Caravan raiding

Off a conversation I had on reddit, the question regarding caravans success rate came up.
If caravan success rates are low will they continue to be utilized long term?
I think if you set up the gathering speed to be relatively fast (ie resources are plentiful) but make the need to transport resources high (IE wood x for certain bows only exist in location a) then you can effectively make the pain of losing a caravan much lower.

For example, if 8 players spend 4 hours loading a caravan up just to lose it in transport that is going to really suck. However if 8 players spend an hour loading the caravan then you can load 4 caravans in the same amount of time and thus losing 1 would matter less to a player.

This would effectively transfer the difficulty of gathering resources from the scarcity of that resource to the transportation of that resource. First this would mean IS would need to prioritize balancing resource location and have less importance on the scarcity of the most common resources. (You could still have ultra scarce resources, but unless they take up your entire bag you would never use a caravan for them, and even then you might not). Secondly this would further encourage group gameplay, the use of caravans and force people to revisit regions more often. (If you can't get resource A unless your in zone A but Zona A doesn't give resource B then you must go to both Zone A and B.

I am sure they plan on implementing resource zones, but specifically what are your thoughts regarding gatherable loot being setup in a way to maximize caravan use, specifically designed so caravans are more common and the loss of a caravan isn't so bad in the first place?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Ludullu

I definitely want caravans to be used often, because that would shut up all the "I only want pvp in a pvx game" people. But I do think that this issue can be controlled through testing and balancing, so, in theory, we'll be able to see which method works best.

The only thing left is to wait 84 years for Alpha2

Voxtrium

NiKr wrote: »

The only thing left is to wait 84 years for Alpha2

I am sorry, 84 dog years or human years because I was under the impression it was dog years.

Songcaller

If resources are too common, I think players will run more backpacks and mules. I realise we want more caravans, but I don't think there is a simple solution.

Spif

I think the fact that the people running the caravan are risking everything, and the people attacking the caravan risk nothing means that the caravans are breaking the risk/reward ratio.

But back to the original question. IIRC the rule of thumb is that a mule carries 10x what a player does, and a caravan carries 10x what a mule does. So a caravan holds 100x of a player inventory. If a player gathering takes 1 hour to fill their inventory, then a caravan could hold 100 player-hours worth of crafting mats. That's an insane risk. If a player takes 15 min to fill their inventory (way too short IMO), then a caravan could hold 25 player hours worth of inventory. Still a *lot* to lose.

While a caravan is likely to hold several player's stuff, that's just spreading out the risk.

In comparison, you just gathered for 3 hours straight (loading up a mule) and get ganked while green. You drop a % of your gathered stuff. Lets say 1 hours worth. That's nothing compared to what you could lose on a caravan.

The rewards for getting a caravan through safely had better be huge.

Mag7spy

Could get into a long convo on this for sure, but i also say we need to see it before we start thinking what could go right or wrong.

Id say two things quickly though

1. If it is common I would question how many possible routes there are and how obvious someone is going to do it. If it is common its not easy to camp a spot with a large group and constantly attack everyone going through the area

2. To me it feels hard to balance the opposition as there is more incentive to destroy it on paper for a lot of mats.(Though i think this can be balanced with a mix of (10% sink, 10% split for attackers and defender gets to keep 80% on their way towards the next node. They only way they would lose a large amount is if they fail across multiple nodes. For defenders players with have other incentives besides gold given for helping like gaining some sort of reputation and up to multiple kinds so it becomes a grind in itself. That way a lot of people naturally just defend them.

Songcaller

In my madness I would only farm resources with my guild. It means we can have 300 times the backpack space and 3 times the caravan space. We can mobilise in groups or together.

Arya_Yeshe

Spif wrote: »

I think the fact that the people running the caravan are risking everything, and the people attacking the caravan risk nothing means that the caravans are breaking the risk/reward ratio.

Give this man a trophy and a badge in the forum for truths that are hard to swallow

Arya_Yeshe

Well, hauling stuff around will demand enough defenders, since the caravan will create an event and everybody participating will become purple, also deaths will not result in death penalties and attackers can simply respawn and come back to attack the caravan.

But , if you go in your mule and set to green then nobody can CC you

Mule:

10x the size of your inventory
you lose 50% of your goods if you die
green safety
can't be CC

Caravan:

1000x the size of your inventory
you lose 100% of your goods, a portion will be destroyed and the rest is lootable
purple safety

The caravan is a fast way to lose all your possessions, while mules are quicker and resistant to crowd control with green safety. In fact, mules can cover more ground in the time it takes to complete just one caravan run, you will probably do 3-4 mule runs in the time of one caravan run. The dismounting feature is still off, isn't it?

I'm fond of the concept of raiding caravans, but I can't help but ponder how long people will continue to employ it before recognizing that it could result in the loss of their entire inventory in a single swoop.

On the other hand, using a mule enables swift transportation and makes it challenging for attackers to crowd control you.

Currently, this system is unsatisfactory and disappointing, this system will be a letdown.

the caravan system will enough people

Arya_Yeshe

Also there is no courier system, I'm affraid.

Random guy can not set a public contract in the warehouse asking random people to haul his stuff from point A to point B.

If you decide to travel by yourself to a far away node where you know no one, then harvest and stockpile stuff there, there is no way to open public courier contract there asking randoms to bring your stuff for you. There's no collateral, the hauler can pretty much change his mind in the middle of the road and let his friends destroy the wagon and split the loot.

Ideally, you will be in this far away place and open a public courier contract asking the package to be delivered somewhere else, you will type the collateral amount. Let's imagine this package has excelent materials and the price of the package is 1 milion gold and you will pay 200,000 gold to the hauler if he delivers this package at point B.

If the hauler dies, he won't see his 1 milion gold and this gold will be transfered to the client, if he delivers it then he receives 200,000 gold.

There are no features available for this.

Arya_Yeshe

Looting the caravan... this is a crazy subject:

Caravans drop certificates for heavy goods that are redeemable at the origin node for a portion of the goods.[45][42]
Anyone may loot the caravan's wreckage.[43]
Caravan components may also drop when a caravan is destroyed. These components may be salvageable by the caravan owner or by other players, in the case of high grade components.[44]
A: With caravans we really want to emphasize this idea of not necessarily stealing the vehicle, but being forced to achieve victory through destruction; and when you do you then have the logistical issue of how you're going to transport those goods on your own rather than servicing the transport of that by just hijacking.

So, the caravan has 1000x your inventory size, let's say the wagon wreck will keep 50% of it.
You better bring 500 players or 50 mules to loot that!
I thought of bringing my own personal wagon and ninja loot other people's wagons.

But:

Personal caravans are initiated from a caravanserai building at a Village (stage 3) node or higher.[4][5]

And we don't know yet if a second wagon can loot the wreck of the first wagon, if this is possible then you can loot the first caravan and tank through the damage and keep traveling... which is fine, works well for loot thieves.

Voxtrium

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Also there is no courier system, I'm affraid.

Random guy can not set a public contract in the warehouse asking random people to haul his stuff from point A to point B.

If you decide to travel by yourself to a far away node where you know no one, then harvest and stockpile stuff there, there is no way to open public courier contract there asking randoms to bring your stuff for you. There's no collateral, the hauler can pretty much change his mind in the middle of the road and let his friends destroy the wagon and split the loot.

Ideally, you will be in this far away place and open a public courier contract asking the package to be delivered somewhere else, you will type the collateral amount. Let's imagine this package has excelent materials and the price of the package is 1 milion gold and you will pay 200,000 gold to the hauler if he delivers this package at point B.

If the hauler dies, he won't see his 1 milion gold and this gold will be transfered to the client, if he delivers it then he receives 200,000 gold.

There are no features available for this.

They have talked about a system setting up collateral actually.

The caravan system could also be more forced from an NPC perspective. If an economic node has a marketplace then they could setup regular caravans to and from that node as a simulation of the resource transfer. That combined with the already planned caravans from castles and their surrounding nodes would implement quite a few NPC caravans.

In terms of player use that will certainly be a difficult balance to strike which is why concentrated gatherable locations might be the way to go. So that losing a caravan sucks but it was never about the resources it was merely about getting the resources to the correct location.

tautau

Keep in mind that the caravan system might be deeply integrated into many game functions through quests.

Guilds may need to complete caravans to advance level or to get guild abilities or increase in size. Nodes may have to do caravans to build (or increase the level of) certain buildings. Religious orders, thieves' guilds, and other social organizations may have to do caravans for similar reasons. Individual players may have to run caravans not only for quests but also to advance their skill in crafting, blacksmithing, fishing, farming, animal husbandry and all the other skill trees.

While caravans will always have economic benefits for those who do them, I suspect that they could be so integrated into other game mechanics that everyone will have to be constantly doing them in order to advance their character progression. IF this is the case, not only will we see a lot of caravans, but there could well develop a strong stigma against those who routinely attack them since the attackers will be hindering everyone' advancing in the game.

Songcaller

Hmm. I think progress is tied to nodes and nodes are tied to caravans. I wouldn't want direct progression from caravans- what use would that be? Why would a warrior need a caravan? I can understand a craftsman might want a caravan or need one for progression but a caravan offers nothing to a warrior except a decent fight.

Spif

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

So, the caravan has 1000x your inventory size, let's say the wagon wreck will keep 50% of it.
You better bring 500 players or 50 mules to loot that!
I thought of bringing my own personal wagon and ninja loot other people's wagons.

The wiki says mule is 10x backpack, and caravan is 10x mule. That 1000x is really just 100x. So 5 mules would cover it. Hopefully looting a caravan's remains will flag you. Scavenging a caravan carcass would then become a mass-melee. That really takes us to: Looting any PvP-dropped sacks/crates/ashes should flag you purple. If you're the guy that got the kill, you're already purple. If you're trying to ninja loot the kill, you need to be flagged

As far as transporting via mule, do rogues have stealth mules? Assuming not, who is going to go red attacking a mule with no player in sight...it's an obvious trap. Or it's a stealth-capable class making a mini-caravan run

Okeydoke

I like the general idea. But it depends on all kinds of things that we...drum roll.....don't know yet. If mats are so easy to gather, which allows for this model the OP describes of the caravan system to be in effect, does that jive with the rest of the game? Does mats being so plentiful and easy to gather fit with the rest of the economic system of the game. If so, great.

Right now, on paper, the caravan system to me looks like a gigantic mess that will not work. And it's been years I believe since we've gotten any kind of update on it. It's been years for a lot of things to be honest.

It took 3 days for Intrepid to figure out whether the game was going to have crossbows or not. Idenfify whose job it was to know whether or not the game would have crossbows. Write his name on a piece of paper and place it on your desk.

We've been waiting years for clarification on what many cosmetic skins that are actively being sold, can be used on. It's been years since that info was coming out "any time now." Identify whose job it was to figure that out. Write it on a piece of paper.

It's been over a year since we were told a proper studio tour was going to happen. We've been told that the studio tour can't happen because of a lack of signs. Signage. Identify whose job it was to order and acquire the signs. Fire him.

Take his salary and hire someone else to order the signs. Find someone that is not a game dev. Preferably someone who kind of looks like Hulk Hogan or Mr. T. Marvel as the signs are ordered within days, and delivered within weeks. Now you can do a studio tour. This will inspire confidence in your backers and potential backers. You will probably see a bump in package sales.

After Mr. T is done dealing with the signs, his new job is to go around kicking everyone's ass on a daily basis. Take the names that you wrote down on the pieces of paper. Make a decision if they're worth keeping or not. For those who are fired, take their salaries and hire some European or Korean devs to augment your team and it's culture.

Behold, as basic ass things that should have been done years ago, start to get done.

Voxtrium

tautau wrote: »

Keep in mind that the caravan system might be deeply integrated into many game functions through quests.

Guilds may need to complete caravans to advance level or to get guild abilities or increase in size. Nodes may have to do caravans to build (or increase the level of) certain buildings. Religious orders, thieves' guilds, and other social organizations may have to do caravans for similar reasons. Individual players may have to run caravans not only for quests but also to advance their skill in crafting, blacksmithing, fishing, farming, animal husbandry and all the other skill trees.

While caravans will always have economic benefits for those who do them, I suspect that they could be so integrated into other game mechanics that everyone will have to be constantly doing them in order to advance their character progression. IF this is the case, not only will we see a lot of caravans, but there could well develop a strong stigma against those who routinely attack them since the attackers will be hindering everyone' advancing in the game.

Excellent points!

Xnate13X

Honestly, I think caravans will only be used by guilds. I think if you're solo, you're just taking the shoelace express or riding a mount.

tautau

@Xnate13X I think that you might find this information about types of caravans interesting: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans

Arya_Yeshe

Voxtrium wrote: »

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Also there is no courier system, I'm affraid.

Random guy can not set a public contract in the warehouse asking random people to haul his stuff from point A to point B.

If you decide to travel by yourself to a far away node where you know no one, then harvest and stockpile stuff there, there is no way to open public courier contract there asking randoms to bring your stuff for you. There's no collateral, the hauler can pretty much change his mind in the middle of the road and let his friends destroy the wagon and split the loot.

Ideally, you will be in this far away place and open a public courier contract asking the package to be delivered somewhere else, you will type the collateral amount. Let's imagine this package has excelent materials and the price of the package is 1 milion gold and you will pay 200,000 gold to the hauler if he delivers this package at point B.

If the hauler dies, he won't see his 1 milion gold and this gold will be transfered to the client, if he delivers it then he receives 200,000 gold.

There are no features available for this.

They have talked about a system setting up collateral actually.

The caravan system could also be more forced from an NPC perspective. If an economic node has a marketplace then they could setup regular caravans to and from that node as a simulation of the resource transfer. That combined with the already planned caravans from castles and their surrounding nodes would implement quite a few NPC caravans.

In terms of player use that will certainly be a difficult balance to strike which is why concentrated gatherable locations might be the way to go. So that losing a caravan sucks but it was never about the resources it was merely about getting the resources to the correct location.

Nice!

If there's talks about collateral, then the caravan system could come out really good!
This is great news, we shoud wait for a showcase on that

This would allow your guild to become a FEDEX and solo players and small guilds could use your services.

Voxtrium

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Voxtrium wrote: »

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Also there is no courier system, I'm affraid.

Random guy can not set a public contract in the warehouse asking random people to haul his stuff from point A to point B.

If you decide to travel by yourself to a far away node where you know no one, then harvest and stockpile stuff there, there is no way to open public courier contract there asking randoms to bring your stuff for you. There's no collateral, the hauler can pretty much change his mind in the middle of the road and let his friends destroy the wagon and split the loot.

Ideally, you will be in this far away place and open a public courier contract asking the package to be delivered somewhere else, you will type the collateral amount. Let's imagine this package has excelent materials and the price of the package is 1 milion gold and you will pay 200,000 gold to the hauler if he delivers this package at point B.

If the hauler dies, he won't see his 1 milion gold and this gold will be transfered to the client, if he delivers it then he receives 200,000 gold.

There are no features available for this.

They have talked about a system setting up collateral actually.

The caravan system could also be more forced from an NPC perspective. If an economic node has a marketplace then they could setup regular caravans to and from that node as a simulation of the resource transfer. That combined with the already planned caravans from castles and their surrounding nodes would implement quite a few NPC caravans.

In terms of player use that will certainly be a difficult balance to strike which is why concentrated gatherable locations might be the way to go. So that losing a caravan sucks but it was never about the resources it was merely about getting the resources to the correct location.

Nice!

If there's talks about collateral, then the caravan system could come out really good!
This is great news, we shoud wait for a showcase on that

This would allow your guild to become a FEDEX and solo players and small guilds could use your services.

Indeed! A collateral system being implemented was excellent news and I got very excited hearing about it. It will make trust a lot easier to come by for initial contracts as well as make deliveries very easy to sort out if successful or not. Steven said it in a stream awhile back, probably the one where he mentioned the caravansary building.

Child Item