed to destroy within 15-30 minutes of uninterrupted PvP.

Warth

Sengarden wrote: »

I think we might be needlessly inflating this issue. With the most recent updates to map size and average travel time, we now know that nodes will be a five minute walk to their direct neighbor. We know that caravans move at walking speed. We know that only nodes of a certain level (I'm guessing 3 or 4 and above) will have access to caravanserai.

I assume for you walking = running rather than RP walking?

Its not 5 Minutes walking time on foot to move to their exact neighbors.
Its ~3.5 Minutes to ride from the edge of your node to the edge of the next node.
Its 5 Minutes to ride from the center of your node to the center of the next node.

Also, it never was stated that the caravans move at walking speed. Actually, from what we have seen, the caravan moves significantly slower than a walking (running) player

Sengarden wrote: »

With all this in mind, there will be a sort of gap in this "safe-zone pit-stop" defense mechanism, going by the logic of vassal node level caps.

Visualized:
6 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

Nodes do not necessairily progress like that geographically.
It might be, that one of the vassal cities is the furthest node away from the parental metropolis or 2 vassal cities being very close to each other and the parent node. All Nodes around the parental metropolis node could be 1,2 and 3 making the transport to the node always at least 2 node distances.

I agree with the rest you said.

tautau

Keep in mind that the caravan components will impact the speed of the caravan. Higher quality components are more expensive but make the caravan faster.

Sengarden

@Warth

This was what I was referencing, off of the wiki. Maybe it’s incorrect, but the info in the chart was what I remembered Steven saying.

I took a look at some footage and saw players running alongside caravans at about running speed, if they were slower it wasn’t by much. But this is all variable and due to adjustment. And like @tautau said, those speeds can be upgraded. But I imagine not by a ludicrous amount. Maybe 15-20% or something.

BaSkA_9x2

Caravans between nodes close to each other and from vassal to parent, or vice-versa, will more often than not be safe because of how quick they'll be and because you don't want to be enemies of your fellow citizens/neighbors.

Most of the real conflict will probably take place when moving goods through Caravans between distant nodes.

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