Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
The backpack UI for materiel is a bit small and so it takes a lot of scrolling to sort it.
Drag and drop is nice, but if you want to move a whole bunch of goods, I'd appreciate it if you could use Shift + click to move things to the next inventory pool or trade window.You could arrange it in the artisan window not in alphabetical order , but in a natural order (collect, process, craft) if there is no individual setting.
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 they were planted was not shown, i.e. whether they were planted individually or as a whole field.
What about neutral players stealing all my crops? if someone spends all their time collecting seeds, maintaining a freehold, planting and waiting for the harvest - while some random player can just collect everything from my fields? Can you set a restriction or collect passiv if you stuff gets harvested?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Same as above, how about someone kill all your livestock and run away with all the crafting materials? Does each animal only give one resource or can a cow also be killed and skinned? Are some animals restricted to a specific zone, e.g. a cow on grassland and not on a desert, a Pig not in cold zones?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Place items and decorations freely, not just in specific places, to make each Freehold look unique. Set up restrictions to prevent random player from collecting stuff or sharing a freehold with a friend or your guild members
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?
That no one builds their own property and just steals stuff. Why do crystals just happen to form above the surface and not just only underground?
First things first, the format was great for a major system like this as we got some specifics on how things work first and then saw some of it live in the game.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I'm not against the idea of having different systems for different inventory tabs and i did like that i can equip different bags that provide different layouts and of course this needs to be tested mainly because we don't know anything regarding all the different materials, their stacks, how much you lose on death and all the other implications.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold?
Overall i liked the systems. We didn't see any planting but what was already planted looked like it was blending nice with the overall environment. It wasn't clear to me if there was a designated spot (probably is) that planting was allowed or if you can do it all over the place.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them?
I enjoyed what was shown and that we have different animations for each animal as well as separate tools for collecting resources/gathering. I laughed at the slaughter of the pig, i can also see why some wouldn't enjoy it so maybe there is an option to opt in/out of similar things, but i would like to see more kinds of materials from killing livestock. For example pig feet, stout, ears, fat etc which you can later use for cooking or necklace making
Also, livestock live for ever or they die at some point so we better kill them before that?
Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Really excited in general, small concern to accidental slaughter something instead of collecting from it.
Maybe you can have E pressed and a wheel with options appear that follows mouse movement to make a choice?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Customization wise i want to be able to make changes with ease. Whether it has to do with managing where a building should be build to maximize gain or how do i pack everything to go.
Can i move a completed building or do i need to reconstruct it?
Same about workstation movement within the building limits unless they have a fixed location.
Do artisan building skins affect workstations appearance as well?
If we can actually have a system to upload pictures into paintings it would be great, maybe some kind of Grandmaster can craft a legendary canvas or something so it isn't easily available.
Maybe instead of livestock staying still it can move inside its occupied area?
Have an architect's desk furniture that you can sit and it opens a UI that you can plan your pixel perfect Freehold layout or something similar.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
All of it! I am curious regarding the business aspect. What else besides a tavern/inn can you make? Hopefully many more.
Give us all kinds of statistics and logs regarding every little thing that happens in the Freehold or even better have a tab somewhere that tracks every little thing we kill/eat/craft/breath etc with a disgusting amount of details.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Testing will clear up some things for sure.
It wasn't crystal clear to me how Freeholds are placed.
From what i understand(maybe i missed something during the livestream but will rewatch it):
Nodes have ZOI
ZOI have Parcels(i assume as a node levels more parcels are available)
One Parcel can have more than one Freehold
Lets say for example a parcel can have 4 Freeholds. Is Freehold placement fixed within the parcel or can i put my Freehold in a way that makes the parcel have 3 Freeholds? (archeage style)
About the Freehold permit. Do i bid for a Freehold permit and then i decide where i want to use it on or the bidding is done for Freehold permit - Upper East for example?
Are the permits available for bidding somehow affected by the mayor or something?
Thats all folks!
for now at least
Can't wait to test and eventually play!
Keep up the good work!
It's not a big deal to me having played Diablo2 so much, I think a concern with this system though is going to be trading between players. A weight system is easier.. but there is value in planning and juggling your inventory to make room for the good stuff you find. Especially since this management is only for materials. Please stay on this path, a simple weight system could be a backup.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I would like to see the ability to drop items from your inventory and move them on an XYZ axis on or in your owned buildings. Armor, weapons, anything that has a 3d model. This makes customization of your buildings so much deeper and more creative, SWG and ESO had great systems for this.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The bidding system might be problematic but its to early to tell.
If PvP is disabled for the freehold homes just disable it for the whole plot of land.
Not a concern but more of a question in regards to the business side. Lets say you're a Farmer and Cook (maxed out on professions) with a freehold. You managed to buy a plot of land close to a dungeon or POI.. would you be able to acquire and upgrade a tavern as well?
What I suggest to correct these concerns. For one remove the ability to bid, buy and sell Freeholds. This is just a negative through and through and will lead to major issues with RMT down the line. Secondly, either make everyone have the ability to get a Freehold by default or through some reputation system OR add multiple means of obtaining a Freehold outside of just bidding. I am leaning more towards the second option and hope you consider it, here is why.
Right now you have a system that works for Node Leadership that I think can be adapted to Freehold acquisition as well. For example, Economic Nodes have a bid your way to the top mentality to obtain leadership and Military Nodes have a "last man standing gladiatorial arena style combat". If you adapt this same system based on the node type you want the Freehold at. Example 1: Node A is an Economic Node (either Parent or Vassal) means you can now bid to get a Freehold. Example 2: Node B is a Military Node (either Parent or Vassal) means you can now fight for it in some way. I think this will allow players of all avenues of play to have the potential to get a Freehold and not just a guild bidding out every Freehold across the world because not all Nodes will be Economic.
Edit1 -Additional thoughts-
#1 If a Vassal Node is within a parent Metro Node that is of a different type, that would allow for the Vassal type and parent Metro type to both be viable options of acquisition. That would actually be really cool, giving the Metro some influence on the smaller vassals. This would only apply to Metros only, as those are limited to a maximum of 5 across the world.
#2 Buying and Selling of Nodes would still be possible after you acquire it by the means I mentioned per Node Type! Additionally, people will know how you obtained it by some sort of indicator. That way those who keep the Freehold through the original acquisition method are made known be the original owners, but can choose sell if they want. This means you have much more prestige if you keep the original method of acquisition as opposed to buying it off another player.
TLDR Edit
Bidding for Freeholds will become a huge issue and it is not what I would consider a monumental task. I added more details on how my suggestion could work here, so here it is.
My suggestion is to adapt the Node leadership system to the Freehold acquisition but on a smaller scale. Economic Node = Highest Bidder (You wanted Bidding, here it is.)
Military Node = Combat and Gladiatorial oriented (You can fight, you can live here, but you best win)
Scientific Node = Reputation and Notoriety oriented (You become a well known around this area, your reputation precedes you)
Divine Node = Devotion and Faith oriented (You have proven yourself to the gods and they have smiled upon you, deeming you worthy to live within these lands).
This allows for a compromise of exclusivity/limitation and attainability by anyone who puts in the effort and it would actually feel like a monumental task. So I ask you all. Is it really such a bad idea to apply an already established system to Freehold? Aren't they essentially an extension of the node. Why not treat them as such by adapting a similar system?
One - Bidding is such an AWFUL idea - and tied it into being able to be sold ?? Has Gamigo been invited to your board of directors ??? This whole new freehold set up is just a total wrong way to go. I am now very much looking to refund in anyway I possibly can. This not what was the idea when I sent my money in. I cannot master Alchemy unless I have a freehold, yet I may not be able to acquire one unless I am able to spend my life in the game to bid for it or buy it from someone who did? Unless this is changed before I find a replacement game - you can kiss my arse goodbye and if I cannot get my money back -- I will devise my own payment.
I've been watching and wanting to provide feedback but never get around to doing it. The tetris inventory appearance cause me to jump into action! Please oh please don't perpetuate this ancient form of inventory management. It wastes so much time, I never found it fun it was always more frustrating than anything. I don't see how it adds anything to the game play over a straight single slot system.
That out of the way I loved what you showed of the Freeholds. I really enjoyed it when in the Pandarian expansion of WoW I had the Farm. This is like on another level but man I think I would very much get into it I think.
On the butchering subject I would strive for the realism you were trying to do with the others and not worry about peta. Maybe a checkbox for the sleeping pig
The idea of the freeholds not being instanced and out the world is neat to me because I never really played any of the MMO's that did that. But the though of some adventure just walking by my farm in the real world is super neat. I hope it will be a possibility for every player to do if they want. Like wondering what happens if a friend joins you on an old server will all the land be used?
So guilds will just collect money to pay for all the freeholds in a node and control the key to max out gear etc. It's sooo unrealistic that any random player has a good time with this system. As soon as you can group up to break the system its bad. It's very poor design
Also the inventory - what benefit are you expecting from that? But I definitely prefer this over a weight system.
Visuals and all were super good, but lighting was missing in the house.
Presentation style was perfect. Please always like that
After five years of sales you change from "everyone can get a freehold, it just may not be where you want it" to "anyone can get a freehold, it's just a monumental achievement to get one" And now were at "owning a
Freehold is a privilege not a right. Limited number of plots and those plots can be sold... AND you have to bid on them."
The stance was always that they could not be sold and now we have selling and bidding. RMT will be impossible to stop now. You may catch people who do it, but what's losing a 15 dollar sub when someone can make a few hundred just selling one freehold plot.
For the last five years the only information we had on losing a freehold was that "all your stuff would be packed up and sent to do if your freehold gets attacked after a siege, excluding materials. but like furniture and blueprints and all that will show up in your mail or something" Now its "you lose everything, start all over"
After Five years of "the best crafting and processing stations will in metros" Now we have "the best stations are located ONLY on freeholds, Also you need a leveled crafting/processing station for EACH.
So to be a master at a trade skill, you have to be one of the limited number of people able to buy a freehold plot from farmers, large guilds, and retired people. Risk losing everything each month, most likely to the people that sold you the plot. level up a bunch of the same building, just to use all of your crafting/ processing skills.
So if you have housing to be a citizen of a node, and in node housing is limited, and now freeholds are limited AND you lose everything now after a siege, Hundreds if not thousands of players will be running around not caring about or contributing to nodes and trade skills.
The response to "you sold all those freehold cosmetic and now most people wont get to use them" was "we're working on allowing family members being able to use skins on your freehold"? "get fucked" would have been nicer.
Good, not sure more complex shape would bring better gameplay.
-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 don’t like I have to start from the beginning once I stop gathering.
And gathering different resources should require different amount of time, some should be very fast like pick up an egg or cut off a corn shouldn’t take that long time in demo video.
-How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Good, if livestock move around will be better, like having pets and watching them do what they do in house/backyard and you chilling there or even entertained by them.
Livestock dead animation can be realistic or can be cartoonish like in BotW or Minecraft you kill an animal and it drops meats after a smoke effect(personally I don’t mind which style you choose to go with, it just need to be well animated), and maybe let player choose realistic or cartoonish in option menu if voices of both sides are equally loud.
-What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Things make me feel I live a life here in my freehold like a home no matter after IRL daily job or lots of activities in game.
-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 hope there will be a built in system that provide several different ways for different scenarios to allow players able to access and borrow facilities in other player's freehold, for examples 1. if owner is online I can buy a membership from the owner and the system will charge we maybe monthly membership fee and if I don't pay I will not able to access and borrow the freehold and eventually I will lose the membership from the owner. 2. if owner is not online and I'm not on his black list I can pay a rent fee to the system to be able to access and borrow facilities in the freehold for maybe 24h.
I'm a little worry about that current state of freehold idea is too purpose oriented to serve gameplay and no room for the kind of players who want their own small cozy house at a beautiful secluded place in game and relax there.
yes. I am a solo player with no family in the game too. I've spent thousands gearing my toon with cosmetics etc. Now, you claim others will be able to use skins on a joint freehold. I feel that decision is worse than family teleport.
I don't want my autonomy to be hindered by others. I also don't want to lose everything on a freehold after a successful seige. These two changes are rather catastrophic. I don't mind the ability to sell a freehold but the bidding for a freehold is bad.
I do not want to have to join forces with someone else in order to win a bidding war. Furthermore, I do not want to compete with conglomerate alliances to pay extortionate amounts for a freehold. There is a massive urge not to engage with the nodes now.
I don't see why I need to send gold into so many gold sinks for little gain. I also don't believe you can force gold sinks to players who do not want to engage in an activity. It makes rogue guilds much more likely now and also promotes my desire to be free to follow my guild anywhere.
it's been confirmed their size increased from 0.5 acres to 1.5 acres, which is 3 times the original size. This literally made the world size increase irrelevant because now the ratio of the world to the size of the freeholds is 2.5 to 3.
Thank you. I missed a lot of the stream. I will watch the stream on YouTube tomorrow. I've made alternate plans now. It doesn't matter what building skins I have bought because I won't engage in the freeholds or the nodes
I do understand where you are coming from, this left a very poor taste in my mouth and that's coming from someone who bought into this game during kickstart. They never mentioned there would be bidding for Freeholds, only that it was a monumental task to achieve, my assumption was that it was a series of events and quests to be done or some other means, but not gold. Gold/bidding is the laziest way to make something feel monumental, but also the easiest way to ruin your game.
The thing is, obviously we're closer to the type that might succeed than solo early backers.
But aside from that, it's maybe that we've become too 'used to Intrepid making decisions that are explicitly meant to be pain points for certain types of player in order to achieve the 'winners and losers' distinction'.
So in a way it's 'fatigue' combined with 'respect for Steven's goals despite not understanding some of them'.
Making Freeholds bigger, and more important, but also making them less accessible and more economic to everyone falls under this. This is the vision of the game and seems to be core, but we don't like it either, we just 'are past bothering to note strong negative feedback on things that are meant to reward our playstyle at the expense of others'.
Since so many others are now saying that they don't like this, this is me explicitly 'bandwagoning'.
Making Freeholds Bigger is unnecessary.
Making Freeholds harder to get is bad.
Making Freeholds too easily open to economic factors is very bad.
Making 'People at Processing Stations' easily gankable is terribad.
Thanks for your time as always.
The inventory management system looks similar to Escape From Tarkov (EFT), which isn't a bad thing. However, three issues EFT had early on was lacking the ability to rotate items, auto sort, and auto transfer between two inventories. These three things in my opinion are a must have when using this type of inventory system. So if this inventory system is what Ashes of Creations goes with, please ensure these quality of life tools are implemented before anyone plays the game.
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'm unsure about the farming system as it wasn't shown how you plant/replant. The question that I have about this is, are plants planted by the player individually within a placed farming plot? Or does the farming plot auto place the plant the player wants/has on hand? I feel there needs to be a bit more information on the idea/vision for this system.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I like the idea of the livestock system being a bit more realistic. If I'm collecting meat or hide from an animal it should die, not sleep. I understand there will be people who dislike this and are squeamish about it, but I personally would like to see this game take on a semi grim dark feel to it. I think it would be a good idea to look into a setting option to turn off certain grim dark content for those who would prefer a lighter gaming experience.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
(Freehold Claims)
When it comes to customization with buildings and furnishing I love having almost complete control over it. I would love to see freeholds not being constrained to predesignated locations. Rather have a system where people can claim the land they want their freeholds on. Give the player some kind of item to trace out the shape of their claim (of course add size constraints) but this would allow players to not be limited to a square. It would even be neat to allow a player to not use up all of their land claim, They could then choose to expand it later on depending on their needs. Of course with this type of claim system you would need to designate locations that do not allow land claiming. and upon land claims made by a player there would need to be a radius around that players claim that becomes unclaimable to ensure players don't build freeholds to close or on top of one another.
(Buildings)
Buildings are another thing I would love to have very little limit constraints on. I want to be able to free place my building anywhere on my plot. I want the ability to claim a piece of land that has different elevations on it and be able to place those buildings on those different elevations (house on a hill kind of idea). I would love to be given the ability to place my own roads/paths through my freehold. Change the fencing around my free hold/be able to place fencing wherever I want. I'm sure implementing these ideas would be opening an entire can or worms. But it would be extremely fun for those like me who love to build and decorate, where it's almost set as imagination is the limit.
(Misc.)
I love the idea of having freeholds being a privilege not a guarantee. On this note however, I think it would help those who want to experience freeholds but can't put the time commitment others can by creating random quest encounters throughout the world that's first come first serve. What I mean by this is implementing something like a quest giver that owns a freehold space, but a beast has come and taken it over or something. And it's the players job is to go fix the problem, if player goes and does exactly as the quest says and returns to the quest giver, the player will just get a thanks and some money. But if the player decides to look deeper into the quest there could be clues or leads to some other hidden objective. That if completed the quest giver will give you their land. Another idea is you could implement secret freehold claims that are so out of the way that the city didn't know about and you can get a cheaper price on it. Just having the ability to acquire freeholds through random encounters/quests would be such an interesting game mechanic and would give the player who discovered it a very personalized and unique experience.
(Overall Thoughts)
I love the idea of freeholds, and what is being shown so far looks promising. But there are so many things that could make freeholds even more special. While it is one aspect of the game out of many, it is truly a special aspect that will attract a wide variety of people from the builders, role-players, industrialists, and other communities. In my eyes it's already a star aspect of the game, so why not make it a shining star.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Again overall I love the concept, but there needs to be more information/visualization of what the true vision the Ashes of Creation team has for it. So you could say I'm excited for what's to come.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
My only concern is how what was shown will turn out once the game is released, but that's just a concern I'm sure most people have.
My Admiration towards the Ashes of Creation Team
I truly look forward to seeing how these systems have changed or been expanded upon once the game is released. And I look forward to hearing more from the Ashes of Creation team and getting glimpses of what you all have created. Keep up the amazing work, and thank you for the time and effort you've been pouring into this game. I hope it becomes one of the greats.
With that said, I think this pivot on Freeholds is a terrible one. It isn't learning the lessons on Open World Housing from Archeage, Elyon, and isn't taking into account the problems from Final Fantasy XIV.
If you want to limit the number of Master and Grandmaster Processors, than limit how and when and where they can get those top tier crafting stations.
However, saying there are "3 other types of housing" when we know in Node houses start at 8 in a Stage 3 Node and Grow to some unknown number at Stage 6, really isn't a solution since the number of Nodes dropped from 103 to 85 and there is no housing in stage 0/1/2 Nodes
Stage 3 Nodes have 50 apartments, and Stage 4 and higher ONLY have more if the Mayor builds the building.
So basically a percentage of the population will own a home or a freehold, and everyone else will be stuck in Instanced Housing.
If you haven't paid attention to any of the other games that have open world and instanced housing, Instanced Housing is a consolation prize and a "thank you for being a second class citizen" award.
Specifically having different (or multiple) gathering only bags. I think this could be a great idea, but there needs to be a doubling down on making sure that organization, utility, and the player's choice will be taken care of. Otherwise I could see it becoming very cumbersome.
A specific example of what kind of tools could be made available to the players is the ability to designate bags for receiving only specific types of resources or goods. I.E. Ore goes into bag A, while wood goes into back C, and other MISC gatherables can go into bag B. You can further break it down by giving us the ability to choose from a more detailed filter for each resource (by category). Also I feel that a customizable prioritization system would be beneficial. I.E. Your "ore only" bag becomes full and you want to keep mining, by creating a simple ruleset that tells the items to be rerouted into an alternative resource bag would help. Of course you could always add the little additional things like naming bags, etc. all of which could prove helpful for the player.
Otherwise, I loved the showcase and can't wait to see the crafting systems.
P.S. Also making the recently gathered items highlighted in some way so you can tell them apart from your old stock could save people the headache of combing for them like Steven did on the livestream. Just a QoL thing.
Wait seriously? Are these numbers correct?
85 nodes. 50 apartments (hell, let's say mayor builds double: 100 apartments). That's 8,500 people with housing. 50,000 registered accounts per server. Hell let's double it again. 17,000. And again. Every mayor in every possible node builds 7 extra apartment buildings instead of something else. 34,000. At 50,000 registered accounts per server, that's 16,000 homeless people without even instanced housing.
The 8*85=680 (or doubled 1,360 (or doubled-doubled 2,720)) non-instanced node houses aren't even gonna make a dent.
(16,000-2720)/85=156.
Are there gonna be 156 freeholds at every single node? I really hope you did the math, Intrepid, cause it seems like you're gonna have a homeless problem even on a very well-developed server.
Pretty neutral. I hope there is an auto-sort function though. I would definitely request a "unload all" button.
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?
Not really. It wasn't bad, but I am kind of neutral until we see more than the very basics we saw. Adding water and fertilizer makes sense. What about pest control though?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
It looked good overall, nice sounds, and I loved the animation where you slit the throat of the pig. It was unexpected after the sheep shearing animation, but I think it's good to keep it a little realistic and not too kid friendly.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I would like to see skins we bought be able to be used as themes on more than one separate building, instead of only one building, or instead of that solution you mentioned where one skin sort of gathered several buildings into one somehow.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The aesthetics looked really good, and I like how we won't be seeing freehold cities with a bunch placed right next to eachother covering large areas.
It's nice to see all the flexibility we'll get in designing the layout and content.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The very limited amount of freeholds we are likely to get, compared to how many people are on a server, combined with the bidding system. I made a thread with some napkin math and speculation, and if we end up with only around 1 in 16 people (or less) on the server that are able to get a freehold, a LOT of people are going to be very disappointed. It's going to be virtually impossible for casuals to buy freeholds without resorting to a lot of RMT for gold.
If the idea is that freeholds are meant for families (8-9 people) pooling their money together, sure, that works, but I think you need to advertise it as such, and make sure the tools are there for freeholds to be run as family owned land. It's fine to have a single owner, but I also think there has to be a way to transfer ownership to another family member if the owner account goes inactive or leaves the family.
It's pretty clear that freeholds are not for individuals who aren't super serious about either running a business, farming or processing, and don't have many hours every day to play.
I liked it. I like the Diablo style inventory system because it prevents people from hoarding, clearing out entire regions of resources and hauling them back in one go. As much as people are complaining about this, these limitations are necessary and they help reduce gold farming/RMT. Nobody should be able to carry around unlimited amounts of items. I think there should be ways to greatly increase carrying capacity, such as hand carts you can pull or wagons if you have a certain mount to tow it, but with movement penalties. We already know there will be mounts that increase your carrying capacity and caravans that follow the same premise.
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 liked them, it's a good start. Hopefully we will get more variants of harvesting animations than just slicing things up with a sickle. Fruit should be picked and placed in a bag, things like wheat or corn can be harvested with a sickle. The animation should match the action.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Good job with the animation on the pig, not too graphic, not too soft. Good cow milking animation too. The sheep sheering however needs a proper animation but I'm sure that's just placeholder. Overall they did seem sped up but maybe because Steven maxed his gathering at the beginning. I would like to see the animals more animated and move around a bit. I would look to Red Dead Redemption 2 for inspiration on animal behavior and harvesting animations, that to me is the gold standard and what every game should strive for.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Full customization except for immersion breaking cosmetics. I don't want to see a Candy Kingdom structure in the dark volcano area, or at all for that matter, an Igloo house in the desert, or a sand hut in the snowy mountains or forest. Please no rainbow tigers. I also don't want to see a dozen Freeholds built right next to each other like a City. There should be a good distance in between them, otherwise they will feel like just another City or Town. It seems like they are intended to be more like Settlements/Homesteads on the outskirts of town or in the wilderness, so hopefully you stick to that theme. I also would like to see some level of defensive structures like wooden palisades and gates that can be broken down, maybe a few guards or patrolling watch dogs that can be hired that alert you of enemies. Nothing too crazy though, I don't think you should be able to make your Freehold into a full on Fortress.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think this is a promising system if paired with more connecting mechanics like resource transportation and interactive crafting within the Cities. Definitely look towards Red Dead Redemption 2 on resource harvesting, animal behavior and hunting.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am concerned about the building cosmetics being immersion breaking and Freeholds being too close together. I am also concerned about large Guilds monopolizing Freeholds as I have seen this in other games (Archeage, Albion Online). Thankfully, it sounds like we'll have ways to counter them
Separate from my responses to each question, I think it would be a reasonable compromise to give Freehold Owners the rights to grant access to their Stations for free or a set cost per use. Leave it up to the owner if they want to allow other groups to use their equipment by category (Public, Citizen of the node, Guild member, family member).
Nobody should expect to be a Master of all things crafting/property ownership/politics, especially if you don't have the time to dedicate to those systems. They've been saying for a while now not everyone will be a property owner and obtaining a Freehold will be a monumental task. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Clearly there are some systems in place for people that have a lot of time to spend on the game like this, being a Mayor or King of a Castle.
He was very clear in today's stream that that applies only to your house. Your fields and processing stations have no protection. You can absolutely be ganked while processing, and have all your goods taken.
Yeah i missed that question went by what they said earlier but yeah i dont realy have an issue with it tbh myself ill just deal with it like putting house near center of plot so it fairly easy to run to it if needed to clear inventory or ill just bank more often while harvesting or crafting
For the farming/milking/butchering stuff, yeah, players can be ganked while they do that, but hopefully the TTK is long enough that they can run inside the house most of the time. It's not an activity where players just afk, like might be the case with processing. Greens can't be CC'ed, so it would have to be a group ganking a player for some eggs if they want to be sure they get them. It would also have to be some really tasty eggs to be worth getting corrupted over though.
My favorite part of the freehold concept is the exclusivity. I love that once you reach max level and get to start needing the high end materials to do crafting, you'll have the goal of obtaining your freehold to meet. It's going to be difficult, and that's one thing I believe a lot of MMOs are missing these days. Difficult content. I know it's been said there will be a good patch pace post launch, but having these hard to obtain goals right out of the gate is going to be a lot of fun. Especially since I know I won't be pursuing the freeholds at first since I want to mainly focus on combat. If combat ever gets boring, knowing the grind of getting a freehold for myself is possible will be a big motivator.
To answer some of the prompted questions...:
- How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system? My favorite result of the inventory system is that you won't be able to go out and gather every resource that you see. You'll have to decide on what you want to pick up and bring tools specialized for that. I've always thought it insane that in some games you can go fishing, mine rare ore, pick herbs, and chop some trees all in the same outing.
- How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this? I'm sure it's possible - but I would love if the farming plots were larger and animal pens also. It would be fun to see an example layout posted of someone who has a freehold and solely wishes to produce those raw items and not do any processing (though I assume that will be rare to see given that the main draw of freeholds is the processing abilities)
- What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold? I like the idea of the blueprints for different customization. Gated behind relevant content (like themed buildings that follow the different designs of the social orders) will be immersive.
- I'm curious to see how long the investment put in to build your freehold pays off using what you built on the freehold. It would suck if the payback time is 2 months and the node the freehold is under gets sieged before the payback happens. Will be fun to see the final numbers of everything!
Thanks IS!!!Imagine getting ganked for some eggs on your farm tho.
My concern - the bidding, buying/selling of freeholds, limited amount of them. I'm fine with those things in and of themselves.
Let me just take a step back real quick. Games with open world pvp don't die because of open world pvp, as many carebears will falsely tell you. They die because of RMT, cheating, power gaps being way too big, the snowball effect of rich and powerful guilds getting infinitely more rich and powerful, and unrestricted, rampant, full loot drop ganking.
Material to this conversation - RMT/cheating, power gaps and the snowball effect. These are the issues I can see potentially popping up with this freehold system overhaul. I don't know that for sure though. The freehold system is far too complex, and Ashes itself with all of it's systems is too complex to know how exactly this all pans out.
I'm fully on board with "not everyone's a winner," risk vs reward, "it takes time and effort to achieve things." Love all of those concepts. And I'm a pvper. Tend to get moderately rich in mmos too. And I join top tier guilds. These are just qualifiers for my point, coming from an mmo power gamer.
My point, what I'm trying to say is, just be careful. Don't make the game TOO top heavy. Don't make the same mistakes that previous mmos with pvp and competition over resources did. You have to keep the game at a certain threshold of competitiveness or people just give up.
It seems to me that freeholds have shifted into being primarly attainable only by power gamers. Hard to say that for sure at this point, but that's how it seems. And I'm fine with that to an extent. But be careful. And balance it. Don't leave everyone who can't get a freehold in the dust. The system shouldn't create a huge windfall of profit/power for power gamers who were already strong in the first place. Balance it by making other activities in the game reasonably competitive with how lucrative owning a freehold is.