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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.
How to manage the land
Strevi
Member
I think nodes should have the possibility to manage the land.
See "land management" section in wiki
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Resources
I see this possibility through a quest system.
There should be a place where you go and check what tasks are available.
Those tasks could be to
- locate resources, nearby or further away in other territories. Once that job is done, the node gains knowledge about resource locations and has the possibility to create harvesting tasks
- build guard towers near resources. Cheap low level towers for common resources and more expensive towers for rare resources. NPCs will start patrolling that area.
- protect the towers and help the guards in fight against monsters or other players
- collect resources if the task is allowed or risk being attacked by the guards
- these small towers could act as temporary storage materials and be a start point for low tier caravans. Maybe NPC driven caravans with mules. Or mixed caravans, where the players and their mules join dynamically into the NPC caravan, to bring their resources to the node.
- to build and repair the towers, keep the guards healthy, resources have to be transported with caravans from the node or from other nearby towers. Or by many players in their inventories if that makes sense.
These could be activities for low level players, if the resources are low tier.
I don't see high level players harvesting common resources but
- they might enjoy the activity
- helping low level players is nice (also as mentors maybe?)
- there might be some other rewards related to the good functioning of the node, the node influence or player reputation. As a crafter I would rather sell my products to players who help protect the resources.
When a guard tower is attacked and destroyed, only players of the corresponding level should be able to participate.
Or they should have some benefits in being close to that tier level. Then, even veteran players will prefer to switch to low level alts.
Towers could also help seeing the map around with more details.
Do you see any weakness in this idea?
See "land management" section in wiki
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Resources
I see this possibility through a quest system.
There should be a place where you go and check what tasks are available.
Those tasks could be to
- locate resources, nearby or further away in other territories. Once that job is done, the node gains knowledge about resource locations and has the possibility to create harvesting tasks
- build guard towers near resources. Cheap low level towers for common resources and more expensive towers for rare resources. NPCs will start patrolling that area.
- protect the towers and help the guards in fight against monsters or other players
- collect resources if the task is allowed or risk being attacked by the guards
- these small towers could act as temporary storage materials and be a start point for low tier caravans. Maybe NPC driven caravans with mules. Or mixed caravans, where the players and their mules join dynamically into the NPC caravan, to bring their resources to the node.
- to build and repair the towers, keep the guards healthy, resources have to be transported with caravans from the node or from other nearby towers. Or by many players in their inventories if that makes sense.
These could be activities for low level players, if the resources are low tier.
I don't see high level players harvesting common resources but
- they might enjoy the activity
- helping low level players is nice (also as mentors maybe?)
- there might be some other rewards related to the good functioning of the node, the node influence or player reputation. As a crafter I would rather sell my products to players who help protect the resources.
When a guard tower is attacked and destroyed, only players of the corresponding level should be able to participate.
Or they should have some benefits in being close to that tier level. Then, even veteran players will prefer to switch to low level alts.
Towers could also help seeing the map around with more details.
Do you see any weakness in this idea?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
3
Comments
Ideas like land management- and as you draw resources from your surrounding area- what type of effect does that have on the land; and then also how effectively can you draw those resources without having such a deleterious effect on the land, which might impact future resource gathering for some period of time: And it makes relevant the movement of these players who are collecting these goods from the environment, that they actually cannot always just do so in one particular area, as the land management begins to degrade. So it actually encourages movement across the world to discover new areas that might not be as perturbed as the ones you're coming from. It's a very interesting idea. It's something that we're going to be prototyping in Alpha 2 and getting feedback on and testing.[29] – Steven Sharif
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Resources
The part "So it actually encourages movement across the world to discover new areas" is unlikely.
Players and bots, if not stopped by the game or by other players, will harvest everything.
Then will move into other nearby nodes if players there had no time to gather everything.
Eventually the entire map will be stripped by all resources and players will punch each other because they have no materials to repair their swords.
You do know that resources respawn right?
Many other games have resources which re-spawn.
Will be like in Ark Survival. You harvest in a place then go to the next. You will have always a place to harvest from.
Influencing that rate is one of the components of the OP’s ideas.
I have no doubts that the devs can find their sweet spot.
My problem is that I don't like the concept as I understand it.
It will be chaos. Players will not trust each other. You log out in the evening and next day the resources are gone. Who collected them? And those resources will not spawn anymore because the devs say that is the consequence of players being greedy.
Reading all this makes me think it could work like - if this area hasn't been harvested for a while, there is resources built up and respawn faster. If a group of people have been actively harvesting the area for a while, they will be more sparce and respawn slower. It's probably not as drastic as it's made out to be. Not like the area will be barren for a week.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Gameplay
There are many reasons to engage in open world PvP in Ashes of Creation.
Scarce resources.
Hunting grounds.
Caravans.
Sieges.
Guild wars.
I think the developers will test the game and if they see that players do not have a reason to fight, they reduce the resource re-spawn rate.
I mean it's not hard to make a rare resource scarce or only in specific locations. My idea on how it works still makes them scarce anyway since it slows down your farming. I'm not sure if you were trying to argue against it or not.
I do not argue against developer's decision to put fewer resources to cause wars.
But as a mayor, how do you take care of your resources if those are scarce?
You could assign a small guild to guard them maybe?
And the devs mention "land management" without details as if it would be the mayor's responsibility to convince people to behave nicely. If that is their intention, then yes, I argue against that.
They have to give the tools to manage else players will start blaming each-other for being greedy or being bots.