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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.
Comments
Freeholds should have an option to become a PvP objective, decided by the owner of it, from within their house.
How I see the problem:
People want to be able to work on their Freehold Premises without being harrassed. As @Arya_Yeshe already pointed out, you can't be CCed when green, chances are you will make it into your house even if you were doing stuff.
You could curse at it and log off. You could prep for combat, come back out, and take out the intruder (maybe talk it out and make a fair 'deal' where they actually go away).
But for those who think they won't win, or who will just be 'attacked over and over' for some reason, I suggest the ability to 'set your Freehold as a PvP objective' that works similar to a Caravan (but not entirely). When someone signs up as 'Defender', you the owner now become 'immune' to PvP while doing your own stuff until all the defenders fall.
If you want to stop the top Crafter/Processor and Freeholds require people to be outside to do that, then there should be a structured PvP option where the Crafter/Processor becomes the Attacker Objective, but they also have to go through the Defenders.
The Objective-Person, the Freehold Owner, is risking 'losing their chance to do what they want and still not giving the enemy force any Corruption even if killed'.
The attacking force isn't risking anything in particular, but I figure it can just be equal to whatever the risk of randomly attacking a Caravan is.
So your gameplay solution to 'someone harassing you on your Freehold' is to explicitly go into your house, call the squad/mercs/NPC Guards even, and provide some 'content' for the attacking force, with their only 'benefit' being 'can they stop you from actually processing your stuff?'
If you've got PvP friends hanging around, you can just leave this option on while y'all hang out at your Freehold, just in case.
It'd also give people all that 'structured PvP' practice they want a bit more easily, when considering all the other hierarchies of who can attack or defend which things.
It probably couldn't be that hard to implement, it's just a 'stationary caravan' basically, with no loot drop.
I suggest all this so that we don't have to introduce any hardcoded 'extra safety', and instead can just increase combat situations. Hanging out on your Freehold safely while doing nothing? Can do it indoors or rush indoors when bandits come.
Hanging out on your Freehold working and you expect the bandits camped outside your house to stay there for a while? Raid mode on.
But I still ask, why have this? If a green freehold resident is working on his stuff, he can pretty much walk into his house.
Allow me to share a personal experience. I reside in a low security region of EVE Online that is notorious for being where pirates live. When a potential danger arises within our system, we send a rage ping in our in-game channel and people hop on Discord. Our channel has individuals from many alliances (including alliances that are at war against each other), so those who reside in our system and fly with us will, within seconds, form a fleet, undock, kill and loot any intruders.
What I would do in AoC?
I would befriend my neighbours, form a local militia, rage ping the in-game channel and mow down anyone who brings any kind of trouble.
Dealing with pesky pvpers is mostly a matter of gathering intel, forming diplomatic relations and band together for the kills.
It is just that.
True enough. I've got no real problems with the house thing, but if others do, this is what I thought of to help them out.
Sure, that works for me, but the effectiveness of that specific type of thing varies quite heavily from game to game, games that attract more 'casual' or 'peaceful' players in the first place, don't tend to do well with this type of requirement.
I think that for Ashes specifically, I'd prefer to be a little more 'lenient on the so-called carebears' than you are (I put that in quotes only because I disagree with your definition of carebear, not because I disagree with your wish for organic problem solving in games in general).
Yep absolutely. If you keep losing, make more friends! Still losing, make even more!
and in the end everyone on the server will be friends and no one will kill you Ez )
we call that blue donut in EVE hahaha, you start seeing everybody else as blue around the newbie area
It may be.
But, the question then becomes "is this intended?".
Intrepid have said a few times that your social standing should mean something. As such, if you piss off some people enough that they want to camp you in your freehold, where they stand to gain nothing of material worth, then that would simply be a case of your social standing meaning something.
The statement of social standing meaning something can not be true if there are no negative consequences to it, as well as positive.
I believe the changes were made for this reason, yeah. I see the possibility of this being the consequences of social standing. Either, becoming overly popular on a server for what ever reason, or, maybe being overly popular because you're an influencer or so. But, I believe a lot of material processing will be done at players freeholds. A lot of time will be spent there once obtained. If players obtain rare schematics or are able to create something that may corner a market, I can see freehold abuse being something that can easily begin. Whether people see that as being either good or bad, there is the very real possibility to halt players personal progression with this kind of pvp and even ruin players experiences to have them quit. I don't think this situation is the easiest to be able to deal with if people choose to target you pretty heavily. You're freehold ain't going anywhere, they don't have to spend time to find you, they will know they can eventually find you at your free hold. You can only fight or hide. Hiding isn't going to create the opportunity to progress and you may not win every battle if you choose to fight back. Also, doesn't fighting back come with it's own consequences?
I worry this may become too toxic and too exploitable. It may be used to target players instead of just being random or tactical and I could see the possibility of popular players being hunted in their own homes to the point where freeholds may become worthless to them or they may have their experiences ruined and take a chunk of their player base with them. If you're a streamer with an audience, you are basically never safe at home.
Great questions!
I truly don't know
I have to think this has more to do with freehold density in specific areas than anything else. If freeholds are dense enough and all are exempt from PvP I could see where that would make the world feel very choppy to the PvP crowd.
But this is a terrible way to compromise.
Freehold density qont be that much if a thing in Ashes. They will all be a fairly good distance apart.
As to farmers and such on their freehold, why would anyone attack you?
I mean, they *could* attack you, but they dont really stand to gain all that much if they do. You are right at your storage chests, so there is no reason for you to have much in your inventory.
As such, there is no real reason for anyone to attack anyone on their freehold. The only time someone will be attacked on their freehold (once people realize there is no profit in doing so), is I'd the owner of the freehold was specifically the target.
I can agree with you for the most part. I think most attacks on free holds will be random. But, there will be times when someone comes across a rare craft or schematic, or, maybe they are able to do well in a certain aspect of the market. which, I believe would open them up to be a target of free hold attacks and camping. Since this could easily stop them from progressing.
More popular people on a server, including streamers, I could easily see becoming big targets to PVP. Having those people wait for you at your home and knowing where it is, could become an easy and debilitating annoyance. Not having a home to call safe, I feel makes having a free hold for these types of players a lot more worthless. I don't think it's a good idea to have content like this segregated from those who may seek to put in the time and want it.
Me doing well on the market doesnt give anyone a reason to attack me on my freehold. This is because while I am on my freehold, all my resources- anything that I could drop if killed - will be put away in storage. This means it wont drop.
As such, there is no reason for someone to attack me while I am on my freehold. It may be worth attacking someone while they are traveling between the market and their freehold - a point in time where they may have an inventory full of materials. However, as soon as they get to their freehold, they will empty their inventory of said materials.
Coming across a rare craft or schematic wont have any impact on whether you will be attacked on your freehold or not.
Someone may grow a rare resource or some such, and there is a chance that a player may camp them because of it. However, the player with the freehold need not harvest that material while a threat is nearby. A would be attacker cant get that material until it is harvested, and the owner of the freehold could just go off and do something else, either on runoff their freehold. That rare raw material is safe where it is. Streamers sign up for that life.
If it is an issue for them, they can always play a different game.
No, I agree it can easy to avoid having anything on you being dropped. Since, as a non-combative player, you should be able to dart inside and hopefully escape. (hopefully, assuming it isn't a multi-player pk with stuns)
I mean more of, lets say you run inside and you get away and they leave. what if they keep coming back? what if they don't leave? What if more come? Are stuck in your house waiting or forced to fight? where do you go when you die? what if a guild see's you doing well in trade and wants you, or players around you gone so they can prosper instead in that trade instead? They could plan attacks against your freehold, knowing that's where you will return. Make it hard for you to progress? this becomes even harder if you are not integrated into the social aspect and don't have players ready to help, which, is a very possible outcome for some.
I read and see where you come from and I do 100% agree. There are ways around it so you can still do what you need to do, somewhat safetly. But I worry about the off chance and how exploitable it may be and how it may slow down progress for those who have spent a very long time just to get a freehold. Also, as a home that doesn't move, how easy it can be used to harass a player that someone/s do not like, especially if they are not confident in PVP. For something that costs as much as it does and as long as it takes to grind also for how limited it is in nature, I feel like there should at least be safety within the free hold walls. This is my view on it, anyhow.
I do agree, it comes with the territory of being a streamer. And, it's probably gonna happen in other places of the game reguardless. But, I feel like a big chunk of the audience will come and stay due to streamer influence. If they can't even feel safe in their own homes, isn't that just an unnecessary annoyance to make people want to leave? Freeholds will just be an easy target to plan and pick streamers of in that case, because you will know where and when they will be there and since it's a freehold, it's easy to assume they may be there for a while.
Why would any of the above happen?
It will very quickly become common knowledge that people on their own freehold are not worth attacking, as they are likely to not have anything on them of value, as they are right by their storage.
So, given people know there is no reason to attack you in the first place, why would anyone be getting people to camp you? You are not a valuable target, you will never be a valuable target, and other people out in the game world could well be high value targets.
Unless those players are specifically after *YOU* for what ever reason, they have literally no reason at all to even look at you as a viable target. The most logical thing for them to do is to not even
Your argument here seems to be based on the assumption that someone will be attacking you on your freehold - my argument is based on the fact that people have no reason to do so and so won't.
And if Intrepid blocks others from touching your stuff as long as it's on your freehold, then I'll be even more baffled at the decision to allow pvp there.
Sorry, maybe i'm not explaining myself 100% properly to get my view across. My bad.
I don't mean a risk of losing anything on a property for the PVP'ers gain. But more of becoming an annoyance of players floating around a freehold off/on and the risk of players losing valuables being there so they have to avoid such activities on their freeholds instead. Do we know how much time it will take to plant, craft, gather, breed, fish? Are players gonna be blinded by menu's or stuck in animations if they do get attacked and need to run? So, not a thing of your item loss and their item gain, but a thing of annoyance, timeblocks and setbacks to get you away from gathering/fishing/crafting or whatnot. I'm assuming people will be able to do such tasks risk free in a town if they choose to buy a home there, I don't see why we need added risk and stress just because players choose the extra grind for a freehold. If you become a target and you keep getting attacked and keep needing to leave to do other tasks, when do you get the time to spend on your freehold?
I know the points I bring up are very specific and most likely won't affect a majority of players. But, there will be a minor, special/popular few who may become targets in such events and that could be experience ruining in my opinion.
I could see the argument of how this may only affect a few, so why change it at all. I'm just a firm believer in that a home should be a safe haven. There will be PVP opportunities almost everywhere else. I feel like having a free hold open just makes it to easy to be PVP'd, or, creates an extra stress in a place that i believe should be safe. A town is safe and homes there are safe, so, why not freeholds?
Sorry again, if the point i'm trying to make isn't coming across. I enjoy the back and forth nonetheless.
L2 provided nothing to the PKers yet we still had a few who would just PK for their own fun rather than with any kind of purpose. Obviously due to AoC's harsher penalties there'll be fewer PKers, but they could also get something from the kill, which might entice more people to try and PK. There'll also be more people on each server, so purely in terms of numbers there'd be more PKers in Ashes.
Exactly this. We are going to have things that are not 'in the house', like Animal Husbandry.
Just make Freeholds off limits. If the rule is 'as long as the City stands', then there is still the risk of losing your stuff. I'm fine with that, because it makes everyone in the City Limits with the Freeholds NEED to help keep the City standing. So that's fine.
But on the day to day... entire Freehold should be safe. It's just much simpler all around.
There is a whole world out there where PVP is open. You get everything needed for a Freehold, that should be a little piece of peace, a little respite.
"Isn't going to get anything."
I mean you say hey for the horses, water... what if I have a nice farm of "Goldweave"? If I have those nice Top Tier Plants. Now THESE have value.
So if you let a person farm up their field and then kill them... you might get carrots, sure. Or you might get one of the most expensive mats in the game. And you should likely be able to know this going in, since you see what they are harvesting.
As for "being sieged" by players - absolute top end materials won't be able to be grown on a freehold - that is what content is for.
Even if we ignore that though, anything that can be grown on a freehold can be bought. In order for it to be worth it to some people to camp a freehold (the notion of which is just humorous to me), the potential gains need to be worth as much or more than what they could earn in the time they spend on the endeavor. Since the owner of the freehold has literally no reason to harvest the resource while danger is present, that time needed simply would never be worth it.
All a camp on a freehold could do is make it so the owner of the freehold won't gather. Which again, only people that specifically want to piss you off would do, as there is nothing in it for them.
Keep in mind, in the same way that people have thought they have found issues with the corruption system and people have said "it's fine, it's the same system from L2, it's been tested", we are all also able to say "this is the same farming system as Archeage, it's been tested".
If you standing within striking distance of a rival player and opt to harvest some rare resource that said rival player is literally unable to harvest, you deserve to lose said resource.
You are on your way to a currently hot resource location in order to fight some people and take their stuff.
Along the way, you come across a freehold with a random person just working away at it.
Why would you opt to attack this player, risk gaining corruption and thus likely slow down your desired activity?
I mean, the guy is on his freehold, right next to his storage. The resources he would have on him would be minimal, potentially even literally none at all. Yet you still stand to gain the same amount of corruption if he doesn't fight back.
Keep in mind, there are already a number of people on these forums claiming the risk vs reward for attacking a player out in open PvP simply isn't worth it. Attacking a player on their freehold still has the same risks, but the potential rewards are significantly lower.
There really isn't a reason for people to do it - unless the target is you and not your resources.
As I said in a post to you above, you are working from the base position of "players on freeholds will be attacked", I am working on the notion of "why would anyone attack a player on a freehold at all?". You are just assuming the attacks will happen, I am questioning why they would happen in the first place.
I am sure you would agree that if the attacks simply do not happen, your concerns are unwarranted.
And again, if we ignore my question of why anyone would attack a player on a freehold, your points are all perfectly valid. If we just assume that people will be attacked on freeholds by people looking for some profit, then yeah, it would suck.
The thing is, that isn't what will happen. People will very quickly (as in, during beta) learn that it isn't worth it to attack a player on their freehold. There are better targets to spend your time on.
If there is no reason for anyone to attack a crafter on their freehold then there is no reason to allow pvp on their freehold.
I would expect top lvl farming to produce top lvl items. Otherwise why the fuck would people even choose that profession?
Yes, and as I said, for some PKers the "value" comes from preventing someone else from doing smth, not from just picking up their loot. You seem to be avoiding this point, because even in your argument below you keep saying But the desired activity that I'm (and maybe others) talking about IS the attack on someone's freehold, rather than that attack being a sidetrack.
Good point. How did AA address this? Was their land off limits or were others free to attack you on it? What about crops?
If Steven decided to just copy AA's flagging system (in the context of housing) - so be it. I'll dislike it, but if it worked in AA, I can live with it.
Everything I find indicates that this didn't actually 'work' in AA.
It's moreso that the concepts and perspectives on motivations are linked to what a player considers a valuable/important part of the game. Some players won't naturally agree that even behaviour that causes a specific type of 'problem' is actually a real design problem, if they don't care about the experience involved.
(and that's why we defer to you for PvP incentive discussions)
So if Intrepid has pvp on farms at all times, then it's even more hardcore than AA was in this respect. Which, if true, would just confuse me, considering all the things we've heard from Steven (not like this would be the first time though