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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
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.
Incentives to Defend Caravans
Mojave
Member, Alpha Two
When it comes to the open world pvp caravan system in Ashes of Creation, it is easy to see the incentive of attacking a players caravan as when you destroy their caravan, you get access to all the juicy loot which is inside of their caravan. I know that Intrepid have talked about there being incentives to defending these caravans rather than attacking them, but as of now I feel as if no matter what there will always be a better reason to just attack the caravan. I feel as if a good system for defending caravans is that depending on the distance which the caravan has to travel, the players defending the caravans receive an incremental gold reward for the distance which they stay in the caravans area of influence and defend the caravan. The total gold that the players would get would be based on the total golds worth of goods which is inside of the caravan. For example, if a player is transporting 1000 gold worth of materials, a player should be able to receive 20% of the total value for defending the caravan from start to finish. This amount would be based on the total distance the caravan traveled, if it traveled a lot further than the players would receive a lot more gold. With this, players can exploit this system by constantly having caravans go back and forth. For this, it might be best for players to have a caravan cooldown timer of something like 8 hours between there last caravan. I believe that Intrepid could come up with a much better solution than I have laid out here but I just wanted to spark up some discussion and see what you guys could come up with when it comes to this concept!
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The biggest thing with what you have said is that intrepid stated that they will be adding an incentive mechanic for players to defend these caravans, because I feel like there will be a lot of players who won't really care to join a huge guild or the guild isn't online whilst the player is transporting their goods. Also, I feel like adding a reason to defend these caravans makes people to connect more often with one another but we will have to see what they do.
This question has been brought up before, cause it definitely feels like the weakest part of the caravan system. But I've come to think that it's just a good way to promote people joining guilds.
Since I usually don't play during prime time for my local time, unless I choose a server on a different time zone, I'll have very few occasions to participate directly in castle and node sieges as they are meant to be held during prime time. My contributions will be limited to the preparation phase for these events. So, afternoon caravan runs will be my bread and butter in the objective centred PvP.
Also, being the kind of player who likes to move a lot and tends to not only explore but to change places to do quests every few days, caravans seem to be the best excuse to go around and maybe make a small profit from the regional price differences.
That's how I can position/justify myself as caravan defender. I see the possible reward system as an extra, doesn't really contribute to my motivation.
Just like the case for gatherers vs. surprise attacks in the open world, the risk for the attackers is rather low compared to the potential reward they can get. At least, in this case, the caravan as the potential of a juicy reward for those initiating it.
Should get reputation or something for the city where the caravan leave from if you defend which should yield some kind of reward maybe from tax money from the city since there probaly be a bit of an overflow there eventually person who launches caravan could also put items in a defender pool that split evenly with people who defend?
attacking would be just item dropped from caravan
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP
PvP seasons
Performance in various PvP systems (such as Caravans, Arenas, Guild wars) is measured over the course of 6 month PvP seasons. At the end of each season, a player's cumulative score may unlock various rewards.[118][187]
Gear enhancement rewards.[187]
Achievement ranks.[187]
Purchasing power (Currency).[187]
With that being said I don't think that the value of the goods inside the caravan have to determine the reward for the successful defense of a caravan, especially when player do not know the content of the caravan - neither the escorts, nor the bandits.
If it were known beforehand what a specific caravan contains so they can become explicit targets for robbery then it would make sense to increase the reward for protecting it. A risk must be seen to be rewarded, is what I'm trying to say.
But the distance between start and finish definitely should play a role in regards to the reward. However, Im not sure if Intrepid will dictate this or will much rather allow players to find the appropriate prices for themselves.
From what I understand at the moment, caravan defense will be dealt with on a player to player basis. Example, group A will ask group B to help them defend for a fee (mercenary type deal).
Then, the gains from defending a cravan come from getting the caravan to destination, and transporting humongous amounts of loot from an area where material X is highly available to an area where material X is very rare, and then trading for profit to those who need the ressource.
Sounds like a good enough mechanic to me!
I'll predict that part of this will be quests for each node. Quests which you need to build new node buildings, to build node defenses, and certainly to level up the node to the next higher level. I will also predict that a frequent part of these node quests will involve caravans successfully completed by node citizens. Caravans of a certain size, of a certain value and taken for a required distance.
Let's assume a node wants to grow from level 4 to level 5. Part of the requirements are to take three node caravans each containing 5,000 gold in value to other nodes at least level 3 (or higher). The citizens of that node, and related guilds, are highly motivated to grow to level 5, and eventually to metro, size. I can see extremely motivated defenders!
Other things might also require successful caravans. Node building growth (temples, guild halls, markets, blacksmith forges, taverns, etc.) might have successful caravans as requirements. The rewards for successful caravans might be one of the best ways for players to get rich - so everything that requires a lot of money will also be a motivator to defend caravans.
We may also see individual quest requirements to make successful caravans - it may be part of the quests for obtaining your second class, for promotions in religions, thieves' guilds, crafting, and so forth. You may need personal caravans for levelling up your freehold, your farming expertise, your animal husbandry. A successful blacksmith might need to caravan rare ores across the map to learn the next level crafting. The possibilities of required caravans are virtually endless.
Yes, I think that there will be plenty of motivations to defend caravans - perhaps to the point where there is a real stigma attached to those who attack them for loot!
Especially since it's a relatively short time investment.
I wouldn't really need incentives to do that - just as I don't need incentives to explore.
I play RPGs to emulate the heroes in Fantasy/Sci-Fi novels, so...
Even grabbing loot is not really an incentive for me to attack a Caravan because that's not something heroes would do. Heroes might attack a Caravan to prevent criminals from building or repairing a base, but... not because they are greedy for loot.
This is another instance of different playstyles... different playstyles often don't share the same motivations.
Yeah, for me to not generally defend even neutral Caravans, the design would need to be quite bad, on the level of:
"If you keep devoting your time to this, you will stunt your growth relative to others so much that you will eventually become unable to compete in even this content."
There's definitely a subset of people who 'will only defend caravans if they get a specific type of optimized reward', but we're not all here to 'win' at that specific aspect of the game. Ashes is explicitly trying to cast a weirder wider net in terms of player motivations, I don't think it would do well as 'just' a 'try to get to be the strongest' game, given the Node aspects of it.