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[Feedback Request] Alpha Two Freehold Preview Shown in June Livestream
Hello glorious community,
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Freehold Preview shown during the June 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, July 21, 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
Edit:
Hi all!
We published an article that takes a deep dive and unveils some detailed information about Freeholds that you may enjoy. It may even bolster your feedback!
The article can be found below, and I highly recommend checking it out!
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2023-07-14-exploring-the-boundless-opportunities-of-freeholds
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Freehold Preview shown during the June 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
- How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
- How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
- How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
- What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
- Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, July 21, 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
Edit:
Hi all!
We published an article that takes a deep dive and unveils some detailed information about Freeholds that you may enjoy. It may even bolster your feedback!
The article can be found below, and I highly recommend checking it out!
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2023-07-14-exploring-the-boundless-opportunities-of-freeholds
5
Comments
Freehold Comments:
Environment:
Gathering:
My question pertains to the skins, will skins be able to be immersion breaking such as an Ice skinned freehold in the volcano or desert biome and if not will skins be able to be toggled on or off for those who don't want to see the skins that others have?
This was a common problem in ArcheAge.
No there isn't. Multi accounting was allowed by the devs after community poll.
Arma/DayZ/Tarkov style inventory is bad, limits ability to level via XP, let alone carry far to much. Weight is the tried & true tested & proven system that works. As Steven stated it will limit leveling ability.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Looks ok. Not my style of gameplay.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Limited plots clearly will cause issues. Because specifically you are forcing highest tier craft or processing? I forget but was stated on your stream to them. Meaning they are now a Requirement of that system. That needs addressing.
I see you have the option to instance multiple freeholds on the same plot so at least there are options. But still leaves the issue of being Forced just to get highest crafting or was it processing.
But myself like many others don't want freeholds or housing, It ruins mmos, makes players lazy & they end up staying near them until they stop logging in. Worse are New World & BDO where you need them for buffs from furniture which ends up 1 of the many reasons you are put off playing those mmos.
My concern is legit that you are forcing the WORST of the WORST Gaming systems onto us.
"Freeholds are the only place that Master & Grandmaster processing is available". - After pointing out Freeholds are limited, not everyone will have one. Later on they talk about access & that is also limited.
Tarkov inventory, fuel for crafting like survival sims (& FFXIV crystals/shards/clusters) are just side mistakes. Keep in mind if you have no space for the resources you cannot gather, meaning leveling is nerfed heavier, meaning drag drop, meaning life skill BOTS will be King & desired by plebs.
Neutral, until I know the amounts of things required and droprates/acquisition rates. Stack sizes also. In general I don't hate this management system.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Didn't really notice anything much? I'll leave this to my favorite farmer, but to use the usual:
FFXI - Different kind of thing mostly but about the same in terms of outcome
BDO - Looks decent compared to BDO. Maybe not quite there, but not disappointing relative to it.
MineCraft - Same.
Other similar survival games - Slightly better or the same.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Again, didn't notice anything outside of what I'm used to.
FFXI - Obviously Ashes gives a really nice technical upgrade, but otherwise it's similar.
BDO - Slightly better I think? But as an abstractor it doesn't really matter much. BDO is slightly more 'fun' because my cows wander off pretty far from spots, but overall, this is minor.
MineCraft - MineCraft is very slightly better depending on how the spawning and feeding is done, but I don't feel the need to recreate that structure... it does feel a little weird to have the livestock just stand around though.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Don't care as much. I do quite like doing these things, but Freeholds didn't really give the feeling of it for me. It might be that they're too big, actually. I also got used to the equivalents in BDO, so that's probably influencing it.
MineCraft can be ignored in this comparison, since obviously, it's MineCraft, you build everything yourself.
I'll think more about this, might have more input during testing. Internal decorations, I want to see more of, but I don't generally have strong reactions to these until they're in.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
It looks 'up to spec', in the sense that nothing directly made me even think in terms of 'disappointment' or 'questioning the design' of the Freeholds themselves. Economic 'concepts' can't be 'enjoyed' fully without more data, for me personally.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
No concerns related to freeholds specifically, and again, can't really speak about things like economics or 'rested exp' or 'specifics of farming' until Alpha-2.
Everything sounds good to me, I'm looking forward to giving more targeted non-speculative feedback, but certainly I saw nothing that would make me think that any feedback would be 'hard to either adapt to or dismiss based on design goals'.
Oh. I don't like that bosses can drop Freehold/Building Blueprints. Muh immersion!
-To be a start, it seems totally precise to me, simple but direct, the person or persons who chose this form have very good taste.
Now I hope that in the following months and with improvements that will come for these and other things they will continue with that good taste in whatever they do.
Simple but direct , it is not minimalist but it is not exaggerated either , a very good balance of contrasts .
2.-How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
-I really liked it, in particular I would like to see more plants, orchids, fruits or other things to have a clearer opinion but what I saw I liked a lot.
Question: Plants move as trees do with the wind?
Remember that there is a plant called SUNFLOWER that moves in the direction of the sun.
Will that type of detail that some plants, orchids, fruits, tubers or other things have in those systems?
Of course, my question is because I know that some plants, fruits or etc. have some particular characteristics, will there be that type of detail in those systems?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I LOVE IT, it gives so much immersion to the freeholds.
Question, will the animals have movements or will they be moderately static?
Sometimes it's a bit weird to see an animal not move naturally and being static for so long is kind of weird, I mean it takes away all naturalness from that animal and it looks more like a robot.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
-Some time ago in this topic https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/55310/the-dna-of-intrepid-studios#latest I made a suggestion about this The great potential of the Freeholds. (the video is in English)
I would like the players to have the opportunity to EDIT AND IMPROVE THEIR SPACE AS THEY WANT, obviously having limits and rules so that there is no toxicity or bad behavior.
The freeholds have a huge POTENTIAL for imagination, differentiation, for sociability but above all to give the player that thing that makes them feel like they belong to that place/game.
My space, to say that something is really MY SPACE I have to be able to edit it as I want (depending on the rules and prohibitions that the game grants me).
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I would like Steven to be very, very cautious and specific with what he will say in the next Q&A which I think will be dedicated to the subject of freeholds.
The truth is that I think the community has many doubts and it is something normal since this is a concept with so much potential.
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about Ashes of Creation’s Freehold Preview shown during the June Development Update
I would love to see that players could integrate more freeholds with respect to the world/server where they live.
For example :
If a player leaves an easteregg in their freehold so that other players can find a treasure hidden somewhere on the server or even in their freehold, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!
Secrecy is something that MMORPGs don't take advantage of much of but it's an incredible content machine.
Second note: Wind effects. I loved the wind effects on the crops/trees. Might seem a simple like but static farms are very generic and its great to see the variation/waves the wind makes on the crops. Loved the particle effects on the harvest gatherables whilst gathering too. I'm all for particle effects since Nvidia release the 580 lol.
third note: Love the tetris idea for the resource section of the inventory. so pleased there is a resource section of the inventory (I plan to be a gatherer). It will be a small entertainment to fit the stuff I gather into the tetris style grid rather than having a bland squared grid.
fourth note: The sound for the animals was spot on. Loved the realistic tendencies but distant sounds should also mingle with the nearest sounds to make the ambience and immersion better.
Fifth note: I hope the stroking of animals for leather/meat/wool is only placeholder. It seems really strange. You can make use of sheers/a knife without making the situation too gory (I realise you don't want to be an 18 rated game).
Sixth note: Why were the rabbit rides so slow? Does this mean some mounts are pay to win and other mounts are just pay for looks? or, does this mean that most of the mounts are slower than first envisioned.
I was drawn to Freeholds years ago and I'm pleased my interest still stands. I would hope we don't need to farm to get leather but can get leather from any creatures in the wild as well as creatures on the farm. Otherwise, excellent work and thank you for your dedication.
My Question is this-
For those of us who have purchased cosmetic packs for freeholds, what we see when we purchase them is the skin for the actual home it self, in the future will we also see complimenting skins for things like your property fence's and other buildings you place on your free hold to match the home skins? Also (off topic from first Q) will we be able to place furniture and items outside of our homes on our freehold?
My concern is this alienates a large amount of the player base that assumingly won't get access to a freehold, thus never having a chance to truly master a refinement specialization right? We will need to see in A2 how this pans out. At scale I'm a little worried about this, this could easily kill player retention if players feel strong-armed out of the a major part of the economy. I hope we are thinking about some of the ideas. I'm not a game designer, I just want to hope someone is thinking about these points. The biggest killer for these type of MMORPGs is player retention, if they see a couple super orgs owning most of the power, it'll be bad.
Don't worry. There are a ton of intended bumps along the way for the 'landed gentry road to a master artisan'.
For example as a farmer... First you have to actually acquire citizenship in the node with the CLIMATE you want. and you better hope you can figure out what the parcels are ahead of time. Then you gotta HOPE your mayor likes you and you get a spot or someone willing to sell one to you (and who knows how likely that is if you are a crafting focused person to begin with) then you gotta finally get a parcel... but HOPE you got the best blueprints for what you want to do... and can find the seeds you want to grow... and hope that the crop rotations were built in a playloop you like for the things you like to grow and sell.
Oh and let's certainly hope you don't get ganked and die while farming and toiling. Oh and lets also ALSO hope your node doesn't get seiged before you can make back the break even point on your purchased land and HOPEFULLY one day this happens successfully enough that you are a master crafter.
And that's not even including 'being good at farming', 'being good at the play loops required to get and maintain farming stuff', 'getting all the prerequisite fuel and such' 'not getting a bad weather event turning your crop sour' etc. Oh and ofc 'getting your goods into market without getting jumped'.
There's just so many pitfalls that could lead to a quit moments. There will probably be a lot of churn.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
If a large number of players are unable to own a freehold 4 months into the game, then I fear they will simply begin to leave, and this will threaten the game's sustainability. I also wonder how well this will work once the servers are mature and every player is seeking a freehold.
Why not for inventory too? Other than that its okey
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Looks good
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Looks good
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Mainly i wanna hire labor
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview? Animal Husbendary
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview? I paid money for freehold cosmetics and i really wanna master animal husbendary, now when only small % of players will be able to get a freehold it will be abused by huge guilds and RMT guilds and i will not be able to do any livestock/animal husbendary to that extend. Being gatekeeped for that content might push me away from the game, ngl.
There is only so much space. Privilege can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. While I do agree there's been another red flag I do not feel we know enough right now to determine whether its a deal breaker or not.
should have never made them bigger that simple lol its a major game mechanic this should not have been changed this drastically
I don't know how 'big' the freehold actually is. What are the widths of the freehold? What is the space required between freeholds? How close can you build freeholds to major landmarks/roads? The map is quite large overall so I believe several thousand freeholds might be able to be place or more across the two continents.
I'm sorry but I absolutely hate it. I've played a couple of games that use it (Diablo recently but as far back as Mabinogi) and I just hate the tetris you have to play when trying to get things to fit. And then I assume you'll have an arbitrary number of those items that can fit in that same slot with that item. Ugh. It's just a nuissance to deal with and it's immersion breaking.
The games that I have enjoyed the inventory management have dealt with it by weight. I think that's very fair. Items typically weigh a certain amount and whether you can carry it all depends on your bag size. In order to upgrade your weight capacity, you upgrade your stats and the bag that you're using. Or perhaps your pet or a caravan can be used to help alleviate the burden.
Else, you're going to have to increase your carrying capacity in this tetris system by increasing the amount of bags or expanding the current bag's slots and you're stuck flipping pages to get to your items.
Can we have more info on arenas in freeholds? How big are they? How many people can enter it at once?
Is it going to be instanced so bigger groups can enter?
I would LOVE to organize party PvP events in my freehold (for example 8vs8 tournaments). I think making these instanced would solve any problem that could come with size of the actual building the world.
Inventory: Big things take up much space. I like it! Will weight be an issue? Like, can you carry 200 huge iron ore chunks, but not a few logs from 5 different trees? But make an "auto arrange" button. Oh - and make an option for having one, big bag if desired. Additional bags could add to that instead of making a new bag entity to scroll down to. Section it if you want - I would like all my items on one comprehensive screen.
Crops: Looks pretty much OK. I would dread harvest though, some way to harvest multiple units like a scythe should be a no-brainer. A necromancer would just get the minions to do it for him in a fraction of the time
Livestock: Animations were mentioned in the livestream. I suggest making a "mature" animation and a "clean" animation for each, tied to a property on the harvesting tool. Then people could decide for themselves. If they had "clean" activated, they could get all the blood and gore from fighting, but get a "child safe" animation for slaughering and gutting. And... chickens really need coops when this close to the forest! Those we saw would be gone in a few hours max. I liked the animations though! A suggestion - make the cow's udder sizes indicate how much milk you get from milking!
Customization: I know blueprints will be a thing. I guess cosmetic blueprints and quality blueprints do stack? I don't want to stop using a look from backing or the cash shop because I looted something with better rarity. Being able to customize my freehold music would be great, happy tunes and gloomy buildings makes me reach for the "music off" setting.
Excitement: It looked so organic and natural, like it was built to be part of the world! I was really impressed! And no weird pop-ins as the group got closer - but that might be the reason Steven slowed down, to let everything load in?
Concerns: Network or graphics lag making freeholds "pop up" around speedy travellers with slow internet or harddrives. This might be abused to get inside walls or closed-off areas. Also, if gaining plots is bid based - how can guilds be prevented from just pooling resources and outbid everything one plot at the time until every member gets their freehold while others get outbid all the time? Prices will skyrocket and be out of reach for pretty much everyone else - and THAT sounds just a bit too realistic...
-How will Freehold ownership affect certain artisan classes? For instance, it was mentioned in-stream that you can only raise certain artisan classes to higher levels by traveling to a (city?) node outside of your freehold, using blacksmithing as an example to become a Master or Grandmaster smith. Would the requirements be different for things like farming or animal husbandry? Would artisan trees like animal husbandry or farming basically be screwed if you're not able to get a hold of a Freehold? How would we have a farm or stable if we don't own land for that sort of activity?
-Will it be possible for solo players to get a hold of a Freehold, or are they going to be something where its nigh impossible unless you're running with a group/guild? Obviously I imagine it'll be easier to get a Freehold if you have support from other players, but being essentially required to have a group to own a property at all is definitely a big turn-off. Not just for trying to acquire property, but for even playing the game for some of us.
-Will farming essentially be a requirement/prerequisite to being able to do animal husbandry? In relation to being able to feed/support animals you own? Or if not exclusively a "requirement", will it basically be "meta" if you want to actually have a successful animal husbandry operation, therein locking you out of other artisan trees you might want more?
-It was mentioned that players are only "safe" on their own freehold from PvP by entering their house building, but not on the rest of their freehold. What's to stop PvP bullies from exploiting this to harass other players to troll, grief, or that they otherwise simply don't like? Essentially "trapping" them inside their own homestead? Are there any Intrepid policies against that sort of behavior or is it up to the players to go find other players to protect them and deal with it on their own, since PvP is an integral part of the game's design?
-If you have certain services like a tavern or shop on your Freehold, are there things like NPCs where you can set up a merchant to sell items to players, even/especially when you're offline? Have things like property guards/bouncers who can deal with trespassers and unwanted individuals?
-If you can have service NPCs (merchants, guards, etc) on your property, can you do things like set a "whitelist" or "blacklist" on users? For instance, if you want to just have a private estate without visitors, you can set it where NPCs will tell players to leave who aren't family or whitelisted (giving generic NPC dialogues of "Leave", "This is private property", "Go no further", etc), and potentially attack them if they ignore the warning and trespass. Or you might allow visitors to your tavern or shop, but some players have shown up and caused trouble or attacked you at your homestead, you can add their names to a blacklist to be "attacked on sight" by guards if they enter your property, or alternatively be denied services that everyone else gets, such as tavern rest buffs and merchant access. This would be both helpfully functional and also immersive to roleplay.
-Outside of node sieges/collapse, if you kill another player on your Freehold for whatever reason, does "going red" apply or will there be different allowances if you're standing on your own Freehold property? Let's say that someone comes to your Freehold and is generally causing trouble, you tell them to leave and they stick around trying to cause trouble, taunt you etc., you kill them and they don't fight back, will you get a penalty on your character for that and then end up with a bounty on you?
-It was mentioned that Freeholds will generally not be within sight distance of each other, unless I'm mistaken, as Freehold owners will own parcels of land that are many acres. However, is it possible some parcels/freeholds will be closer together than others, depending on where on your parcel you place your Freehold? Such as if you actually WANT your freehold to be within easy distance of someone else's freehold? (friends, guild mates, etc).
-Avian Tulnar (topic video)
-Dwarf-to-tallest race heights for Tulnar
-Crows/ravens for Falconers
-AC:O & AC:V type aerial scouting for Falconer
The idea of being able to run a business with my friends using the family system sounds like a dream come true in a MMO. I'd love to see a similar dynamic with guilds.
> Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
There is so much game systems gated behind the owning of a freehold, i feel disapointed for them to be so rare and hard to get. Feels like only hardcore nolife players will be able to run a tavern, do animal husbandry, etc.
Processing has no risk reward a tenant of AoC