I'm perfectly ok with losing whatever amount of materials is decided upon, but it would be great to have vastly more respawn points around the map when killed in pvp vs pve.
For me, the truly unfun aspect of getting killed while gathering is the long and arduous run back to your body or gathering spot to continue your chosen activity. Perhaps the available respawn points are dictated by green, purple, and red states, or just being flagged or unflagged.
I want to get back to the action faster, for revenge or to continue doing what I enjoy, and not be put out by long boring slogs to get back out to the middle of nowhere because of another player. Maybe revenge kills force the initial killer to drop more resources and respawn further away, so there's added risk to camp someone, and incentive for aggressors to move on with their winnings rather than camp and grief.
Pvp vs gatherers should be less about forcing players away from gathering spots (ruining their gameplay) and more about the personal profit of the attacker. There are plenty of other systems in place for pushing boundaries around through organized conflict.
@HandsomeHammer
~3.5 minues from edge of one node to another. Assuming respawn is at least as close as one's node and one is usually in their node's territory, it should be a minute to return to your body.
And there should be citizens around a node basically defending it from griefers. 40 - 200. Assuming 100 nodes and 10k players that's an average of 85 or something since some players will be wandering around or sailing.
This does not work because the corrupted character cannot trade.
Thanks for the info. I have a question.
Can red drop things and what will happen then? Someone else will be able to pick it up or the item will be destroyed?
Nope, its fine as it is. If you don't want to die, hire a merc to protect you. Pretty darn simple.
Being hired as a merc sounds boring. Who wants to pay to play a game where you get to roleplay a rent-a-cop?
It doesn't sound fun, so there's going to be little interest in it. Should be obvious.
Non-solutions don't really solve anything.
Defending caravans is exactly that kind of job. Some players will take that job, if they are payed.
I agree with you there because they are a -if I remember right- broadcasted target/event.
JobBob wondering around the Dusky Hills for three hours looking for Franged Mushrooms, not gonna see a lot of action. Eh?
Why hire somebody if the chances to have no action over 3 hours are low?
If those are very rare mushrooms, then somebody might have looted them. I think players who roam looking for Tier 4 resources grab any of them if they can or notify their guild or some artisan partner to go fast and collect them.
If are common mushrooms, then chances are that are present in more places and in significant quantities.
So JobBob might make many trips between the city and the gathering spot and might not be the only one doing that.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
I think safe zones near resources wouldn't hurt. The weak link in the resource flow should be the caravan.
But those are more expensive and risky, compared to mules.
Therefore mules should be safe only on the shortest path from resource to the closest city.
Safe zones near resources? Resources are normally all over the place in mmos. Everywhere. Dunno how you'd implement safe zones near resources if they're everywhere. That would be a massive design shift from Intrepid.
With how close nodes are to each other, in many areas of the map you're not all that far from the relative safety of a node anyway.
Maybe now after 7 years the cracks in the design are being noticed or addressed.
Resources collected near a node should go to that node safer than to nodes further away.
It has to be enforced, because caravans are a design pillar and much depends on this mechanic working efficiently. So how do you make that happen?
The corruption as it is now, seems to offer safety on the entire map, except in the deep sea.
If anyone mentioned safe zones, maybe was actually trying to sell more danger outside of them.
The easiest way is to give a safety bonus through an attunement to a local religion building in the node. Players operating near that node for long time would gain gradually more of that benefit and would also lose the ones they had in a previous node. Then all players could get that, even if they are not citizens or they are citizens of another node and just want to operate here for a while.
That would give more corruption to anyone killing an attuned gatherer and less if is a foreign one who just wants to grab rare resources and run back to his freehold on the other side of the map and cheat the caravan mechanic.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
I see a lot of people saying that gatherers only carry the risk, well as a PvP player I gather as well even if it is not my main focus. I am also at risk from other players regardless of their playstyle which I accept as the result of going out in the world.
You risk dying in most activities in the game in order to reap the rewards, why should gathering be any different?
If you're concerned with losing things you should take the appropriate actions to mitigate it yourself as much as possible instead of asking for artificial systems to protect you.
Like gathering in a less crowded area, brining friends or making agreements with other players/nodes regarding a certain area.
So TLDR: Don't change things because players can't handle the risk or refuse to take actions to mitigate the risk they put themselves at.
For the love of god - No fucking way. If there is "save" ways to gather, then it will de-values all the gathering alternatives that involve taking risks. Reward without Risk is a growing cancer that corrodes all the systems connected with it.
If someone isn't comfortable with taking the risk of gathering, then they may:
become processors/crafters and enjoy the safety of the node/freehold. (0 Risk)
decide to gather lower tier, less conflict prone materials that yield less reward at a reduced risk.
decide to gather less sought after materials that yield less reward at a reduced risk
decide to bring friends with them for protection (reduced reward in exchange for added protection)
decide to gather in areas close to nodes, where they have an easier time fleeing from an attacker in exchange for more gatherers being around (reduced reward in exchange for added protection)
But the ability to not drop materials or the ability to become unattackable? Hell no, that would be hands down the worst design decision Intrepid has ever made and directly go against everything the core design of the game stands for.
Player Interaction
Both as a collarabotive effort and hostile interactions are facilitated through Gatherers (the backbone behind the entire economy) being under constant threat.
Taking that away would directly go against this design principle.
Player Agency + Risk vs. Reward
The ability to be attacked and to attack with tangible reward creates player Agency.
The decision when to gather, what to gather, with whom to gather creates Player Agency by allowing you to how large the risk and reward you are willing to take is.
Meaningful conflict over scarce resources
How do you want to feature meaningful conflict over scarce resources if you take out the conflict?
Going out in the world should risk treachery, death and things not going according to plan.
Its a PvX MMO, not WoW.
There are plenty of singleplayer MMOs for snowflakes, kids, carebears, roleplayers and other kinds. Don't take away the CORE DESIGN what you have promised us at the begining. It was said plenty of times: " this game is not for everyone "
I just hope Steven will not shit himself under the carebears pressure and will stick to the cores of the promised game. Thank you
I've played a lot of MMORPGs. But I lost my virginity with Lineage 2 which was my first, and till this day still one of the best PvP oriented and grindy games that I have ever played.
Griefed some players, was griefed by other players, was rolled over by huge party, killed poor solo lvler,... you name it.
One thing I do know, is that non of this "griefing" games died because of this features but rather poor dev decisions or game just dying out.
I simply love adrenaline in the air. Escape from Tarkov nailed it pretty it good with that. You can stay in the raid till the end and stack as much loot as possible or just quickly get in the raid, grab what you need and get out. Meaning to avoid as much as PvP as possible. Combine that with social aspect in open world and people will love it.
Also this push for carebear initiative is supported by the people buying multiple account and their bots being safe like @Sapiverenus already hinted in the post above.
It's fine enough already that if you kill a player gathering and get corruption. Ye, he lost his mats but you are corrupted meaning you can drop your gear that you worked hard for. It just little testing and fine tunning.
For me the original system sounds like a pretty good start, I'm sure they'll need to be tuned on drop amounts etc..
A few thoughts
Is the risk balanced, is the aggressor risking as much as the gatherer?
As I see it the risk for the aggressor is if the gatherer doesn't defend then they risk some corruption and gatherer loses some materials
If the gatherer does defend but loses the aggressor wins all, no corruption and some materials
If the gatherer defends and wins, you might get some material if the aggressor is carrying some
Secondly what counts as defending, does healing yourself count for example?
And what about additional actors, if it's 2 on one for example is the corruption penalty worse?
This does not work because the corrupted character cannot trade.
Thanks for the info. I have a question.
Can red drop things and what will happen then? Someone else will be able to pick it up or the item will be destroyed?
Red can drop things, they lose more EXP, they have the chance to drop some of their gear.
For me the original system sounds like a pretty good start, I'm sure they'll need to be tuned on drop amounts etc..
A few thoughts
Is the risk balanced, is the aggressor risking as much as the gatherer?
As I see it the risk for the aggressor is if the gatherer doesn't defend then they risk some corruption and gatherer loses some materials
If the gatherer does defend but loses the aggressor wins all, no corruption and some materials
If the gatherer defends and wins, you might get some material if the aggressor is carrying some
Secondly what counts as defending, does healing yourself count for example?
And what about additional actors, if it's 2 on one for example is the corruption penalty worse?
The risk for an aggressor who is not carrying much is smaller, sometimes much smaller, but otherwise generally the risk is the same except in the situation of a travel chokepoint (where the gatherer enters a dangerous area but the aggressor can wait at a known, single exit instead of risking being inside).
Since most aggressors can only do that once if their opponent does not defend before becoming Corrupted, or before having enough materials from looting their 'victim' for it to matter if someone else kills them, it's short bursts of low risk followed by normal risk...
Except when the aggressor is in a group (either an actual party or not), since as we understand it now, you can loot a body without even being part of the fight, and you can help kill a player who is not defending without actually gaining any Corruption.
Ok, so gathering involves risk and reward. Unless the reward merits hiring another player out (and that sum is high enough which is unlikely for 90% of the interactions) you're going to go it alone. So, there needs to be a way to mitigate risk of attack when gathering solo in your gathering gear solo. Hiring body guard npcs to help fend off others would be a nice middle ground of diminished reward while also diminishing risk. It's unlikely that I would enjoy following someone around for an hour while they look for herbs. But a bodyguard npc would even the playing field with a maxed out player.
Risk should remain for gatherers. Personally I think corruption should be guaranteed for attacking green players. If the gatherer fights back the amount of corruption should be less than if they remain green. But I believe the risk for the corrupted player should extend beyond corruption. Gathering is a time investment. I need to learn more about the current design on looting gatherers, but here is my take:
Looting the corpse of a gatherer should take additional time proportional to the amount of items you're taking. Obviously not near the amount of time it takes to actually gather it, or there would be no incentive for PvP.
Imagine you gank a gatherer. Then, newly corrupted, you have to take the risk of standing over the body, looting it, transferring items. Running the risk you are caught while stationary, gathering your loot. I think there needs to be more to the process than gank, insta-loot, vanish, hiding away while corrupted. Catching players red handed would be fun as hell.
I read some of the comments and one thing i really hope is good balanced systems in between risk and reward.
If i can gather materials and i have no risk to bring my goods home, this will be a relaxed task, which noone will think of. In the end gathering will be an boring thing to do on the longterm.
And on the other hand if i play in a system, where i have to be afraid to loose 100% of my goods to a group of thieves. This will a thing that i accept once. But wenn this happends everey day i would be very furios and i will stop gathering materials (i hated it in albion online, when i always had to have some friends by me to protect me - protecting a full time gatherer is really no interesting thing).
The answer is in the middle of these two systems. If i want to get 100% of my gathered materials home, i have to be lucky or i will contact friends to escort me on dark and dangerous corners.
But when i´m dying on my way home, i will have to drop some of my goods (10%-20%?)
And it have to be regardless if I'm dying due to a PvPler or a mob.
That is a risk/reward system for both side. The PvPler being corrupted and the gatherer being punished for being not protected on my way home.
Please no 100% material loot system, that system would be too much on the PvPler side of the reward system.
I haven't delved that deep into AoC yet, when i'm dead... will i have to walk back to my corpse or what mechanic is explained in the past?
Sorry about my english. It is not my mother language. I hope you all understand my point of view.
The more I read about AoC, the more I am interested in its future. Currently, I have two problems.
1. The system of corruption looks fictional and will not stop anyone from doing anything. At the maximum level, removing corruption yourself is too easy and too cheap.
2. Gathering seems unnecessary. Like it was unnecessary for a very long time in Eve Online. Instead of spending your time on slow and risky gathering, it's better to kill a bos and reprocess the loot. Unless the loot is better.
I believe that in the current state of the system, Gatherers are at a disadvantage, but direct mitigation of loss won't balance this, only potentially flip the script.
To elaborate a on that, here's the list of possible outcomes of Gatherer-Attacker interaction, and what they entail for each party:
1.Non-combatant Gatherer is killed(Major Loss - Major Victory/Major Loss) - Gatherer loses resources, Attacker enters risk territory with potential big reward.
2. Combatant Gatherer is killed(Loss - Minor Victory) - Gatherer some loses resources and gets death penalty, Attacker gets a reward.
4. Combatant Attacker is killed(Victory - Minor Loss) - Gatherer gets to keep resources, Attacker gets death penalty. Note: This scenario has potentially lower likelihood
5. Corrupted Attaker is killed(Victory - Major Loss) - Gatherer gets to keep resources, Attacker gets major death penalty. Note: This scenario has potentially lower likelihood
While on paper this might look rather fair, the problems emerge when one realizes that Gatherer's "punishing" options are either punishing for them as well, and are not guaranteed to punish the offender, or reqire combat advantage, which is either non-existant (gathering gear) or clearly visible (combat gear and/or guards).
This binarity could very easily result in a meta: if punishing method 1 is less viable, mostly punishing methid 2 will be used, and vice-versa. Skill-based drop mitigation will only move this problem from overall game balance to early/late-game spectrum.
There is a possibility that it'll work, but this would require some really heavy testing during A2.
Potential solution
My idea is rather simple, and relies on changing the scenario no. 3 from (Victory - Nothing) to (Victory - Minor Loss)
An attacked Non-combatant becomes carrier of negative reputation towards the Attacker, which then needs to be passed to an NPC guard to apply a fine or other penalty on the Attacker. In case the Non-combatant decides to become a Combatant, that negative reputation should be nullified.
Additionally, to make things more interesting, there could exist Gathering perks that activate when carrying the reputation, making the carrier faster or more resiliant to CC.
Dropping a portion of your Mats on death is a great way to balance risk V reward. The longer you are out gathering, or using a mule to haul around goods, the more you're risking in order to gain 'efficiency' for not having to travel back and forth between your storage. Likewise, griefing a gatherer has it's own risk of corruption and you have to balance that with the unknown of just how much materials you will gain by killing this player. Seeing a 'fat gatherer' with a mule out in the wild will be a greater target than some lone guy who happened to stop off to grab some herbs while adventuring. TRUE gatherers could benefit from grouping up to defend each other while on their gathering loops. I think it will create a much more engaging experience for gatherers and 'thieves' alike.
The curret system hasn't even been tested yet. Implement that and then make changes based on how it performs.
Total protection for farmers is a disgusting gameplay loop and will ruin the economy. Free farming on New World was terrible, having a bot sit in a high yield resource area for hours with 0 repercussions was miserable. Why go out and farm when a bot is going to do it for you and drive the prices down?
I'm leaning towards a crafter and a pve player. However I do think that with Ashes concept the caravan, the guild wars and the town siege systems sound interesting enough that I would at least want to try it out. What has been my concern about the game is the ganking. I love crafting, gathering and just exploration of the world, and if this part of the gameplay is severely affected with griefers ganking me at every turn, won't probably stay very long in the game. And I'm probably not the only one that feels like this.
I think the change of dropping half of your materials is a pretty steep cut. I would love to at least have ways to mitigate this without participating in pvp. Also since there are real benefits in ganking players by getting their material, I think it's likely that there will be gankers waiting around towns for returning gathers. I think half of everything you have collected just to be able to get back into a town for example just sounds bad and discouraging. I think one way to mitigate this would be to have people drop less loot close to towns and villagers (more lawful area of the world) and more when they are very far away. In my opinion though 1/3 should probably be max of what you could drop as pure gatherer when you don't want to pvp.
On a related subject. I'm also a bit worried about people who might want to abuse the system. For example if turning from green to purple could happen by someone initiating a fight and then running into my aoe in order to get me to be purple as well. Also in some games it's possible to fight someone until they are low and then pull a monster to finish them and therefore avoiding the penalties of killing.
So there is nothing more annoying in a game than when you spend MANY HOURS harvesting materials to try to get enough to contribute to leveling up a town building in your node and then a PVPer decides to attack you to get some of your stuff...and then he has a buddy waiting nearby at the closest respawn point to kill you on your spawn making you lose more stuff...and again...and again...until you have virtually NOTHING left to show for your day spent harvesting. That does NOT sound like fun to me...and it was not fun when it happened. PLEASE do NOT allow something like this to be in A2 or beyond... Gatherers play a necessary role in the game...because there are some who love to fight and hate to gather...but so many items require gathered items...Let's not create a system where you can lose it all if you get jumped enough in one day. That is NOT Risk v. Reward...not for the Gatherer....what is their reward by getting repeatedly ganked? If you are going to let a PVPer come and kill the gatherer who is hurting no one, then at least give the gatherer a shield for 24 hours that will prevent anyone else from attacking him as he gathers...that way, at least the gatherer can at least go find a rarer node to harvest while he or she has that special protection.
So you just want to be able to free farm with no risk other than AI? I mean go play Final Fantasy or WoW at that point. Why should you have no risk at all in the gameplay loop? How is a slight loss of inventory, not a fair mechanic?
Absolutely hate losing gathering materials by any deaths. In Alpha 1 I could never get enough materials required for crafting because I kept losing what I needed when I died, therefore, I never got to try crafting.
That said, there are so many other incentives for PvP why do you feel the need to pick on gatherers? Gatherers already have the environment to overcome with beasts and bandits and just finding locations; why must there be a need to add more grief to gatherers?
Fighting AI is not complex. Killing a farmer is not griefing it is a gameplay loop. One player sacrifices their time to farm while another does it to avoid farming. This system allows for social interaction between blue players and farmers.
As I wrote on Reddit. This game is has a core philosophy based around the principle of Risk versus Reward. We cannot take that philosophy seriously, if we just allow PvE gatherers to not have risk when out farming nodes.
They should drop all of the loot from the nodes they farmed, but not their gear. This would force the player to have a true risk behind gathering. This may seem a tad aggressive, but at the same time will affect the economy and price of goods in game.
I agree, I think the current drop rate is even "too safe". The values should be higher then what they currently are. I think gear should degrade on each death to help "eat" resources in the game. Having gear that can be repaired for an unlimited time with no issue is worthless.
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OnyStyleMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
This is a tricky topic and one where you should take the communities opinion with a grain of salt. Plenty of
vocal players tend to want hard-core full loot pvp where everything drops or they get lots of drops from a kill. In reality, this often kills the playerbase because 90% of people don't actually enjoy dying over and over again.
A players time is valuable. And deleting progress straight from someone's inventory feels especially awful.
The biggest issue with losing things while out gathering is the other artisan classss you compare it to. You can only master 2 artisan professions (and that's only if you go down a single type). And your options are crafting, processing and gathering. Would many people want to choose a VASTLY more dangerous profession than something they can sit in their safe home and do themselves? You would have to make gathering extra rewarding in order to compensate for this extra risk.
If you want to make gathering done in heavt pvp contested zones, I would like to see a safer option that I may spend more time doing, but will get the guaranteed materials, vs a potentially much faster way but more dangerous option.
Alternatively, you could make this dangerous way be cosmetically rewarding instead of outright faster. Perhaps there are two versions of the same gatherable material and these versions make the same item effect but the dangerous version outputs a cooler version. This can add a valuable incentive for going the dangerous route.
I see a lot of people talk about the risk vs reward thing, or how it won't be cool enough if you don't get to loot gatherers but to me the most important thing being lost for a gatherer is time.
Being killed is annoying depending on how much time it takes to get back to gathering but if you also lose 50% or 25% of your stuff you effectively also lose that much time. Say I go out and it takes me an hour to gather 1000 Iron ore, and someone kills me as I walk away from the mine/area and takes 50%. Not only did I lose 500 Iron ore, I lost half an hour of time and will need to spend that again to get back the 500 Iron ore.
So go back more often and be safe you say. Let's say I go back every time I have 250 Ore, and say walking back to the node takes as little as three minutes. That's 6 minutes per 250 Ore, or 30 Minutes for 1000. Extra time lost just to gather basic materials.
And this risk isn't there for attackers, they can just circle an area where gatherers are and pick off those they find, a 30 sec fight to loot half an hour worth of gathering materials with barely any risk, and they can keep that pace up going between different material gatherers.
Why would I gather materials, if I can just kill people for it? Even better with higher level materials, I don't need to spend any skill in being a gatherer, I can just hunt the gatherers instead.
I don't mind dying, I don't mind running back out to the gathering area, I don't mind us fighting over a good area or rare material/spawn. But I do mind being a loot piñata for PVP'ers who lose no time invested if they get killed and get a ton of reward if they kill the gatherer.
If going out to gather is risking me to lose the time I have for an evening of play because I lose such a large portion of my stuff / time; then why bother at all?
- as someone with a full time job looking for a game to spend a lot of time in, if a majority of that time will be lost to being ganked for wanting to go into professions, I won't gather. I will be part of the group hunting them instead. It seems much more profitable and doesn't risk losing all of my time.
Unless you are totally avoiding the social interaction of the game isn't the simple solution group play? A guild, a few friends, hired help. All of that mitigates risk/time lost while also helping feed into the game's social interaction. To me all the issues of "lost time" can be avoided by group play and safety in numbers.
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VeleinMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It is mostly balanced now, although it is possible the Attacker gets the biggest benefit. One potential way to push the 'Risk vs Reward' is making the 'Corruption Value' of based off of the goods drop.
Just using fake numbers. Assuming it takes 100 points to become corrupted.
Player A is out gathering, Player B comes up and attacks. They are of close level.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Assume that is 10 corruption points.
==
Player A is out gathering and has an inventory full of basic materials, Player B attacks them.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Because it was basic materials, Player B gets 10 corruption [or maybe slightly more if they have a -lot- of resources]
Player A is out gathering and has an inventory that contains a lot of *rare* materials, and Player B attacks them.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Since they received a lot of rare materials, Player B gets 20/30/40/50/whatever corruption points. But they got a high reward.
This does increase the risk because you have no idea what the player may be carrying, it could make people think twice from just randomly killing. It makes you think if the potential reward is worth the risk.
It is mostly balanced now, although it is possible the Attacker gets the biggest benefit. One potential way to push the 'Risk vs Reward' is making the 'Corruption Value' of based off of the goods drop.
Just using fake numbers. Assuming it takes 100 points to become corrupted.
Player A is out gathering, Player B comes up and attacks. They are of close level.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Assume that is 10 corruption points.
==
Player A is out gathering and has an inventory full of basic materials, Player B attacks them.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Because it was basic materials, Player B gets 10 corruption [or maybe slightly more if they have a -lot- of resources]
Player A is out gathering and has an inventory that contains a lot of *rare* materials, and Player B attacks them.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Since they received a lot of rare materials, Player B gets 20/30/40/50/whatever corruption points. But they got a high reward.
This does increase the risk because you have no idea what the player may be carrying, it could make people think twice from just randomly killing. It makes you think if the potential reward is worth the risk.
Not a terrible idea but doesn't that just lead to players keeping "rare" material that maybe doesn't have incredible value on them when they are out farming just to negatively impact the pvper?
While in concept the idea can work but people will just cheese it to punish pvpers.
Comments
I'm perfectly ok with losing whatever amount of materials is decided upon, but it would be great to have vastly more respawn points around the map when killed in pvp vs pve.
For me, the truly unfun aspect of getting killed while gathering is the long and arduous run back to your body or gathering spot to continue your chosen activity. Perhaps the available respawn points are dictated by green, purple, and red states, or just being flagged or unflagged.
I want to get back to the action faster, for revenge or to continue doing what I enjoy, and not be put out by long boring slogs to get back out to the middle of nowhere because of another player. Maybe revenge kills force the initial killer to drop more resources and respawn further away, so there's added risk to camp someone, and incentive for aggressors to move on with their winnings rather than camp and grief.
Pvp vs gatherers should be less about forcing players away from gathering spots (ruining their gameplay) and more about the personal profit of the attacker. There are plenty of other systems in place for pushing boundaries around through organized conflict.
Trespassing sounds interesting.
~3.5 minues from edge of one node to another. Assuming respawn is at least as close as one's node and one is usually in their node's territory, it should be a minute to return to your body.
And there should be citizens around a node basically defending it from griefers. 40 - 200. Assuming 100 nodes and 10k players that's an average of 85 or something since some players will be wandering around or sailing.
The system is good as is if you are gathering and you fight back you lose half of what you whould if you did not.
Risk and reward is what we where promised.
Looks like we are getting another shit MMO becuse the CearBeers wants a single player game.....
FFS!
Can red drop things and what will happen then? Someone else will be able to pick it up or the item will be destroyed?
If those are very rare mushrooms, then somebody might have looted them. I think players who roam looking for Tier 4 resources grab any of them if they can or notify their guild or some artisan partner to go fast and collect them.
If are common mushrooms, then chances are that are present in more places and in significant quantities.
So JobBob might make many trips between the city and the gathering spot and might not be the only one doing that.
Will exp debt after death reverse level? If not, what does it matter to someone who has the maximum level?
You won't delevel but you will get stat dampening.
Maybe now after 7 years the cracks in the design are being noticed or addressed.
Resources collected near a node should go to that node safer than to nodes further away.
It has to be enforced, because caravans are a design pillar and much depends on this mechanic working efficiently. So how do you make that happen?
The corruption as it is now, seems to offer safety on the entire map, except in the deep sea.
If anyone mentioned safe zones, maybe was actually trying to sell more danger outside of them.
The easiest way is to give a safety bonus through an attunement to a local religion building in the node. Players operating near that node for long time would gain gradually more of that benefit and would also lose the ones they had in a previous node. Then all players could get that, even if they are not citizens or they are citizens of another node and just want to operate here for a while.
That would give more corruption to anyone killing an attuned gatherer and less if is a foreign one who just wants to grab rare resources and run back to his freehold on the other side of the map and cheat the caravan mechanic.
I see a lot of people saying that gatherers only carry the risk, well as a PvP player I gather as well even if it is not my main focus. I am also at risk from other players regardless of their playstyle which I accept as the result of going out in the world.
You risk dying in most activities in the game in order to reap the rewards, why should gathering be any different?
If you're concerned with losing things you should take the appropriate actions to mitigate it yourself as much as possible instead of asking for artificial systems to protect you.
Like gathering in a less crowded area, brining friends or making agreements with other players/nodes regarding a certain area.
So TLDR: Don't change things because players can't handle the risk or refuse to take actions to mitigate the risk they put themselves at.
If someone isn't comfortable with taking the risk of gathering, then they may:
become processors/crafters and enjoy the safety of the node/freehold. (0 Risk)
decide to gather lower tier, less conflict prone materials that yield less reward at a reduced risk.
decide to gather less sought after materials that yield less reward at a reduced risk
decide to bring friends with them for protection (reduced reward in exchange for added protection)
decide to gather in areas close to nodes, where they have an easier time fleeing from an attacker in exchange for more gatherers being around (reduced reward in exchange for added protection)
But the ability to not drop materials or the ability to become unattackable? Hell no, that would be hands down the worst design decision Intrepid has ever made and directly go against everything the core design of the game stands for.
Player Interaction
Both as a collarabotive effort and hostile interactions are facilitated through Gatherers (the backbone behind the entire economy) being under constant threat.
Taking that away would directly go against this design principle.
Player Agency + Risk vs. Reward
The ability to be attacked and to attack with tangible reward creates player Agency.
The decision when to gather, what to gather, with whom to gather creates Player Agency by allowing you to how large the risk and reward you are willing to take is.
Meaningful conflict over scarce resources
How do you want to feature meaningful conflict over scarce resources if you take out the conflict?
Going out in the world should risk treachery, death and things not going according to plan.
Its a PvX MMO, not WoW.
There are plenty of singleplayer MMOs for snowflakes, kids, carebears, roleplayers and other kinds. Don't take away the CORE DESIGN what you have promised us at the begining. It was said plenty of times: " this game is not for everyone "
I just hope Steven will not shit himself under the carebears pressure and will stick to the cores of the promised game. Thank you
Griefed some players, was griefed by other players, was rolled over by huge party, killed poor solo lvler,... you name it.
One thing I do know, is that non of this "griefing" games died because of this features but rather poor dev decisions or game just dying out.
I simply love adrenaline in the air. Escape from Tarkov nailed it pretty it good with that. You can stay in the raid till the end and stack as much loot as possible or just quickly get in the raid, grab what you need and get out. Meaning to avoid as much as PvP as possible. Combine that with social aspect in open world and people will love it.
Also this push for carebear initiative is supported by the people buying multiple account and their bots being safe like @Sapiverenus already hinted in the post above.
It's fine enough already that if you kill a player gathering and get corruption. Ye, he lost his mats but you are corrupted meaning you can drop your gear that you worked hard for. It just little testing and fine tunning.
A few thoughts
Is the risk balanced, is the aggressor risking as much as the gatherer?
As I see it the risk for the aggressor is if the gatherer doesn't defend then they risk some corruption and gatherer loses some materials
If the gatherer does defend but loses the aggressor wins all, no corruption and some materials
If the gatherer defends and wins, you might get some material if the aggressor is carrying some
Secondly what counts as defending, does healing yourself count for example?
And what about additional actors, if it's 2 on one for example is the corruption penalty worse?
Red can drop things, they lose more EXP, they have the chance to drop some of their gear.
The risk for an aggressor who is not carrying much is smaller, sometimes much smaller, but otherwise generally the risk is the same except in the situation of a travel chokepoint (where the gatherer enters a dangerous area but the aggressor can wait at a known, single exit instead of risking being inside).
Since most aggressors can only do that once if their opponent does not defend before becoming Corrupted, or before having enough materials from looting their 'victim' for it to matter if someone else kills them, it's short bursts of low risk followed by normal risk...
Except when the aggressor is in a group (either an actual party or not), since as we understand it now, you can loot a body without even being part of the fight, and you can help kill a player who is not defending without actually gaining any Corruption.
Looting the corpse of a gatherer should take additional time proportional to the amount of items you're taking. Obviously not near the amount of time it takes to actually gather it, or there would be no incentive for PvP.
Imagine you gank a gatherer. Then, newly corrupted, you have to take the risk of standing over the body, looting it, transferring items. Running the risk you are caught while stationary, gathering your loot. I think there needs to be more to the process than gank, insta-loot, vanish, hiding away while corrupted. Catching players red handed would be fun as hell.
If i can gather materials and i have no risk to bring my goods home, this will be a relaxed task, which noone will think of. In the end gathering will be an boring thing to do on the longterm.
And on the other hand if i play in a system, where i have to be afraid to loose 100% of my goods to a group of thieves. This will a thing that i accept once. But wenn this happends everey day i would be very furios and i will stop gathering materials (i hated it in albion online, when i always had to have some friends by me to protect me - protecting a full time gatherer is really no interesting thing).
The answer is in the middle of these two systems. If i want to get 100% of my gathered materials home, i have to be lucky or i will contact friends to escort me on dark and dangerous corners.
But when i´m dying on my way home, i will have to drop some of my goods (10%-20%?)
And it have to be regardless if I'm dying due to a PvPler or a mob.
That is a risk/reward system for both side. The PvPler being corrupted and the gatherer being punished for being not protected on my way home.
Please no 100% material loot system, that system would be too much on the PvPler side of the reward system.
I haven't delved that deep into AoC yet, when i'm dead... will i have to walk back to my corpse or what mechanic is explained in the past?
Sorry about my english. It is not my mother language. I hope you all understand my point of view.
1. The system of corruption looks fictional and will not stop anyone from doing anything. At the maximum level, removing corruption yourself is too easy and too cheap.
2. Gathering seems unnecessary. Like it was unnecessary for a very long time in Eve Online. Instead of spending your time on slow and risky gathering, it's better to kill a bos and reprocess the loot. Unless the loot is better.
To elaborate a on that, here's the list of possible outcomes of Gatherer-Attacker interaction, and what they entail for each party:
1.Non-combatant Gatherer is killed (Major Loss - Major Victory/Major Loss) - Gatherer loses resources, Attacker enters risk territory with potential big reward.
2. Combatant Gatherer is killed (Loss - Minor Victory) - Gatherer some loses resources and gets death penalty, Attacker gets a reward.
3. Gatherer escapes (Victory - Nothing) - Gatherer gets to keep resources, Attacker gets nothing.
4. Combatant Attacker is killed (Victory - Minor Loss) - Gatherer gets to keep resources, Attacker gets death penalty. Note: This scenario has potentially lower likelihood
5. Corrupted Attaker is killed (Victory - Major Loss) - Gatherer gets to keep resources, Attacker gets major death penalty. Note: This scenario has potentially lower likelihood
While on paper this might look rather fair, the problems emerge when one realizes that Gatherer's "punishing" options are either punishing for them as well, and are not guaranteed to punish the offender, or reqire combat advantage, which is either non-existant (gathering gear) or clearly visible (combat gear and/or guards).
This binarity could very easily result in a meta: if punishing method 1 is less viable, mostly punishing methid 2 will be used, and vice-versa. Skill-based drop mitigation will only move this problem from overall game balance to early/late-game spectrum.
There is a possibility that it'll work, but this would require some really heavy testing during A2.
Potential solution
My idea is rather simple, and relies on changing the scenario no. 3 from (Victory - Nothing) to (Victory - Minor Loss)
An attacked Non-combatant becomes carrier of negative reputation towards the Attacker, which then needs to be passed to an NPC guard to apply a fine or other penalty on the Attacker. In case the Non-combatant decides to become a Combatant, that negative reputation should be nullified.
Additionally, to make things more interesting, there could exist Gathering perks that activate when carrying the reputation, making the carrier faster or more resiliant to CC.
Total protection for farmers is a disgusting gameplay loop and will ruin the economy. Free farming on New World was terrible, having a bot sit in a high yield resource area for hours with 0 repercussions was miserable. Why go out and farm when a bot is going to do it for you and drive the prices down?
I think the change of dropping half of your materials is a pretty steep cut. I would love to at least have ways to mitigate this without participating in pvp. Also since there are real benefits in ganking players by getting their material, I think it's likely that there will be gankers waiting around towns for returning gathers. I think half of everything you have collected just to be able to get back into a town for example just sounds bad and discouraging. I think one way to mitigate this would be to have people drop less loot close to towns and villagers (more lawful area of the world) and more when they are very far away. In my opinion though 1/3 should probably be max of what you could drop as pure gatherer when you don't want to pvp.
On a related subject. I'm also a bit worried about people who might want to abuse the system. For example if turning from green to purple could happen by someone initiating a fight and then running into my aoe in order to get me to be purple as well. Also in some games it's possible to fight someone until they are low and then pull a monster to finish them and therefore avoiding the penalties of killing.
So you just want to be able to free farm with no risk other than AI? I mean go play Final Fantasy or WoW at that point. Why should you have no risk at all in the gameplay loop? How is a slight loss of inventory, not a fair mechanic?
Fighting AI is not complex. Killing a farmer is not griefing it is a gameplay loop. One player sacrifices their time to farm while another does it to avoid farming. This system allows for social interaction between blue players and farmers.
I agree, I think the current drop rate is even "too safe". The values should be higher then what they currently are. I think gear should degrade on each death to help "eat" resources in the game. Having gear that can be repaired for an unlimited time with no issue is worthless.
vocal players tend to want hard-core full loot pvp where everything drops or they get lots of drops from a kill. In reality, this often kills the playerbase because 90% of people don't actually enjoy dying over and over again.
A players time is valuable. And deleting progress straight from someone's inventory feels especially awful.
The biggest issue with losing things while out gathering is the other artisan classss you compare it to. You can only master 2 artisan professions (and that's only if you go down a single type). And your options are crafting, processing and gathering. Would many people want to choose a VASTLY more dangerous profession than something they can sit in their safe home and do themselves? You would have to make gathering extra rewarding in order to compensate for this extra risk.
If you want to make gathering done in heavt pvp contested zones, I would like to see a safer option that I may spend more time doing, but will get the guaranteed materials, vs a potentially much faster way but more dangerous option.
Alternatively, you could make this dangerous way be cosmetically rewarding instead of outright faster. Perhaps there are two versions of the same gatherable material and these versions make the same item effect but the dangerous version outputs a cooler version. This can add a valuable incentive for going the dangerous route.
Unless you are totally avoiding the social interaction of the game isn't the simple solution group play? A guild, a few friends, hired help. All of that mitigates risk/time lost while also helping feed into the game's social interaction. To me all the issues of "lost time" can be avoided by group play and safety in numbers.
Just using fake numbers. Assuming it takes 100 points to become corrupted.
Player A is out gathering, Player B comes up and attacks. They are of close level.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Assume that is 10 corruption points.
==
Player A is out gathering and has an inventory full of basic materials, Player B attacks them.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Because it was basic materials, Player B gets 10 corruption [or maybe slightly more if they have a -lot- of resources]
Player A is out gathering and has an inventory that contains a lot of *rare* materials, and Player B attacks them.
Player A doesn't fight back and Player B kills them. Since they received a lot of rare materials, Player B gets 20/30/40/50/whatever corruption points. But they got a high reward.
This does increase the risk because you have no idea what the player may be carrying, it could make people think twice from just randomly killing. It makes you think if the potential reward is worth the risk.
Not a terrible idea but doesn't that just lead to players keeping "rare" material that maybe doesn't have incredible value on them when they are out farming just to negatively impact the pvper?
While in concept the idea can work but people will just cheese it to punish pvpers.