[*] How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I like the size and I think it would be interesting to play with shapes that are not the traditional rectangle. It appeared to me as if one of the bags Steven had had little L shapes in it. I'm not opposed to something like that. It makes people get creative.
[*] 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?
All that concerns me with this is the necessity for a player to balance crop management with animal rearing. As a person that wants to have a freehold for Animal Husbandry particularly, I also want to be able to be a useful producer to my guild, so I want to have space for crops for Husbandry but also be able to run a tavern, or farm for guild buff food, or still have the space for a tannery.
[*] How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Again, that balance of space needed is both exciting and concerning, but I do look forward to seeing more exotic creatures and how their enclosures might yield more happiness or efficiency etc. Big note, please never make anything that looks like animal cruelty in the game. I understand that the most efficient way to get big chickens that lay a bunch of eggs in a small space is to shove them all into tiny cubes for their whole lives. I *do not* need to live through this reality in a game. Just a production yield increase without the realism is just fine thank you.
[*] What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
In addition to the building skins I think it would be nice to be able to design a little sign for your Freehold, maybe one that shows up on the map as an easy distinguisher that people can see from their maps so they can see if you've moved/closed down.
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am very much excited about the level of freedom it sounds like we'll have in the placement of Freeholds. I am concerned about the potential impact on rare spawns and their paths, but if that's already taken into consideration I just love it even more.
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am concerned about there being too much of a processing gap between freehold producers and non-freehold producers. Everyone seems to have concerns about there 'not being enough for everyone' or 'I can't use my cosmetics' and I think those are easily solvable by making sure a lot of the functionality of Freeholds can also be covered by the Static Housing or buildings within the Node kind of systems. However, if the gap between a person that ideally spends 40+ hours a week progressing production in a freehold and the person that can ideally spend 40+ hours a week progressing production without a freehold is too large it will create a situation where mega-guilds that corner the freehold market will have such a big power gap over the guilds that couldn't or didn't have the resources in the first wave of freehold purchasing that the little guys can't even put up a fight in hopes to take down the bigger guilds/nodes or get those freeholds.
As a person that is specializing in Animal Husbandry, I am curious as to how much of our land is expected to be dedicated to mastering one single sub-specialization? Will I be able to utilize some of my land to also produce high-level hides and leathers through tanning? Will I have space to run a tavern or other business? Or do I have to use all of my space for Animal Husbandry/Farming (for instance) to get the most benefit from it?
How many sub-specializations can players expect to cover on one plot of land?
I was also wondering about the intention on selling plots after a Freehold has been established. How much of the Freehold remains, if anything? Can I simply go purchase a property with a maxed-out alchemy station, or am I just bidding for the location? Can I move a Freehold within the parcel when I purchase it if I don't like the area it's in? Since there are no counter-offers I'm guessing the Freehold seller sets a fixed price, if that is the case is there an easy way to delist it immediately if someone works out a deal via mail or DM? If there is no way to limit who can purchase the Freehold plot what keeps rival guilds from purchasing your plots when they go up for sale? Lots of social stuff like that.
Professional Skeptic, Entertainer, and Animal Enthusiast
First I'd like to say your Freeholds look incredible. However limiting their number gates a major amount of content accessible the player. This should not happen. Any player should be able to have a chance to be a farmer or a rancher but you are limiting it to the highest leveled players, richest players, and most powerful guilds. You say you want realism yet a small farmer has to be one of the most powerful or connected players in the game. Last I checked your typical farmer isn't a God.
I do understand you don't want the world cluttered visually by freeholds but if that is the case you should supplement normal freeholds with instanced freeholds. (Node housing isn't enough since there is almost no planting space or space for artisan building) Instanced freeholds should function exactly the same as normal freeholds but the difference is they are accessed by a crack in a mountainside or hole in the ground. This gives the player access to an instanced Underrealm area to build their freehold. This would allow ALL players to participate in the artisan classes of their choice and also create a stronger economy. The down side is that they will never have their freehold seen by someone walking by in the world. This could serve as a intermediate stage for when they might some day be able to acquire a normal freehold.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The magnitude of the time spent on design on every growing matters comes back to a comment I made a few times over the years.
For the urban areas and landscapes to make sense and even more so with the idea of freeholds recommend bring in an Urban design consultant / Landscape Architect and/or Architect to provide feedback and direction to your design team.
The agenda within game is not so far different from real like.. They may help with strategy and techinques to better layout and master plan,, spatial planning as well as help create congenerous environments - a different but relevent skill set to a game designer.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
Not going to beat around the bush, this is a terrible idea.
Something that seems like it should be a thing for realism/immersion is not always necessarily a good thing for game-play, this will end up being a nuisance and a tedious thing to have to deal with. This is a simple quality of life issue, the reason most games have moved away from this type of inventory management is the frustration, we want to play Ashes of Creation not Tetris.
If you are thinking of doing this for added realism then one large sack of grain 30kg+ should take up the entire inventory, just think how annoying and slow this would make things. Of course if some people can only play the game if this is implemented then make it an option to toggle on and off, but I'm pretty sure most players will opt out of the Tetris style inventory.
We play games to escape real life and if things are made too realistic the fun disappears and it becomes a boring simulation mimicking the real life daily grind of chores and going to work. We need innovation in the industry not copy/paste from other games, especially when it's an outdated nuisance mechanic like a Tetris style inventory.
"Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold"
The auctions. This will likely lead to big guild monopolies in my opinion.
One solution may be to put a random chance of inheriting the land, at least for some Freeholds. After a period of being an upstanding citizen, when a Freehold becomes available, then one could have a random chance of being chosen as a distant heir of the the previous owner. Maybe an NPC barrister approaches you about it. You would have a set time to go to a government office to claim it or another heir is chosen.
If claimed and the player did not want to run a Freehold, then they could put it up for auction or sell it privately.
Other than the procurement process the Freehold system seems AWESOME!
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I'm on the fence. General inventory under no circumstance should be slot based. Resources can be, as long as it adds meaningful interaction. If, when you are putting the system together, and you are studying the details, and you can look in the mirror and say I'm adding something meaningful to the game, then its fine.
An example of a game that goes all out with this inventory system is PoE of course. However, even in that game, you regularly have a stack of Portal Scrolls to un-bury the mess, so you have to be careful here to not ruin something good with unnecessary restriction. Early No Mans Sky is a good example of inventory restriction gone very wrong. I suppose we could always just have it in there and then when we get to A2 we can see if its fun or just oppressive, I'm a bit skeptical.
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 think it looks fantastic. The animations need some work, like the sheep shearing needs more love. They also felt a bit clunky and deliberate, I'd like to see more fluid motion during the harvesting animation and with the transitions into and out of harvesting. The systems and design shown, however, were spot on. 10/10, stay with this direction please.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Amazing. Same answer as the above question. 10/10. Smooth out the animations.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Colors (within reason) and materials (the sky is the limit). Make us get the materials for the customization though. If I want a particular style of wood for the house (ie cedar, pine, oak) make me go get it and "create" the customization. I want to feel like I made it, not that I purchased it. I also want to see some type of emblem or heraldry, like a flag or banner with something personal on it (within reason obviously).
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The combination of housing with crafting/harvesting is for sure what way to go. I want to create my own home, and I want it to feel distinctly mine and I want others be able to see it as they pass by. It looks like this is where you are headed with it, and that's amazing so thank you.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Making max level crafting/harvesting and max level housing be mutually exclusive. I created a separate post about it. As it was described in the live stream, it sounded as if having a large house means gimping your capabilities as a producer. Making choices is fine, if it means forcing me to further specialize in a field that's OK. Preventing me from participating is high level crafting in any capacity what so ever, simply because I want to have a large home is not OK. I would like more clarification on this point.
Keep in mind, this is the MMO housing experience post SWG:
1) We have housing - but its in an instance that no one will ever see.
2) We have housing - but its behind a massive pay wall.
3) We have housing - but if you didn't get it in the early days you can't have one, we refuse to make enough. Ever.
4) We have housing - but its a set template of predetermined attachment points so we can strictly control how you decorate you instance zone that no one will ever see.
5) We have housing - but its in predetermined, tightly packed, boring grids that are behind pay walls and almost no one will ever see.
6) We have housing - but we will never call it housing, and we will slowly allow you autonomy to add lawn furniture but not interior furniture while collecting pre-determined creatures and place them all on a remote deserted island that no one will ever see.
Describing me as frustrated with it all is a criminal understatement.
1) i don't like that free holds are limited especially when some skilling can only be leveled trough free holds
2) the inventory system will become very tedious since it will require constant movement and management of items in the bag
3) when you get off the mount I liked that they stay there but I suggest giving them a rest animation not just staying there into stiff position
If I have purchased freehold skins will I be able to marry someone with a freehold or join a family that owns a freehold and then have the ability to use my purchased skins on the freehold? It sounds like solo owning and maintaining a freehold will be too large of a task, at least for anyone who isn't no-lifeing the game, so all of us buying cosmetics each month may have no way to ever use the $500 we've spent on them. And the difficulty of actually being able to make use of our purchased skins was not made clear up front 2-3 years ago when they began being sold.
I quite enjoyed a lot of what was shown, this style of gameplay isn't necessarily my cup of tea, but I was interested after watching the stream. I have a couple concerns however:
1. Making plots super limited will cause some issues, especially if they are the only way to utilize the max level processing. I believe it was said that the number of freeholds per server would be in the low thousands, which sounds okay, and maybe I'm wrong on this next bit, but if you are going to raise the amount of people per server to 15k and then eventually 50k (which sounds awesome btw) having less than 10% of the server be allowed to use a max level ability seems problematic.
2. In general I think having a max level feature tied to a limited resource isn't the best idea. I suppose it depends on how impactful max level processing is but assuming it is impactful, making more than 95% of the playerbase unable to access it on their own would be very rough.
Overall I really enjoyed seeing the freehold, it looks cozy and I'm excited of all the possibilities of seeing some crazy building that I'll just happen upon while I'm adventuring.
Some final thoughts and possible fixes or at least band aids.
For the limited size, I think freeholds no matter how you do it will be limited, personally I think making it to where freeholds are as unlimited as possible should be the approach, in the stream it was said that the player would be able to choose where on the plot to create their freehold. The way it sounded to me was that once a freehold has been put on a plot no other freeholds can go on the plot until that freehold is sold or destroyed. I think a way to make more freeholds would be to restrict where we can place a freehold on a plot, and make it to where multiple freeholds can go on a plot. Maybe even making it to where there are small "villages" they don't have to be touching each other, but allowing 6 freeholds or so on each plot (again depends on how big the plots are) would substantially create more space for people to buy and build freeholds. Personally for me, if you gave me a predetermined plot, but I got to customize the plot as much as you've shown, I would still be satisfied.
More important to me however, I think the biggest issue is making freeholds a capstone milestone that will snowball a players ability to make money and their ability to create better equipment. Don't get me wrong, freeholds should absolutely be an advantage over an apartment. But the master and grandmaster processing seems a step too far, maybe making it to where a player still has to upgrade their apartment to a similar degree would be best, to keep it in line at least on a relatively even playing field. That way as well, the benefit of getting a freehold(apart from just looking way cooler) would be the more impressive yield for materials and potential for money making, where as the apartment and city house would be cheaper to own but you wouldn't have the same amount of money making potential.
If you took the time to read this thank you, and have a wonderful day! If anything came off as incoherent let me know and I'll try responding more in depth.
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
'Tetris' inventory is good but implement item weight as well or it's kinda pointless. Big items should weigh a lot more(in most cases at least) and should affect how much we can carry.
Otherwise, looks decent, however, I didn't quite get the main purpose of these. I mean I understand the idea but how impactful this feature will actually be? Taking a closest similar example I can think of is the garrison system from WoW. Right? So it's just basically mostly a roleplay thing that actually provides options to generate income if time is invested? If this is the idea, I totally support it.
the farming:
if you make me plant a seed, harvest and process it. Make me take care of it, including watering during the dry days, pest control, etc. Make this a game inside a game. I love this complex inside tiny ideas that can turn up as a gold mine and are really fun but not really necessary to do while progressing in the game. You can implement diseases, that affect the growth rate or the harvest but when treated, it removes negatives, etc.
livestock:
make them perma die when "harvested" ofc let me kill the babies as well. Make the young meat more rare and expensive, while the old, fat and depressed less expensive. By that, I mean how much "stuff" it produces depends on which time harvested and the quality of the animal life, and ofc the special cooking recipes that might provide something extra from this rare stuff.
Lemme be a scammy farmer like the people that grow food for the government. Lemme poison people with toxic pest control. Lemme have chickens inside cages. Lemme feed them with grain. Lemme just be "Bill". I honestly wonder how many people would choose to profit like that.
building:
well since I honestly watch just these videos I don't really know what should be the main purpose here, maybe in the future update I come up with something better, but there definitely should be at least one building that processes the goods that Freehold provides tailored to the needs of the user/owner. So a player with specialization in alchemy should definitely have options the same as the other professions out there. But don't make it boring, make cooking, alchemy... in these "stations" a simple minigame as well.
to end this, if you decide to go this way, I would love to have the ability to hire an NPC to do the chores for me, it should still require some daily interactions with that NPC at least. Provides him payment for the services, make him things do differently, etc. There could be perhaps different types of those workers, imagine a professional gardener you hire to take care of your crop, or perhaps a farm boy from near farm. These 2 would have significantly different costs, but the farm boy might not even show up to work and the crop will die if you don't do it yourself or something like that Just play with it, make it complex, people should enjoy their time there.
This is going to be a long post as I have a lot to say. Please excuse any grammar issues and potential gameplay points I may be a little unfamiliar with. I wrote this based on what I know currently at the time of writing this, so I might not have the complete picture of some gameplay elements or points, in those cases please disregard feedback or look at it with the understanding it was based on an incomplete picture of game systems. With that said, I've attached tl;dr's (highlighted in bold and Italics) after each point for the design team, so they can skip rambling if they so choose. I also use QOF (quality of life) in some of my statements.
Questions & Answers
#1 How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I feel the size and shape of the inventory management system is a 3 out of 5, but I agree with some other feedback in the forum that weight might be a way to go (for the size side of the question). If a player has to many bags, they could potentially collect a lot of items and negate the need to "travel light." To me, it breaks the idea of adventuring out into the wild and coming back with only the things you would "realistically" be able to carry. AOC to me is a more realistic take on resource management, and weighing the pros and cons of your actions. For example, say I want to do husbandry. If I can go out and collect everything I need halfway across the world. That's great, but that cuts down on the amount of adventures I could have had going to find each of those items on separate trips. On the other hand, what if I die to some players in PvP on my way back to my home node or freehold, I may lose more stuff than I would if weight was limited. It's more risk versus reward, but I think at some point when you collect so much stuff and you die and possibly lose some of those important items. That would make me more frustrated than just losing X item that I needed versus weight based gameplay, where I lose less. The upside would be the adventure was more fun to me because it was a better risk trade than before. A counter to that is just collect less and the problem is solved, but in typical mmo hoarder fashion (hoarder gang for life!) I will want to fill my inventory. I will plan less in the current system, then in weight based gameplay.
tl;dr Size seems to be a 3 on a scale of 1-5. It is a standard decision since inventory is hard to code and implement, a perfectly fine decision from my perspective. However, I would explore weight to keep the player from over-burdening themselfs, in terms of investment into what they want to do and the risks involved (see above for a long answer). Short answer, in MMO fashion, the player will go for whatever they can carry most of the time. Bag space (as shown in livestream) offers a potential for more frustration (in general) upon any potential way to lose loot after a long journey versus weight based gameplay leaving the player's inventory a little lighter.
For the shape, the inventory seemed fun, I know it's still in UI Limbo currently. One thing I would like to see that I don't remember if it was shown is inventory size adjustment by drag clicking the edges of the inventory window. I like the idea of seeing more of my items quickly in a larger view while in a chest, since the player can collect so many items with the current inventory system. It helps more visually (player QOF) when the player can see more of the items they have, both as a new player and potential veteran of the game. After you are done with the enlarged window, the window can be returned to regular size when you might want to adventure, so you can see or react to dangers around you better. Going one step further, the implementation of two window size buttons would be another great player QOF adjustment. The first button could be the default size of the window and the second button could be a custom dimensions button that players could set themselves. Text to show the dimensions of the window would also be good, so a player can share the size they think works best to other players who might want to copy the dimensions of the window.
tl;dr Shape is in a good spot (even in UI Limbo). The addition of window sizing by dragging the edges of the window would be awesome and help in different situations in game (i.e. adventuring vs profession work on your freehold). The implementation of two window size buttons. one for the default window size and a custom one for dimensions could help with player QOF.
#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?
When I saw the planting of crops on your freehold, I felt excited for the systems. The thing that concerns me is that it can take up a large space, which is concerning as someone who might want to take part in doing a tavern as well or establish a business. The need to manage space is intentional and comes with the territory, but I feel it could be handled a little bit better with a potential to reward a little more versus having a more business focused freehold. The crops take up a sizable portion of the freehold and the potential to need multiple crops for animals is a bit concerning. If I'm working towards animals, I would like to focus on crops for them as well, so I can be more independent in that regard compared to say a tavern where I can earn more money "directly" (potentially less work involved). To finish my conversation on this topic, with freeholds being a family or guild based environment, farming feels like it would be a less desirable profession at least in a guild setting. Putting the freehold in a strategic location would be obvious for bigger guilds and they would want more workstations or business to generate profit or work compared to farming which feels like a more family adventure. The potential direction is worrying especially since AOC is a player driven economy. Crops feel more like the family side of freeholds that would sell to the guild side of freeholds. It could potentially lock players into roles that might not give enough engagement to the family side of players.
tl;dr Excited from what was shown. I'm a little concerned about the space crops occupy compared to the need for them for animals and the potential loss from business revenue (i.e. tavern income). Another concern is family versus guild freeholds, guilds would place more business and workstation based buildings since they would generate more revenue and be good for strategic locations. Farming and other such professions feel like they would be un-needed for guild freeholds compared to business and workstations, which would drive the family freeholds to those professions. Initiating a sort of locking balance between family and guild freeholds, which could decrease player engagement and enjoyment.
#3 How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Raising livestock and collecting resources is exciting for me as a player, I like the idea of contributing to the economy in a real world kind of way. Being a settler on AOC, the aspect of this feature makes the world feel lived in and fits in with the story/environment of the game. What concerns me is the potential lock of this feature to families and guilds. With a limited number of freeholds available, the number of players that might participate in this feels low compared to what we all might think. Guilds that are formed early would likely have a head start to these freeholds in terms of gold to buy the plots and establishment of different styles of freehold. As stated above, I feel guilds would lean more towards business and workstation avenues of play (think trade guilds). Livestock and harvesting of livestock seems like it would be more of a time investment versus the other avenues of play. By the time families catch up, I feel most would lean more towards livestock and the like since it would be a less engaged in the economy. As stated in #2, it feels like it would lock the players into roles depending on how they want to play the game (guilds vs families).
tl;dr Raising livestock and collecting the resources is exciting and makes the world feel alive, but it might have some problems with the way the freehold system is potentially going to be set up. The guilds would most likely get to freehold content first and be able to purchase a lot more land compared to families and solo players. Given trade guilds exist in most MMOs, it wouldn't be a stretch to say the guild would lean more heavily towards business and workstation freeholds. By the time families get around to freeholds, the market for the more time consuming profession would most likely have drawn them in those directions. Creating a profession lock of sorts between guilds and families in my opinion.
P.S. Please leave pig animations the way they are, I feel it adds to the immersion of the game.
#4 What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
For my freehold, I want to be able to place the buildings I need depending on my playstyle. I want my customization to be done on the freehold because of the time investment I put into the freehold. That said a major problem arises with the current system as I know it. Freeholds are now more of a "family" or guild thing. That takes away a lot of the “my” freehold aspect as it is more our freehold. If a family has and is using a freehold, it is more likely that the family would want to have debates on what goes where, what it looks like, etc. In my opinion, it ruins the idea of how I wanted "my" freehold to look and feel. On the other hand, the owner could ignore they're families wishes and do what they want, but then it removes the idea of family. Guilds feel even less like a solo freehold type of activity. If the player is in a guild, that guild will have goals. Most likely, they would want the player's with the freehold to establish and build up the freeholds in certain areas and locations to suit the guild. It could completely remove the idea of your freehold. It would now be the guilds freehold that you hold for them like a landlord. It removes what I like about the freehold system, that you establish your own little plot of land and do with it what you will to make the game world more immersive and alive for other players and yourself.
tl;dr Freeholds have a lot of promise and a place for the player to do what they want, but the potential for it to be that is lower now. With the proposed systems, issues could arise in both the family setting and guild setting. For the family setting, the freehold can never truly be mine, if other players could potentially force me to change what I want my freehold to be. For guilds, the freehold could become less of yours and more of the guilds. Guilds band together for different reasons, but usually in bigger guilds, higher ups or guild founders direct the guild to what they need as a guild to thrive. Your freehold would be designed around what the guild needs, undermining the idea of the “your” freehold argument.
#5 Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I'm excited for all the freehold system and everything that comes along with it. It's going to be a great addition to the game to add more depth and feel to the world/environment. The amount of variety and functionality is also a welcome change from other games that are pretty limiting in their housing systems.
#6 Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
As stated above, the current freehold system of acquisition and as a whole is kind of terrifying as a player that wants to see the game do well. I can see a lot of problems going wrong, guilds getting most of the freehold land in developed nodes, families being a requirement to run or establish freeholds, locking of freehold roles because of economic needs or developments, etc. Another problem is the bidding system for freeholds, the level requirements, and the usage of pre-order cosmetics. The issues stem from a change in direction to freeholds from what we believed, while it wasn't set in stone, it ruins the fantasy of what I and many solo players wanted from freeholds. A simple homestead to do with as we wanted.
Now let's run over some potential solutions I could see for the problems.
Bullet List Time
-- For guilds, them getting most of the freehold land is a potential issue. Locking the amount of freeholds one guild can possess at a time, potentially one freehold per x player in a guild depending on x size could be a fix to the issue. Those x players could form families within the guild for each freehold to fill them so it still fits into the system proposed. With the limited number of freeholds, this solution is probably already thought of, but it doesn't remove the problem altogether. My second part of the suggestion is to have a percentage of available freeholds out of the total freehold count in a node that can be owned by guilds; if that percentage is reached no more freeholds can be bought by that guild. That way some freeholds are "protected from guilds," and are left over for families and potentially solo players. it would remove the need for families to feel like they are getting nickeled and dimed out of freeholds for x nodes. It would also play into the proposed selling market of freeholds to other guilds & families/solo players and limit hoarding of freeholds based on guild size. It would also benefit the economy since one guild could not do it all.
Note: If a player joins a guild containing a freehold, if the guild already has max number of freeholds that player should be put back into pending with a message that reads along the lines of "the guild has to many freeholds, discuss with the guild about potentially removing one of their freeholds to make room for yours or sell yours to another player and try again." This way more freeholds could not be added to the max number of a guild's freehold count, potentially bypassing the solution. It would not affect bullet point three's first solution of smaller .5 acre plots for individuals, but the plots would no longer be upgradable as part of the second suggestion of that solution.
-- For freehold roles or profession "locking," my solution would be a system that tracks the number of types of artisan and business structures in a particular guild's freeholds. After x amount of placements for a certain profession, the guild players would be locked out of placing more of that particular type. Note that this solution is far from perfect, would probably anger guilds, and probably not be needed if the first bullet point is followed. I simply state this as a potential starting point to a deeper look at how to stop the "locking" from happening because guilds can monopolize a part of an economy and harm other sellers who would lose out on prices because they would need to sell at lower prices to beat guild inflation of items in the market. New World is a good example of this problem.
-- For families being a potential requirement to run a freehold, I find that to be a problem. I think most players got the idea of freeholds as a solo type of homestead with the option for a family setting. For a solution, I can think of two solutions. One is to offer a smaller plot of land like a .5 acre plot like was discussed when freeholds were brought up. The player wouldn't have as much space, but since they are solo it works better to give solo players chances to have their own smaller freeholds. The second solution is the same as the first, but allows the plot to be upgradeable via a ticket of expansion or something that can be bidded on so families can grow the smaller homestead into the larger one used by large families and guilds. It allows for more expansion and establishes more of an identity for the space as the family grows. The game would need to keep track of guilds again and implement a similar solution to bullet point one to prevent small freehold land hoarding.
-- For the bidding system of freeholds, if the first example is followed, just implement a system that tracks the guilds freehold number and player guild affiliation. If the player is trying to bid for a family or guild size freehold & the max guild freehold count is reached, lock them out. But allow them to bid on .5 acre freeholds from the third bullet point.
-- The level requirements seem a little too high with targeted level progression rates, perhaps a level 35 or 40 requirement would be in the more acceptable range, at least for small .5 acre freeholds if that suggestion were implemented in some way. That way everything doesn't feel as locked off and the family/guild buying up tons of land doesn't feel as disheartening as before.
-- For the usage of pre-order cosmetics on freehold buildings that have families or guild mates. Implementing a simple "cosmetic x has been suggested for x building. Agree to equip?" would be enough for me. That way a level of decision making can be made for the family in a constructive way. In the end, I still think it should be up to the owner of the freehold to establish the final cosmetic of x building if not everyone can agree on one cosmetic.
tl;dr A lot of points were covered, and I suggest reading the first paragraph at least to get an understanding of the problems I believe are appearing for the freehold system. The bullet list gives solutions to the potential problems that appear and stand out to me. They are long, but they need to be descriptive.
Closing Statements
This took me an hour or two to lay my thoughts out in as concise a manner as I could. If you only want to read a small section of this now essay like post, read question 6 in full. I feel those are the current problems and most needed feedback. The suggestions aren't perfect in any way, but they are a potential start for discussion and worth expanding upon in my opinion. I love the idea of this game and what we have seen so far. I can't wait to play it and enjoy the game! Thank you for reading everyone! To the devs involved on the game, thanks for bringing this game to life! Have a nice day everyone!
I think it would be nice to have an option to make a pen/area for your mounts to stay in when returning to your freehold. Maybe add a whistle function like in red dead to send mounts to the pen or call them when you need to use em? Going in the pen to switch what mount to use/display would also be a nice thing to add. (This could already be added for what I know)
More thoughts after digesting the freehold system changes further:
A likely reprecussion and consequence of limiting Freehold access to a small 'elitist' segment of the player popupation and excluding the bulk of players from the games systems and content will be the following:
-Skins being sold to all players monthly in packs with the assumption freeholds will be available to players that wished to pursue them being upset. Players are voicing this.
-Only even a smaller minority of players will have access rights to apply skins to freeholds, even among the family groups that have rights to access freeholds as their base of operations.
-Freehold skins and Flying mount skins seem like theyre being designed in abundance but a tiny fraction of the player base will have the ability to use them (okay I can apply a flying dragon skin to a glider (not the same but ok)). I dont have major issue with this other than the disingenuity principle of advertising skins to the player base who wont be able to use them and without clear disclaimers that the ability to even utilize a freehold skin will be incredibly rare 1/100 players or less?
-Given the above, why is so much development time and resources being spent into designing art and robust systems for a tiny fraction of the community? Honestly, I dont care about skins if I wont have the ability to use them myself. Why should the average player be excited about various building skins if they'll likely never have access to own property and use them to customize to their player preference as was stated in the dev stream?
-As others have mentioned I think this is folly and Intrepid should use New World's housing system where the houses are in set locations (freeholds) and are instanced per player. You see your freehold shown as you approach or the most prestigious freehold of a given plot from all players who own an instanced version of that plot for plots a player is not a resident/owner of.
-If Intrepid moves forward and allows PVP to be conducted on Freehold's outside of node sieges/wars I think it obvious that the upset rabble is going to form bands and make life hell for the Freehold owners on their servers if they aren't aligned with them. Players (myself included) will likely form up with groups to raid and pillage freeholds and their owners constantly. Theyre in set known locations. Freehold residents cant guard them indefinitely.
-If the rabble is allowed to burn them to the ground they will. Intrepid will need to protect freehold owners from the masses.
-What will Intrepid's stance be to repetitive raids and ganking of Freehold owners who feel griefed by bandits upset with their elitist property ownership? Will pvp players who repeatedly rob, harrass, and destroy their freehold, person, and property be banned? They'll certainly be reported.
But what choice are you giving the masses who dont own Freehold's? They cant participate in freehold content via ownership so theyre living in the world as youve only allowed them to be (theives and outlaws and murderers). This system blocks them from civilization and non-hostile behavior by treating them like outcasts from a pillar of the games core content.
-Core gameplay systems should not be exlusionary in such a hard and fast way. Players that join the game late need viable avenues to achieve the games content. This system feels like it breeds server seasonality and if a player misses out on freehold ownership on one server that theyll look at asking/waiting for other servers to be introduced so they can participate in the content they wish to.
-I think a much better path is to instance Freeholds as I've suggested above or use some other variation and instead make the materials needed to process Master and Grand Master products be the bottle neck that requires group/guild coordination and acquire, retrieve, and use for the group's goals.
Planning to only release content in such a gated format I think is a bit lazy and I have faith that the Intrepid team will see a better path that allows all players to engage and participate in tasting the games content while also limiting the output of the rarest materials needed to craft the highest tier gear to coordinated groups or highest achieving witty folk out there.
Freeholds aren't a back breaker for me but if Intrepid next releases that ship ownership will only be a priviledge of 1% of the player population I know I would be bummed. So, I can understand why so many are voicing concern for the changes announced to the Freehold system they care about.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I dont care about the shape of the inventory, as long as you have an option to auto-organize. I dislike inventory management, so the less puzzle/weight stuff I have to manage, the better.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I would like the animals and livestock to roam about in their pen and not just stand still.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I want full power of customization! The more the better!
Placement is important for me. No grids, thanks, or at least the option to toggle on and off. If that is not possible, then the smaller grids the better.
Option to dye buildings as well.
When it comes to building options and furniture options, I just hope there will be plenty of options that are not pay to acquire / skins, but craftable or obtainable by other means.
Let me plant trees and gardens and other filler stuff. Maybe even my own paved roads from one house to another.
No limit to number of placed items, thank you. Limiting this kills immersion.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Everything visual and 'feel' is very exciting. I like the possibilities a lot.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Here comes the big part to my post. There is indeed a lot that I am concerned about.
To me it seems like I've been stabbed in the back.
It seems like there is no room for people with normal jobs who can only play for 3 hours a day nor have a huge guild to sugar daddy them, in order to enjoy this core system.
I'm dreaming of owning a freehold, but it seems I won't be able to as a "casual player". By casual I mean limited available play time, aka no time to hardcore grinding, and apparently no real life job stopping you from playing all day long... For me personally, by the time AoC comes out, I don't think I will have 4+ hours each day to play, I wish though. So I consider myself a casual. I intent to be passionate about the game though and dedicate myself to it.
But I don't want NORMAL gamers like myself being left out on one of the core systems in the game.
And no, I don't want to "settle for less" and just own a house as the next best thing.
So here is a list of things I think you should reconsider with this system, as they worry me deeply.
I don't like the new way to acquire a freehold. I don't want to be bidding against all the rich no-lifer players who spend all day farming and getting obscurely powerful and rich, I want a fair chance to get a freehold for myself! This method seems very toxic, as casual players - with a genuine interest in having a freehold - will stand no chance of acquiring a freehold when they are up against all the wealthy guilds and hardcore players. Solution? Easy, just a flat fee or payment to buy a freehold. I don't want to play "real estate manager" or "sell-your-soul-to-an-evil-landlord" in an MMO, I want to have fun and have a fair chance at playing the parts I enjoy about the MMO.
Likewise, the lvl-requirement is not ideal, as it means that people with unlimited playtime will get a huge head start on acquiring the freeholds. This wouldn't be a problem though, if it wasn't for the fact that there simply aren't enough freeholds to buy by the time casuals get to the lvl required.
I don't like the fact that you can lose your freehold to PvP and have to start all over again. Leave the freeholds out of this wiping-the-node-system!
I'm concerned there will be too few freeholds available. Like I said, I don't want it to be a system only for the elite and hardcore. I don't understand why you would want to limit this system to this small part of the playerbase.
I think it is dangerous to lock a core feature AND selling point to the game behind "privileged gamers" aka those with a lot of time to grind and play all day to get ahead. I don't mind that people can get ahead on other stuff - gear, endgame, you name it - you already have plenty of systems for that. But I feel like the freehold system should be for all kinds of players to interact with, and not just those who can "pay with time to win" - or "pay to win" (this bidding thing sounds so p2w).
Also - what about "new players" a few years in? They will NEVER be able to acquire a freehold.
I think the matter doesn't relate to hardcore or casual to be honest. I think its consumer vs sales. Realistically, all of my homely skins wouldn't be used anyway. I think the freeholds will now be commerce and craft centres. I do not like the change from metros to freeholds for the top crafting positions. If anything, freeholds and metros should be equal in terms of crafting abilities enabled.
One person spends money on cars, another on houses, another on holidays. Its not about what you earn but what you spend your money on. Freeholds are just another area in which I wont have to invest unless instructed to by my guild. I was a gatherer originally and also a hardcore gamer. I'm still a gatherer and a hard core gamer. Nothing is stopping the crafting guilds from clubbing together for a freehold. I personally wanted to curb the gold sinks and I believe I still can
Top tier crafting is still in node centres. Freeholds max out at Journeyman Crafting.
On the other hand, top tier Processing is at the freehold.
I think the matter doesn't relate to hardcore or casual to be honest. I think its consumer vs sales. Realistically, all of my homely skins wouldn't be used anyway. I think the freeholds will now be commerce and craft centres. I do not like the change from metros to freeholds for the top crafting positions. If anything, freeholds and metros should be equal in terms of crafting abilities enabled.
One person spends money on cars, another on houses, another on holidays. Its not about what you earn but what you spend your money on. Freeholds are just another area in which I wont have to invest unless instructed to by my guild. I was a gatherer originally and also a hardcore gamer. I'm still a gatherer and a hard core gamer. Nothing is stopping the crafting guilds from clubbing together for a freehold. I personally wanted to curb the gold sinks and I believe I still can
Top tier crafting is still in node centres. Freeholds max out at Journeyman Crafting.
On the other hand, top tier Processing is at the freehold.
Yeah in scientific nodes only for t4 and t5 crafting last i heard. What a silly idea. Don't get me started on the whole situation again.
Furthermore, if farming is classed as processing, I class processing as crafting.
Hi ! There is my constructive feedback as usual. As always my concerns and feedback are coming from love for the project.
And for note : I loved the presentation, with a lot more in depth explanation. It helps us understand more of the systems and thought process of the dev team, so kudos to that. Do it more.
[*] How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
It is hard to tell for now actually. I am not against at least. It opens for a real use of bags and item management of resource with a little preparation and thinking about when we go for resources / scavenging / Raiding a Caravan / Dungeon Delving. So, it is interesting, but it is practical? I can’t know without testing the feature myself. Will it not be in certain case tedious? Do we need to place each item manually or can we do it automatically? Can we have filters / rules to ours bags to optimize it? But if it automatically done with a press of a button, it removes the management idea? There will need a real fine tuning to achieve something interesting in micromanagement but not tedious, it needs to be fun. Will it be? I do not know.
An example : If I raid a caravan successfully and need to manually set the resources in my bags I might be dead the time I do it, with the stress of the situation and after a Winning a situation where I took a lot of risks I would not appreciate as a player to lose everything for an inventory management issue. It feels like a double sentence. After the risks the rewards, not the risks again.
[*] 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?
As it been shown I suppose it is ok, I remember steven said we will have access to tools to help us do this more easily than manually. I have questions about how the seasons system works with it. Will there be a seasonality of crops ? Does the crops once harvested have an expiration date ?
[*] How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I am ok with the animal harvesting / death, I mean it does’nt bother me, after all it’s reality. And also we kill humans / animals in the game all the time so … for me it’s way worth than gathering leather and meat from a pig. The game will be R16/18 anyway ? So …
Raising livestock is great, I am eager to see how it really works. Will there be more “exotic” livestock ? will there be different “Quality” of milk if we really take care of our livestock ? as always is the time invested by player is rewarded in some way ?
[*] What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
The more the better, but it can wait post launch for me at least. I am way more interested in something mechanically impeccable and practical to use than more customization in the first place. Especially that we know now that the Freehold system will not be able to be used by everyone (10 % of the population of the server max will be Freehold owners as I understand it) I do not know if that much customization resources allocated to a system that less that 10 % of players will be able to enjoy, at least for buildings / processing stations. For the furniture sure, let’s go crazy!
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The new size is great
The freedom of layout too
Love the skilltrees for each building hope it will be developed / imrpoved post launch.
Will it be possible to reorganize freely the freehold ? Destroy / rebuild / reoriente etc like a “Building” mode with a top view
I do not know about the “Free placing” of the node tho.
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Okay there is a lot.
TL/DR : I miss crucial data (Details of the Bidding System, Exact Numbers of Freehold, Limitations / Rules for Big Guilds, Where are the Freeholds Plots) To have an objective opinion, but this raise a lot of questions and concerns. I am not a game developper, even if i have some game design experience and especially don't have the big picture that Steven and the team have to make that statements. But i think that the community do need more data / elements to work with to formulate a real feedback.TL/DR end
As Steven said a long time ago in a video : MMO Players have been hurt in the past, and been through a lot of frustration. And a lot of these concerns come from bad experiences. i do believe that Steven and the AoC Team have the best intentions and work hard to achieve a great game.
I originally posted my concerns in a form that was not opitmal for feedback / reading because it came as i said above from a place of hurt, if you wish to read this format feel free to read it (if anyone care) :
First, I have not personally paid anything yet. But was seriously envisaging to do it, to help make this game the best I can and give all the feedback I can. But for people who paid that’s a cold shower steven said on discord that the number of freeholds by server will be in the “Low Thousands”. There is a lot of implications on that statement. I think I understand where it’s coming from tho. But it’s, in my opinion (without more details information) favoring large organizations than hard working individuals. I understand it is meant to be a social game, and I am a social gamer, but how will you prevent big guilds to take over the Freehold market? Then organizing families to make most of the use of them. With the bidding system AND the limitation of freeholds as of my knowledge of today we are going to a lot of issues. FF XIV was a prime example till recently when they introduced an instanced farming land system, but the bidding wars of housing on this game was a nightmare for a lot of players / guilds.
I am ok with the fact that a player needs to be worthy of his land. But if bidding is needed maybe, it is possible to not make it related with resources / gold, but more with reputation of the player, achievements, and personal quests to leverage the “Guild Funding” issue.
There is a lot that can change the picture: Guild Wars, Siege Nodes, Resources Scarcity, Market changes … in the long run MAYBE that will smooth the curve, but the first buyers will have an economic advantage for month maybe years as the Freehold is the SOLE master and grandmaster processing, it will be sought for.
Would we be able to “rent” processing stations for a fee? Doing it manually will be tedious tho. That would ensure a lot of people visiting the freehold and maybe the other business leading to interactions.
I am not against a real estate market, but I am questioning of how buying / selling will be achievable by “Normal People / little group of people” Maybe it would be interesting to limit the number of freeholds a guild can own, but it creates other issues …
An opinion: “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.” If a system or a mechanic is needed and interesting, there will be people who will try to have it / abuse it. For Freeholds as it is the sole way to process master grandmaster processing and in an efficient way (with the right perks) in a game crafting centric there will be wars for it. And wars are decided by resources and numbers mostly, numbers by guilds and organizations, resources by the people who will own the freehold and high-level processing stations, it’s not only a part in the real estate game, but also a slice of the economy itself. My previous MMO experience with these systems makes me very cautious of that and I do not believe (with the data I have in my hands) that it will regulate itself. At these stages Freeholds are like mutualized villages without the names and make the family system more of a “Way to access Freehold” than a real “Family” system. Where people pay to get to you family and get a “Share” of the freehold by paying a part of the bidding / buying of the freehold (if they are selling at all). It’s a little sad if it will be like that. Again I understand where you are coming from I hope you will give us an answer for those concerns and if not will come with practical solutions. For now without more data on how theses issues will be managed i have concerns.
For the Cosmetics too : Why not make the Skins purchased in the Packs available in the houses in nodes too ? That will at least mitigate … a little the issue.
- Concerns / Questions -
- Monopoly of large guilds / large organizations on the bidding and buying / selling system of Freeholds
Will there be systems in place to avoid this monopoly? Or is it the intention of the game design to favor these, because only they will have the means to afford / exploit it and pay the maintenance costs of the freehold?
- Ratio of Freehold compared to the number of active players wanting a freehold
Since there will only be a few thousand Freeholds available in the world, will the turnover by destruction and the real estate market be enough to satisfy a sufficient number of players wanting to invest in this system? How much time will a player / small group of players need to save to be able to use the system if it is their priority?
- Covetousness of freeholds because it is the only possibility for processing the highest materials
The game looks very oriented towards the harvesting / processing / crafting system so everyone will need (in the long term) high level material processing, if they don't want to pay the high price, how do you find the balance between the scarcity of Freeholds and the growing need for high-level materials from the player base as they progress through the endgame?
- Paid cosmetics
Assuming that most players who have purchased Freehold cosmetics will want to take advantage of them, how do you deal with the possibility (depending on their playstyle) that they may never be able to get a Freehold? Will there be the possibility of House Cosmetics to be used in "In node" housing too ?
Possibility / Impossibility of making other players pay a tax for using processing stations
Won't it be uncomfortable for players to go into a freehold and not be able to process their resources without the owner or family member there? Having an automatic system to create a tax for usage per refined item etc would ease the mental/time load on the player, while making his Freehold more popular for his other trades. I understand that in spirit you may find it more interesting that those who own this kind of high-level factories prefer to sell the processed materials directly to other players or using caravans to involve them in other systems organically . But the fact that family members are always present for these kinds of transactions could perhaps be "painful" in the long run.
Profitability of Freeholds vs Player investment in time and resources
In the end, the fact that freeholds aresought for or not, and all the worries I have come down to how interesting investing in a freehold is, I guess it is given the number of steps required and the time and the resources it requires, but how much? Because it is this profitability that will determine how much players will want to participate in the system. Is it only a question of means / resources for a Freehold to be profitable? Or is the investment of family members in game time to make the most of the freehold versus the sinking of resources & taxes is more important? How long does it take on average to administer a Freehold? Is this only possible for a single person playing 3-4 hours a day? Should he focus only on this aspect of the game?
Freeholds: Disguised shared villages see Corporations?
IF and I mean if freeholds become extremely sought after (for the above reasons) and the real estate market remains high and auctions are inaccessible to single people (at least not for several months) Aren't you afraid that the family system will be hijacked and that players will simply use this system to charge the entry fee or the "share" of access and use of the Freehold? Because it's not a family anymore...it's a business/corporation. Because Freeholds are not only Housing but really more oriented for processing and large-scale trade.
- Availability of "real houses"
How many houses will ultimately be available outside of the freeholds? not counting apartments.
Please make it so that a Grandmaster Processor can also use the In Node utilities to create Grandmaster tiers of resources after a Freehold has been destroyed. By all means, make freeholds a necessity to gain Grandmaster but allow Grandmaster to be the dominant position throughout the processing tree.
> Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- the way it has been presented with locking high end skilling (breeding and farming) compiled with the idea that plots will be bid on, sounds like it will create a "rich get richer" environment.
- 45 6 hour days thats 270 hours of gameplay to experience what for some people will be "the fun part" provided they even have the connections or means to win the bidding war against whatever clan/guild owns the main node to begin with.
- the more systems are gatekept like this the more casual players will just play something else that they feel values their time and gives them a realistic chance of achieving their goals.
There were a lot of things I liked on this stream, but I have some fairly major concerns, as well as some potential solutions. I’ll answer the prompted questions first and go from there:
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I understand that the intent is to prevent players from just running around and grabbing everything in sight, so I agree that a solution is needed. I like what Steven said about different bag formats being optimized for different types of resources. I think that with some testing, this could be the right solution.
Weight is not a sufficient solution alone, because realistically, weight is an uneven balance of carrying capacity across different professions. A miner can carry a handful of precious stones and minerals, but an herbalist can carry a ton of high value herbs and berries. It’s just not a fair way to handle carrying capacity. Size and space with stack limits is a better way to balance the system, because it leaves room for obscurity to cheat the realism of various item weights a little. That being said, crafting mini-games are fun, bag management mini-games are not. The limit is good, the technical way in which it’s being restricted seems good, but there needs to be an intelligent auto-sort feature.
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?
Planting crops is good, I like the detail put into choosing how you want to harvest them, developing good crop rotations for soil health, optimizing your crops for the environment they’re planted in, etc. Some of the models need a little work though; I think the foliage artist who made that tomato plant needs to get some more reference images. In general, they all just looked really scrawny. A true field of crops is lush with vegetation, especially when you’re trying to pack as much as you can into a little homestead plot.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Raising livestock is great. Again, I like being able to choose how you want to utilize them. One idea for an alternative use for the pig - it would be fun if players could raise the pig as a truffle/mushroom hunter instead of for meat and command it to go outside the freehold with them on a quick tour of the nearby area and dig up some foragable goodies that players wouldn’t otherwise be able to find easily on their own. To make it even easier (this is a magical world after all) perhaps players could get some unique resources to lay down a plot space with special trees that provide the nutrients/conditions necessary for truffles/mushrooms to spawn within their freehold, so that the player could just walk the pig over there.
Otherwise, I hope the livestock will eventually have better idling patterns. It’s a bit dull when they just stand in one spot and sniff the ground now and then.
As for butchering, it’s an unfortunate but necessary part of the game (and of life) if you want to acquire meat from domesticated animals. What was included in the dev stream is gruesome enough, I think. For despawning, there should be a quick animation after the death of the animal where a player passes over the corpse with a knife (no, not a bunch of blood or dismantling of the body, just a generalized arm movement) after which the corpse fades away and the player receives the materials. That being said, not all farmers are butchers. You should give the player the option of paying a small fee for an NPC butcher to come overnight (perhaps the next time you log off or leave your freehold for more than thirty minutes) and have the meat deposited in a chest in your home. If the chest doesn’t have enough space, the money is refunded and the player is left a letter in their mailbox explaining the issue. Simple.
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?
This is a major thing for me - if I’m putting the time and effort that’s apparently now required to obtain a freehold, I want to be able to customize the walls around it. I very much dislike the idea that all I get are some little fence posts around my property that any old Jack or Jill could see / hop over. If I want to collect the stone required to build some aesthetic, mossy, 8ft tall stone walls around my property with a locked steel entrance gate, I should be able to do that. Sure, players could still get in with strategically ridden gliding or flying mounts, but having some privacy both from a visual and interactive standpoint is paramount for land ownership imo.
Along with this, if I own a tavern or other public building on my freehold, I should be able to position that building so the entrance is set on the edge of the plot and the walls of my freehold connect to the walls on either side of the front door, like so: __\ /__ In addition to this, I should be able to make the back door only passable by me. This could be controlled by making walking out the back door a fixed animation that only applies to me when the door is opened, keeping anyone else trying to “sneak through” inside the building. Personally, I don’t care about having a freehold to be more visible and show off to passersby. I want some privacy. These principals could also be a way of better reinforcing your freehold against a siege if you'd prefer to survive the looting and swear fealty to your new overlords.
I also understand the squared off edges of the perimeter for the sake of efficiency, but being able to customize the freehold in the placement UI to fit the same number of usable plots into a more diverse selection of footprints would be outstanding. I much prefer organic design. Makes it look less like a cheap farming sim and obscures the “mechanical efficiency” that only reminds me I’m playing a game.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Quite a lot, to be honest. I apologize for the length of my commentary, but there are a lot of points to touch on and some potential solutions I have.
I understand that freeholds are supposed to be somewhat rare, but I think there also needs to be heavy consideration as A2 rolls around given towards the balance of risk/reward when it comes to the threat of freehold destruction and how that relates to the manner/difficulty of acquisition.
Sure, different locations in the world and different servers will have different variables at play when it comes to the risk of war, but in general, if I spend months on end grinding the money to purchase a plot of land, and over the following month, a war develops and I lose the land I spent months of time earning money to buy, that’s going to feel terrible. I remember hearing that we get to keep some resources spent on buildings or furniture we placed or something? That it gets mailed to us somehow? That’s fine and all, but what about the monstrous sum of money I had to spend to get the land in the first place? Potentially gone before I even know it, no matter how hard I, personally, fight to defend it.
The only people who will be able to make this huge investment over and over again in order to make freehold ownership a core part of their gameplay throughout the rise and fall of their nodes are the super rich (and the rich get richer through freehold ownership), and that body of players will likely include a sizable number of those who either directly or through guild association benefit from RMT. Even if they aren’t, the players who capture freehold territory first are going to get a huge boost to future income and set themselves up very easily for long-term market domination.
When it comes to scarcity, I fully understand and am on board with preserving the natural design of large swaths of the game world by the use of this freehold-within-a-parcel system, but at what point does all the work put into freeholds become a relative waste? Steven said he thinks freeholds across the game world will be in the “low thousands”, I’d put that number at 3-4k. With a full server of 50k people, you’re suggesting less than 10% of the playerbase will get to experience freehold ownership at a time, and as I stated before, many of those owners will (partly by the nature of owning one) be in a financial position to bully out any competing players trying to enter the market later on, no matter where the gentry move or get forcibly relocated.
That being said, if we look at the size of the landmasses in the new game world - roughly 480 sq km, that equates to almost 120k acres. If we make a (very) rough estimation that half that space will be uninhabitable by freeholds (mountains, sharp inclines, bogs, lakes, node settlements, POIs, rivers, roadways, etc) then we’re left with 60,000 acres. If every player on the server wanted a freehold with a bit of land around it as a buffer, then nearly every remaining habitable space in the game world would have a freehold on it. Every player would get about 1.2 acres. So you’d have to shrink the freeholds down to an acre, put enough room to walk between each one, and hope you can cram everyone’s freehold into non-geometric spaces. Impossible. Even if you made them all half an acre, the vast majority of traversable areas in the game world would be occupied by node settlements or littered with freeholds. It would be awful looking. Not everyone gets a freehold. Sorry / not sorry.
As for solutions to these issues, here’s what I can come up with:
Have freehold plots be attainable through means specific to the ZOI which they exist in. My thoughts are gold bidding for economic, arena victory for military, non-tradeable merit-based currency bidding from quests and world events for divine, and non-tradeable profession-based currency bidding for scientific, which you obtain for advancing profession skill trees, making new discoveries, or completing profession-based achievements. There needs to be a way to separate the means of obtaining a freehold from RMT-accessible currency. I have no doubt the team has every intention to punish this behavior, but with 50k players on a full server, I have serious doubts that RMT will be squashed entirely.
This will also solve the problem (because it certainly is one) of freeholds being traded directly between players. Trading directly would create a system where large guilds (or conglomerations of smaller guilds ultimately acting as one guild) buy up all the land and only sell it between each other, likely favoring higher-ranking officers. Sure, they can get their boat rocked in a siege and lose the land, but they’ll have more than enough money to do it again to some other population somewhere else. That cycle isn’t a solution, it’s just a relocation of the same negative gameplay experience to someplace else. No direct selling. Home value can be an adjusted figure based on the evolution or de-evolution of the node it belongs to, allowing players to invest in the housing market and get a return should they later wish to sell back to the node and reinvest in a larger freehold (getting to that part) or something else.
Offer parcels/freeholds of different sizes. I don’t know exactly how big your current concept of a parcel is, but if we take that same 60k acre of available space estimation and divide it by your current goal of ~3.5k freeholds, that’s 17 acres on each parcel. That’s really not a lot, about a 4x4 acre square with your own freehold occupying 1.5 acres of it. Half the parcel size and you’d barely have enough walking room between freeholds.
However, If you reduce the freehold & parcel size of half the available units to roughly a third (a half acre freehold on a 6 acre parcel), and reduce the other half to two-thirds (a 1 acre freehold on a 9 acre parcel) then the rough 60,000 acre of available space estimate could contain 5k small parcels and roughly 3.5k large parcels. You’re now offering 8.5k freeholds to players of varying levels of in-game investment rather than only 3.5k, using the same total space and same ratio of space between freeholds. 17% ownership on a full server still isn’t great, but it’s better than 7%. Perhaps the smaller parcels can be clustered closer to the node settlements, almost like the surrounding settlements of a city, and the larger parcels can be more rural in the outer spaces between nodes, like actual farmsteads? These numbers are of course very rough estimates, but the same concept applies regardless of the actual numbers.
Giving players stepping stones is vital to helping them achieve larger goals. Going from no freehold to a massive freehold that takes an incredible amount of money to purchase is an enormous obstacle to overcome. But allow more players an easier chance to get a smaller plot, and give them opportunities on that plot to get ahead even further and eventually get a chance at earning a larger freehold, and I think you’ll have a happier community.
Introduce houseboats. The current alternatives to owning a freehold are static in-node housing and instanced apartments. House boats could serve the same purposes as these and provide more opportunities for players to have a livable, customizable space. Perhaps these are exclusive to coastal nodes, and the fun part of owning one is that you get a constant, static dock space outside the city where the houseboat sits? This way it serves the same purpose of granting citizenship of a node that an apartment or other static in-node housing does and gives you some visibility in the world.
With some adjustments, I think the freehold system can be an achievable and fulfilling content loop in the game that doesn’t create opportunities for RMT domination or strangleholds by large guilds. As always, testing is required to really know what form these adjustments will take. Looking forward to it! Thanks for reading/compiling.
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KrystalKittenMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I'm just copying and pasting to start off with.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
Unsure, the Resident Evil system was interesting as it said you have a case and things have different sizes and shapes and it's fun to tetris things around, i did like the adding bags and you get extra carry capacity, alot of games give you "an extra bag" which just doubles your storage but this looks like how many bags you can hold and what type of bags they are can change your carry capacity.
say you are a scribe and you have a pouch of scrolls (the size of the scrolls are smaller and you can carry more then if you had just your normal inventory slots)
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?
We saw about harvesting but nothing on how to actually plot/plant. is it a square place that locks so you can do rows of stuff easily or do ya just spread the seed over large area and hope the crops come in. I am actually looking forward to this system as I am planning on Freehold Farming and other stuff so i am very excited. But the idea of how do we plan crops? what do you mean by crop rotation? how does that work? does the soil make things easier to grow? more yield? rarer crops (say growing a winter plant in a desert biome?) we saw wheat and tomatoes how would you say plant tomatoes after the wheat? do you harvest the crop then have to retill the land or just plant different seeds? is that the crop rotation? what does it do to rotate crops?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I really like the idea, and I really like the system but had a question. ya killed the pig and got some meat but the corpse was still there. is there like a second harvest the corpse to maybe get bone? leather? other stuff? how long does the dead animal stay there before it despawns? do we have to move the body and dispose of it? will having larger animals yeild more meat and more stuff? considering i also want to try my hand at cooking i was like "pig bone makes good soup broth" can we have more stuff drop to better be killing and using the whole animal? is that part of the farming tier abilities? (say for the pig 2 meat, 2 choice meat (say ribs), 1 leather, 1 bone?) and one bone and one meat can make a stew? how will harvesting animals work the the cooking mechanic?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Ok i will just let go of my plan for my freehold (hope yall got the menu!) I want to make a tavern/inn that specializes in food and brewing buffs. (and yes even putting down the tables and chairs and bars and the guest rooms so like you want me to talk your ear off for 2 hours on this well just discord call me) so like maybe the tavern I can sell the stuff at and people can come (learn about local monsters, get food buffs, get well rested buffs, stock up on things like arrows or something) so farming the grain/grapes for ale/wine farmland is needed, a place to brew/distill would be needed so like a brewery/winery/distillery building would be needed. places to put animals needed to make the tavern food would be needed (basically what was on the stream)
I would like to customize my house alot maybe put the cooking refinements in my house (a really nice kitchen and dining room where i can experiment to get new recipes for the tavern.
The Freehold should be able to say craft 1 thing from start to finish. say raise the animals to make the stew and harvest them, then refine the ingredients in the kitchen and cook the meals and then finally craft the meals in the tavern for the best buffs. I know you don't want all the processing done on the Freehold but the idea of a self sustaining freehold that can gather and refine and craft say 1 grandmaster recipe if you build and allocate the land correctly should be doable
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview? HONESTLY THE WHOLE THING GOT ME EXCITED AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR SPOT TESTING ALPHA 2 PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SENPAI NOTICE ME!!!!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
unsure if this is concerned...but was wondering could you have a place to tie up the mounts instead of just dismounting and them standing there? maybe a stable or something like where they used to tie up horses in old towns? how long does it take the pig to despawn after you kill it cause i never saw it despawn in the preview.
I would honestly like showing how the entire freehold was made from bare land laying the "this is my plot freehold space" to building the house, it was really cool to see the freeholds and what it can do but i really am the type of person who will spend most of the week customizing/saving a freehold type place (i play alot of Icarus right now to get my fix) no really if there as an alpha 2 "here is your spot of land go crazy making stuff" i would spend DAYS just customizing a freehold and being happier then a pig in mud
The freeholds are a amazing idea. Being able to own a certain space where you can do high level crafting and farming makes sense and it gives the game a very nice feel towards roleplay and gameplay.
However I have some concerns to them.
First off, what about players who will never be able to get a freehold? If they have purchased any skins for the freeholds then they will never be able to use them and will have wasted money. Not everyone will be able to get a freehold because if you don't start grinding for money immediately when the game comes out then you will be significantly behind and no matter what you do other players (especially those in large groups) will have more money to win the auctions and get the freeholds. New players will never be able to achieve a freehold because of how progression in the game is going to work and can only be jealous of people who have access to parts of the game that they will never be able to experience. I feel that its not fair to players who just want to experience everything the game has to offer. I feel that not having enough freeholds for every player gives a sense of hopelessness to those who see the amount of work it will take to accomplish getting a freehold and making players feel hopeless is a good way to lose them.
Second, how will players who don't have freeholds craft high tier equipment? Every game I have played where only certain players have access to resources they 100% of the time become extremely greedy with those resources. If only certain players have access to high tier processing then they will not let anyone else have access to it and given that this game has a focus on pvp then they will likely not give access to it even by trade. What I see happening is that no one will get the chance to fight back against players who already have everything because they will have no way to earn the high level gear themselves. Its extremely exploitable and I can say with utmost certainty that many players will band together to control as much as they can and no one else will be able to get anything.
Allow me to give an example. I have just completed the quest that unlocks the ability to get a freehold. I go to the auction with my hefty sum of gold and am very excited to finally be able to craft some high tier equipment. However in the auction I see that someone has already put down an amount that is more than double my gold. How is this possible? I spent days doing quests and taking on jobs and selling materials to get all of this gold how on earth can these people have more than me? Well behind the scenes it turns out that a group of players have banded together to take over the area completely. One of there group already is mayor of the node who has friends that control the businesses within and all of them have been feeding gold into this one guy who will be the one placing crafting stations to further increase the power of his team. After my inevitable loss at the auction I try to contact the man who won to ask if he will make my equipment for me given that I provide the right materials. No response. I try again and even go to the node where I am killed by him or his buddies and I drop my materials that I was going to give to make my equipment. After losing my hard earned materials and not being able to get the freehold due to a rigged auction I promptly leave the game to await either an update that fixes everything which could take months or even years or I wait until the team of people controlling the freehold and node eventually get bored so I can try my luck again.
Now I know what some people may be thinking, that this is avoidable if you join a group or if you manage to make a name for yourself within the node then maybe they will let you have the freehold so you can help them. Well that is not likely and by not likely I mean its pretty much not even possible. If I had a group of friends that I have been playing games with for years and some guy showed up with good gear and nice skill, I would still choose my friends who I have known for years and trust to take the freehold. These problems are bound to happen the way things are now, its unavoidable.
What can the devs do to fix this? Well they can make freehold available to everyone no matter what (aside from doing a quest and spending a set amount of resources and gold) and make a freehold spot for every player slot on the server. The problems with this fix is that it would mean having to make the server size smaller as to not flood the world with freeholds which to me seems like it would be an okay thing to do. It would make it so that some areas of the world are populated by monsters and wildlife instead of players so that not every single area will have a bunch of towns and cities.
I feel that freeholds should be something everyone should have, not just the powerful who have been playing longer than anyone else, only event specific things should be saved for those people.
That was a lot and thank you to those who read everything.
Hey,
I hope someone reads this, because i put a lot of thought and effort into this post
Overall i was very pleased with this livestream/update.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
What I like about it:
- I think the size of the Material inventory is good. Maybe it could get to big if you can craft larger bags later on.
- I also realy like that it is a different tab, which realy helps with keeping the inventory in order.
What I dislike about it:
- The Tetris kind of part to it. I get what your tring to achive with it, to make inventory management more intresting and fun, but I think for most people its just unnessesary and inconvinient. I would enjoy a more simplistic style.
- That its divided into smaller inventories for each bag. I think one big Inventar screen and the bag slots at the top is better.
What I think would be best:
An seperat material inventory where every material I have is listed and the amount is next to it. and you can get different kind of bags which give you more space or other functionalitys for certain kind of Categorys.
And you can open spoilers which you need.
My example (values are only to visualise and need to be balanced ofc):
For my example if werre to focus on Mining. I would get a general bag which gives +10 slots to everything, so I can have random things I find or trade and 3 bags for Minerals which give +25 to Minerals, because thats what i need.
How i imgane it to look like:
Minerals:
50/85
Stone
25
Iron
15
Silver
10
Wood:
5/10
Dark wood
3
Birch
2
Animal husbandry:
1/10
(easter)Egg
1
etc.
I think this will make it simple, easy and convenient to use and understand on one hand, and also realy make the choice with your bags impactfull.
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 think generally its going in good direction.
One minor concern:
If you are only able to harvest and plant season dependent. Will there be enough goods output to sustain the market with basic things you might need, because I can imagine especially at launch you might run out of things in winter/spring and you need to wait until autumm again to harvest. I guess this can be balanced but i think you should keep an eye on it, because 3 weeks waiting between crops that only grow once per "year" might be to long of a time for people.
Ideas you probably have thought of already:
something like scarecrows as a placeable object would intresting if they can increase the yield of crops in a area. ( you could also sell nice skins for that on halloween )
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
-I think collecting resources from livestock is fine, but i could imgine that fun little minigames for sheering sheep or milking cows where you get a little more if you do it right could be realy fun. I think it wouldnt take a lot of effort, but be realy impactfull for the player experience
-Gathering reasources could be a bit tedious if you have to do them one by one, maybe a little cow/horse that pulls some farming equipment that plants or harvests a larger area at once could be intresting, or some kind of magic that is used for that.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I think extra building for animals and crops could be nice, a hencoop or a little shed with a feeding trough for cows or sheep where you put your fodder in instead of feeding them individually. A Greenhouse where things can either grow outside of their usuall season or the yield is increased could be intresting but i dont know if that would fit the style of the game.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I realy liked the cosmetic tree in the middle of the freehold in the video looked realy good, i hope you will be able to make lots of nature related costumacing like ponds or different kind of plants etc.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Yes, I am very concerned about the accessability of the Freeholds.
First of, i think bidding for Freeholds and not doing landgrab is an improvement.
I think putting Freeholds as a novalty is a mistake, because its a feature many people are looking forward to. I have played Archeage and ff14, so i have seen how crazy people are over it.
I know there will be taverns and instanced housing inside a city, but its just not the same. especially if they see other people having freeholds.
I think putting good and fun things of a game behind a wall, where you have to put a lot of effort in is a bad idea. Especially with such a fundemental game mechanic. There will be lots of people who play the game, who just want to do trading and farming etc.
And not all of those people will have enough time to compete with people like me who have no job and will play the game 12+ hours a day. I think its just not fair.
Suggestion:
I personally would just make more spots for housing maybe certain zones are full of it. like with the later archeage updates, they did that a lot. So people dont have to worry about if they can get a spot, but they will instead try to get the best ones, which is fine. And people who dont care about the system can just get a instanced house or dont want to get raided as easily when sieges happen can get instant housing in citys.
tldr.: You put something fun and fundemental into the game especially for crafting etc. and then prevent a lot of people from getting access to it.
Thank you for reading, and keep up the good work there over at Intrepid, i am looking forward to a great game
I loved the increased size of Freeholds. 0.5 acres always sounded way too small but the new 1.5 acres look great.
I don't care too much about the whole drama atm regarding the scarcity of Freeholds. If the change gets reverted so Freeholds become more widely available I'd be fine with that, if not I don't care. My only bit of feedback is please don't revert the Freehold size back to 0.5 acres. If you do, at least give the option to upgrade your freehold size from 0.5 back to 1.5 through the use of in-game resources. Of course making Freeholds widely available would mean the map would seem more "littered" with Freeholds, so I'm not sure how to fix that beyond expanding the land size. Maybe reduce the gap between Freeholds from 150m as that does seem a bit big (even though there should definitely be a gap as ArcheAge didn't really have a gap between plots and it made it look really cluttered and ugly).
I'm not a fan of the "only family can use your freeholds facilities" idea. I think it'd make more sense to have a permissions list that you can manually add people to which allows them to use your freehold facilities. Some people have said to just make Freehold facilities "usable by anyone for a fee", but I think the owner should be manually required to put you on a permissions list as it means there needs to be some sort of social interaction between the two players. Player A who wants to use Player B's freehold has to come up to them and say "yo, can I use your freehold facilities" to which Player B either allows or doesn't. Ofc, the owner should be able to decide whether or not to charge the people on the permissions list too each time they use the facilities.
Regarding freehold accessibility, you could also make it so there are different freehold plot sizes. So have 0.5 acres that are easily accessible and there are enough plots for anyone to feasibly get (given they put in the effort), but also have 1.5 acre freeholds as shown on stream which are more difficult to obtain.
Upon reflection, I feel the change is for the better. My mind has been broadened, and I love the new scope. I feel there are plenty of options available, and I'm happy to participate in social experiments/ activities. I think the opportunities are grand.
I still want little to do with nodes though but I'm sure I can work around these issues. I don't have to own a freehold but I think I know what plan of action to initiate if I do get hold of a freehold. I will have to liaise with guild affiliations and my family to come to an end application.
First of all, I did really like the new presentation format
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
The Tetris-style inventory is interesting and different. That in itself doesn't necessarily mean good. As a general rule, the less time and focus inventory management takes, the better.
Now, based on what was shown, I'm working under the assumption that the shape of resources and the odd patterns of space in the bags are meant to be used as a soft limit to what resources can be held in a bag, rewarding specialisation while also allowing someone that kills you to pick up at least some of what you dropped.
And I cant help but wonder if it wouldn't be better to just stick with larger specialised bags that have a hard limit in what they can hold, and smaller bags that can hold everything. It still gives the ability to spec towards what you will be doing, but with less inventory-management-hassle.
In programming, there is this notion of avoiding clever solutions to a problem when there are straight-forward ones, because the clever ones usually confuse others later down the road or straight up comes back to bite you in the ass. I cant help but wonder if that is applicable for this too.
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 so far. Would need to know more to be able to say more. Once concern is the time it would take to harvest and reseed a large field. Could probably get tedious quickly.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Looks good so far. Would need to know more to be able to say more. I did enjoy the animations, and the thought that seems to have gone into them, to even have him reassure the pig as he slits it throat.
It might be an unecessary level of realism though for most people though...
What kind of customisation do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Placement and rotation of anything on it.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The whole thing looks awesome, but it is hard to get really hyped over something that is limited to such a degree.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I can fully get behind the idea that it is a privilege to leave your mark on the map, and the "achievement" of it all being something very few can have.
I am however very disappointed in having artisan-skills (for example husbandry and processing) limited in the same way. While I agree that reaching the pinnacle of any craft should require time and effort, I think that having that be at the level of privilege is taking it too far. Limiting "core" systems of the game in that way will in my humble opinion, limit player agency too much. With freehold owners not having a systemic way to rent out parts of their processing or fields to other players, this limit becomes much more apparent.
As for how to acquire freeholds, a lot has been said already. My two cents is that the system itself seems far too prone to "snowballing", and with it affecting artisan-skills in the way it currently does, I cant really say I like it. It's leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Ideally, money should not be a consideration to acquiring them, even if it is a part of the upkeep.
The problem with relying on money is that for money "the sky is the limit", so smaller groups and later arrivals will rarely, if ever, be able to compete. So I would argue that relying on systems that have caps or soft caps, such as tasks, quests, reputation or even dumb luck would be a much better solution for the system to feel relevant for players that join 1,2 or even 3 years in.
Re-sale of Freeholds seems like something that doesn't really add that much to the game, but invites a lot of potential trouble. The risk-reward of implementing that into the game seems out of whack to me, and the safer option would probably be to just not do it.
Based on what I have seen in other games, and based on how the current system is designed, I would strongly advise against trusting the player-base to self-regulate this in a manner that will be healthy for the game.
As a separate note, allowing PVP on a freehold is probably a bad idea. I can see a lot of people even avoiding the businesses on there just to avoid the risk associated with going there. And that's without touching on the nightmare of dealing with people taking out their frustration in not getting a freehold on anyone that has one. If the freeholds themselves are safe, that frustration will target the node instead, which will be more healthy for the game in the long run.
Inventory all looked pretty awesome, need to test it in game to know for sure.
The Crops seem amazing, I'm also curious if you can plant fruit trees and lumber trees.
Livestock looks like it will be fun, I wonder what the limits are on how many you can pack into one pen.
For Customization i hope the boundaries are very refined so that we can place buildings almost touching each other, or crops right up against fences without having wide "no placement" zones around every individual item.
I'm Excited about plotting out my land and figuring out which buildings to place on it and making it look beautiful
Concerns:
-Low freehold count, meaning many casual players wont ever be able to play this content.
-Bidding system seems to favor large groups or those who cheat.
-RMT sellers hoarding houses to sell to all those desperate for housing.
-Large guilds incentivized to buy up all the land and sell for markup prices or for all their members.
-Greifers blocking doorways on your freehold buildings and home.
-Greifers killing players who are on the freehold as they craft, or killing them every time they leave the house.
-Players being griefed or harassed by other players who want that plot of land in an attempt to force them to sell it to them.
Solution ideas:
1.) Reduce size of freehold and parcel size back to original size (1/3 of current) and increase amount by 3x. OR Make 3 different freehold sizes, (.5 acre), (1 acre), and (1.5) acre. Then with that you can have 1,000 large plots, 2,000 medium plots, and 3,000 small plots. (Assuming current is 3,000 large plots available, redistributed with mixed sizes evenly by land quantity) This would give rich people something lofty to strive for (the premium large plots) while also giving the smaller guilds and players who don't need much space plenty of small plots to try and compete for. 2.) Acquiring the freeholds is a hard one to solve, but maybe there can be a sort of merit system in place where the more of a certain type of quests or good deeds you do you get merits, and also people who craft/gather/process a lot and sell on the market can get merits as well. So overall being active and playing and interacting with other players in positive ways and with the economy will build your merits. With these merits you can bid on a house and the one who puts forth the highest merits will win. The difference between this and gold is that merits are account bound so no trading or RMT buying gold with real money to buy houses. People have to play the game themselves to earn merits and then use them all up to win a bid on a house, then pay the full gold price of that house to own it. 3.) Remove selling of houses, this way if someone wants to get rid of the house it goes into open auction for anyone to bid on with the merits i talked about above, then when it is sold, the person selling the house will get a portion of the houses full gold price. This will mean that there will always be houses going onto the open market as opposed to once all houses are sold they will all be private sales between individuals. This will also stop large guilds from being able to make a profit trying to buy and sell houses, because they cant sell to one person in particular and they wont gain any extra money because they will only be able to earn the original house gold cost back. 4.) The merit system working separately from the gold system will also help manage what type of activities they can be earned from. so instead of some bot farming gold all day to use on houses, you know that merits have to be earned doing legit activities and if you find bots farming them from a specific gameplay loop too effectively you can lower their drop rate from that specifically without effecting the economy much 5.) For Griefing, if you make it so that within freehold boundaries players and mounts can all pass through each other it will stop body blocking. Also if you stop player to player sales of houses it might stop people from harassing players to sell their land. Maybe some people will still do it to try to buy the land with merits but someone else could still outbid them so its a big risk.
6.) If the merit system wont work at all at least make it so players cant sell the house directly to other players. Make it so it goes on open market so the RMT sellers cant sell to someone who gives them real money.
These are just some ideas i came up with. i See a lot of people complaining they don't like Steven's ideas but not many are offering better solutions. I know there are probably many flaws in my ideas people will point out shortly, but hopefully it will inspire new ideas or iterations of this idea so we can all come up with a great final product together.
Bidding on houses is nice in theory, like it's been said the guilds would have first picks, naturally since this game is built heavy around teamwork which I think is phenomenal.
But that will absolutely 100% not be the case. Guilds will be real lucky if they get any freeholds. You know how much money has been spent in WoW for 1 single unlimited quantity uncommon raid item, that doesn't have a grandmaster crafting bench attached to it lol? Thousands of US dollars..
Now imagine if this game does pretty decent and what people will pay for a freehold.
There is no stopping RMT, it's literally impossible to stop and the only way you can put a dent in it is removing player traded gold, limiting stack sizes, limiting trade window slots, possibly having that economic algorithm or whatever Intrepid calls it value items and force semi-fair trades(think this would cause more harm than help), level restricting trades(to stop mules), have variable drop rates(to obscure prices, though I think this would fit well into AoC dynamic world either way) and a few other things.
But that doesn't stop it, that just hinders it, causes the price for currency(because something else other than gold will become currency, like orbs in PoE or runes in D2) to go through the roof and only lets very wealthy people RMT. Which in the case of freeholds might be better than not doing it.
The best option however is not making freeholds bound by currency and having some other system to decide who gets them. Something like the system that is used to decide mayors for each type of node.
Comments
I like the size and I think it would be interesting to play with shapes that are not the traditional rectangle. It appeared to me as if one of the bags Steven had had little L shapes in it. I'm not opposed to something like that. It makes people get creative.
[*] 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?
All that concerns me with this is the necessity for a player to balance crop management with animal rearing. As a person that wants to have a freehold for Animal Husbandry particularly, I also want to be able to be a useful producer to my guild, so I want to have space for crops for Husbandry but also be able to run a tavern, or farm for guild buff food, or still have the space for a tannery.
[*] How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Again, that balance of space needed is both exciting and concerning, but I do look forward to seeing more exotic creatures and how their enclosures might yield more happiness or efficiency etc. Big note, please never make anything that looks like animal cruelty in the game. I understand that the most efficient way to get big chickens that lay a bunch of eggs in a small space is to shove them all into tiny cubes for their whole lives. I *do not* need to live through this reality in a game. Just a production yield increase without the realism is just fine thank you.
[*] What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
In addition to the building skins I think it would be nice to be able to design a little sign for your Freehold, maybe one that shows up on the map as an easy distinguisher that people can see from their maps so they can see if you've moved/closed down.
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am very much excited about the level of freedom it sounds like we'll have in the placement of Freeholds. I am concerned about the potential impact on rare spawns and their paths, but if that's already taken into consideration I just love it even more.
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am concerned about there being too much of a processing gap between freehold producers and non-freehold producers. Everyone seems to have concerns about there 'not being enough for everyone' or 'I can't use my cosmetics' and I think those are easily solvable by making sure a lot of the functionality of Freeholds can also be covered by the Static Housing or buildings within the Node kind of systems. However, if the gap between a person that ideally spends 40+ hours a week progressing production in a freehold and the person that can ideally spend 40+ hours a week progressing production without a freehold is too large it will create a situation where mega-guilds that corner the freehold market will have such a big power gap over the guilds that couldn't or didn't have the resources in the first wave of freehold purchasing that the little guys can't even put up a fight in hopes to take down the bigger guilds/nodes or get those freeholds.
As a person that is specializing in Animal Husbandry, I am curious as to how much of our land is expected to be dedicated to mastering one single sub-specialization? Will I be able to utilize some of my land to also produce high-level hides and leathers through tanning? Will I have space to run a tavern or other business? Or do I have to use all of my space for Animal Husbandry/Farming (for instance) to get the most benefit from it?
How many sub-specializations can players expect to cover on one plot of land?
I was also wondering about the intention on selling plots after a Freehold has been established. How much of the Freehold remains, if anything? Can I simply go purchase a property with a maxed-out alchemy station, or am I just bidding for the location? Can I move a Freehold within the parcel when I purchase it if I don't like the area it's in? Since there are no counter-offers I'm guessing the Freehold seller sets a fixed price, if that is the case is there an easy way to delist it immediately if someone works out a deal via mail or DM? If there is no way to limit who can purchase the Freehold plot what keeps rival guilds from purchasing your plots when they go up for sale? Lots of social stuff like that.
Professional Skeptic, Entertainer, and Animal Enthusiast
First I'd like to say your Freeholds look incredible. However limiting their number gates a major amount of content accessible the player. This should not happen. Any player should be able to have a chance to be a farmer or a rancher but you are limiting it to the highest leveled players, richest players, and most powerful guilds. You say you want realism yet a small farmer has to be one of the most powerful or connected players in the game. Last I checked your typical farmer isn't a God.
I do understand you don't want the world cluttered visually by freeholds but if that is the case you should supplement normal freeholds with instanced freeholds. (Node housing isn't enough since there is almost no planting space or space for artisan building) Instanced freeholds should function exactly the same as normal freeholds but the difference is they are accessed by a crack in a mountainside or hole in the ground. This gives the player access to an instanced Underrealm area to build their freehold. This would allow ALL players to participate in the artisan classes of their choice and also create a stronger economy. The down side is that they will never have their freehold seen by someone walking by in the world. This could serve as a intermediate stage for when they might some day be able to acquire a normal freehold.
For the urban areas and landscapes to make sense and even more so with the idea of freeholds recommend bring in an Urban design consultant / Landscape Architect and/or Architect to provide feedback and direction to your design team.
The agenda within game is not so far different from real like.. They may help with strategy and techinques to better layout and master plan,, spatial planning as well as help create congenerous environments - a different but relevent skill set to a game designer.
Not going to beat around the bush, this is a terrible idea.
Something that seems like it should be a thing for realism/immersion is not always necessarily a good thing for game-play, this will end up being a nuisance and a tedious thing to have to deal with. This is a simple quality of life issue, the reason most games have moved away from this type of inventory management is the frustration, we want to play Ashes of Creation not Tetris.
If you are thinking of doing this for added realism then one large sack of grain 30kg+ should take up the entire inventory, just think how annoying and slow this would make things. Of course if some people can only play the game if this is implemented then make it an option to toggle on and off, but I'm pretty sure most players will opt out of the Tetris style inventory.
We play games to escape real life and if things are made too realistic the fun disappears and it becomes a boring simulation mimicking the real life daily grind of chores and going to work. We need innovation in the industry not copy/paste from other games, especially when it's an outdated nuisance mechanic like a Tetris style inventory.
The auctions. This will likely lead to big guild monopolies in my opinion.
One solution may be to put a random chance of inheriting the land, at least for some Freeholds. After a period of being an upstanding citizen, when a Freehold becomes available, then one could have a random chance of being chosen as a distant heir of the the previous owner. Maybe an NPC barrister approaches you about it. You would have a set time to go to a government office to claim it or another heir is chosen.
If claimed and the player did not want to run a Freehold, then they could put it up for auction or sell it privately.
Other than the procurement process the Freehold system seems AWESOME!
- Nova
I'm on the fence. General inventory under no circumstance should be slot based. Resources can be, as long as it adds meaningful interaction. If, when you are putting the system together, and you are studying the details, and you can look in the mirror and say I'm adding something meaningful to the game, then its fine.
An example of a game that goes all out with this inventory system is PoE of course. However, even in that game, you regularly have a stack of Portal Scrolls to un-bury the mess, so you have to be careful here to not ruin something good with unnecessary restriction. Early No Mans Sky is a good example of inventory restriction gone very wrong. I suppose we could always just have it in there and then when we get to A2 we can see if its fun or just oppressive, I'm a bit skeptical.
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 think it looks fantastic. The animations need some work, like the sheep shearing needs more love. They also felt a bit clunky and deliberate, I'd like to see more fluid motion during the harvesting animation and with the transitions into and out of harvesting. The systems and design shown, however, were spot on. 10/10, stay with this direction please.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Amazing. Same answer as the above question. 10/10. Smooth out the animations.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Colors (within reason) and materials (the sky is the limit). Make us get the materials for the customization though. If I want a particular style of wood for the house (ie cedar, pine, oak) make me go get it and "create" the customization. I want to feel like I made it, not that I purchased it. I also want to see some type of emblem or heraldry, like a flag or banner with something personal on it (within reason obviously).
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The combination of housing with crafting/harvesting is for sure what way to go. I want to create my own home, and I want it to feel distinctly mine and I want others be able to see it as they pass by. It looks like this is where you are headed with it, and that's amazing so thank you.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Making max level crafting/harvesting and max level housing be mutually exclusive. I created a separate post about it. As it was described in the live stream, it sounded as if having a large house means gimping your capabilities as a producer. Making choices is fine, if it means forcing me to further specialize in a field that's OK. Preventing me from participating is high level crafting in any capacity what so ever, simply because I want to have a large home is not OK. I would like more clarification on this point.
Keep in mind, this is the MMO housing experience post SWG:
1) We have housing - but its in an instance that no one will ever see.
2) We have housing - but its behind a massive pay wall.
3) We have housing - but if you didn't get it in the early days you can't have one, we refuse to make enough. Ever.
4) We have housing - but its a set template of predetermined attachment points so we can strictly control how you decorate you instance zone that no one will ever see.
5) We have housing - but its in predetermined, tightly packed, boring grids that are behind pay walls and almost no one will ever see.
6) We have housing - but we will never call it housing, and we will slowly allow you autonomy to add lawn furniture but not interior furniture while collecting pre-determined creatures and place them all on a remote deserted island that no one will ever see.
Describing me as frustrated with it all is a criminal understatement.
2) the inventory system will become very tedious since it will require constant movement and management of items in the bag
3) when you get off the mount I liked that they stay there but I suggest giving them a rest animation not just staying there into stiff position
1. Making plots super limited will cause some issues, especially if they are the only way to utilize the max level processing. I believe it was said that the number of freeholds per server would be in the low thousands, which sounds okay, and maybe I'm wrong on this next bit, but if you are going to raise the amount of people per server to 15k and then eventually 50k (which sounds awesome btw) having less than 10% of the server be allowed to use a max level ability seems problematic.
2. In general I think having a max level feature tied to a limited resource isn't the best idea. I suppose it depends on how impactful max level processing is but assuming it is impactful, making more than 95% of the playerbase unable to access it on their own would be very rough.
Overall I really enjoyed seeing the freehold, it looks cozy and I'm excited of all the possibilities of seeing some crazy building that I'll just happen upon while I'm adventuring.
Some final thoughts and possible fixes or at least band aids.
For the limited size, I think freeholds no matter how you do it will be limited, personally I think making it to where freeholds are as unlimited as possible should be the approach, in the stream it was said that the player would be able to choose where on the plot to create their freehold. The way it sounded to me was that once a freehold has been put on a plot no other freeholds can go on the plot until that freehold is sold or destroyed. I think a way to make more freeholds would be to restrict where we can place a freehold on a plot, and make it to where multiple freeholds can go on a plot. Maybe even making it to where there are small "villages" they don't have to be touching each other, but allowing 6 freeholds or so on each plot (again depends on how big the plots are) would substantially create more space for people to buy and build freeholds. Personally for me, if you gave me a predetermined plot, but I got to customize the plot as much as you've shown, I would still be satisfied.
More important to me however, I think the biggest issue is making freeholds a capstone milestone that will snowball a players ability to make money and their ability to create better equipment. Don't get me wrong, freeholds should absolutely be an advantage over an apartment. But the master and grandmaster processing seems a step too far, maybe making it to where a player still has to upgrade their apartment to a similar degree would be best, to keep it in line at least on a relatively even playing field. That way as well, the benefit of getting a freehold(apart from just looking way cooler) would be the more impressive yield for materials and potential for money making, where as the apartment and city house would be cheaper to own but you wouldn't have the same amount of money making potential.
If you took the time to read this thank you, and have a wonderful day! If anything came off as incoherent let me know and I'll try responding more in depth.
'Tetris' inventory is good but implement item weight as well or it's kinda pointless. Big items should weigh a lot more(in most cases at least) and should affect how much we can carry.
Otherwise, looks decent, however, I didn't quite get the main purpose of these. I mean I understand the idea but how impactful this feature will actually be? Taking a closest similar example I can think of is the garrison system from WoW. Right? So it's just basically mostly a roleplay thing that actually provides options to generate income if time is invested? If this is the idea, I totally support it.
the farming:
if you make me plant a seed, harvest and process it. Make me take care of it, including watering during the dry days, pest control, etc. Make this a game inside a game. I love this complex inside tiny ideas that can turn up as a gold mine and are really fun but not really necessary to do while progressing in the game. You can implement diseases, that affect the growth rate or the harvest but when treated, it removes negatives, etc.
livestock:
make them perma die when "harvested" ofc
Lemme be a scammy farmer like the people that grow food for the government. Lemme poison people with toxic pest control. Lemme have chickens inside cages. Lemme feed them with grain. Lemme just be "Bill". I honestly wonder how many people would choose to profit like that.
building:
well since I honestly watch just these videos I don't really know what should be the main purpose here, maybe in the future update I come up with something better, but there definitely should be at least one building that processes the goods that Freehold provides tailored to the needs of the user/owner. So a player with specialization in alchemy should definitely have options the same as the other professions out there. But don't make it boring, make cooking, alchemy... in these "stations" a simple minigame as well.
to end this, if you decide to go this way, I would love to have the ability to hire an NPC to do the chores for me, it should still require some daily interactions with that NPC at least. Provides him payment for the services, make him things do differently, etc. There could be perhaps different types of those workers, imagine a professional gardener you hire to take care of your crop, or perhaps a farm boy from near farm. These 2 would have significantly different costs, but the farm boy might not even show up to work and the crop will die if you don't do it yourself or something like that
#1 How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I feel the size and shape of the inventory management system is a 3 out of 5, but I agree with some other feedback in the forum that weight might be a way to go (for the size side of the question). If a player has to many bags, they could potentially collect a lot of items and negate the need to "travel light." To me, it breaks the idea of adventuring out into the wild and coming back with only the things you would "realistically" be able to carry. AOC to me is a more realistic take on resource management, and weighing the pros and cons of your actions. For example, say I want to do husbandry. If I can go out and collect everything I need halfway across the world. That's great, but that cuts down on the amount of adventures I could have had going to find each of those items on separate trips. On the other hand, what if I die to some players in PvP on my way back to my home node or freehold, I may lose more stuff than I would if weight was limited. It's more risk versus reward, but I think at some point when you collect so much stuff and you die and possibly lose some of those important items. That would make me more frustrated than just losing X item that I needed versus weight based gameplay, where I lose less. The upside would be the adventure was more fun to me because it was a better risk trade than before. A counter to that is just collect less and the problem is solved, but in typical mmo hoarder fashion (hoarder gang for life!) I will want to fill my inventory. I will plan less in the current system, then in weight based gameplay.
tl;dr Size seems to be a 3 on a scale of 1-5. It is a standard decision since inventory is hard to code and implement, a perfectly fine decision from my perspective. However, I would explore weight to keep the player from over-burdening themselfs, in terms of investment into what they want to do and the risks involved (see above for a long answer). Short answer, in MMO fashion, the player will go for whatever they can carry most of the time. Bag space (as shown in livestream) offers a potential for more frustration (in general) upon any potential way to lose loot after a long journey versus weight based gameplay leaving the player's inventory a little lighter.
For the shape, the inventory seemed fun, I know it's still in UI Limbo currently. One thing I would like to see that I don't remember if it was shown is inventory size adjustment by drag clicking the edges of the inventory window. I like the idea of seeing more of my items quickly in a larger view while in a chest, since the player can collect so many items with the current inventory system. It helps more visually (player QOF) when the player can see more of the items they have, both as a new player and potential veteran of the game. After you are done with the enlarged window, the window can be returned to regular size when you might want to adventure, so you can see or react to dangers around you better. Going one step further, the implementation of two window size buttons would be another great player QOF adjustment. The first button could be the default size of the window and the second button could be a custom dimensions button that players could set themselves. Text to show the dimensions of the window would also be good, so a player can share the size they think works best to other players who might want to copy the dimensions of the window.
tl;dr Shape is in a good spot (even in UI Limbo). The addition of window sizing by dragging the edges of the window would be awesome and help in different situations in game (i.e. adventuring vs profession work on your freehold). The implementation of two window size buttons. one for the default window size and a custom one for dimensions could help with player QOF.
#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?
When I saw the planting of crops on your freehold, I felt excited for the systems. The thing that concerns me is that it can take up a large space, which is concerning as someone who might want to take part in doing a tavern as well or establish a business. The need to manage space is intentional and comes with the territory, but I feel it could be handled a little bit better with a potential to reward a little more versus having a more business focused freehold. The crops take up a sizable portion of the freehold and the potential to need multiple crops for animals is a bit concerning. If I'm working towards animals, I would like to focus on crops for them as well, so I can be more independent in that regard compared to say a tavern where I can earn more money "directly" (potentially less work involved). To finish my conversation on this topic, with freeholds being a family or guild based environment, farming feels like it would be a less desirable profession at least in a guild setting. Putting the freehold in a strategic location would be obvious for bigger guilds and they would want more workstations or business to generate profit or work compared to farming which feels like a more family adventure. The potential direction is worrying especially since AOC is a player driven economy. Crops feel more like the family side of freeholds that would sell to the guild side of freeholds. It could potentially lock players into roles that might not give enough engagement to the family side of players.
tl;dr Excited from what was shown. I'm a little concerned about the space crops occupy compared to the need for them for animals and the potential loss from business revenue (i.e. tavern income). Another concern is family versus guild freeholds, guilds would place more business and workstation based buildings since they would generate more revenue and be good for strategic locations. Farming and other such professions feel like they would be un-needed for guild freeholds compared to business and workstations, which would drive the family freeholds to those professions. Initiating a sort of locking balance between family and guild freeholds, which could decrease player engagement and enjoyment.
#3 How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Raising livestock and collecting resources is exciting for me as a player, I like the idea of contributing to the economy in a real world kind of way. Being a settler on AOC, the aspect of this feature makes the world feel lived in and fits in with the story/environment of the game. What concerns me is the potential lock of this feature to families and guilds. With a limited number of freeholds available, the number of players that might participate in this feels low compared to what we all might think. Guilds that are formed early would likely have a head start to these freeholds in terms of gold to buy the plots and establishment of different styles of freehold. As stated above, I feel guilds would lean more towards business and workstation avenues of play (think trade guilds). Livestock and harvesting of livestock seems like it would be more of a time investment versus the other avenues of play. By the time families catch up, I feel most would lean more towards livestock and the like since it would be a less engaged in the economy. As stated in #2, it feels like it would lock the players into roles depending on how they want to play the game (guilds vs families).
tl;dr Raising livestock and collecting the resources is exciting and makes the world feel alive, but it might have some problems with the way the freehold system is potentially going to be set up. The guilds would most likely get to freehold content first and be able to purchase a lot more land compared to families and solo players. Given trade guilds exist in most MMOs, it wouldn't be a stretch to say the guild would lean more heavily towards business and workstation freeholds. By the time families get around to freeholds, the market for the more time consuming profession would most likely have drawn them in those directions. Creating a profession lock of sorts between guilds and families in my opinion.
P.S. Please leave pig animations the way they are, I feel it adds to the immersion of the game.
#4 What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
For my freehold, I want to be able to place the buildings I need depending on my playstyle. I want my customization to be done on the freehold because of the time investment I put into the freehold. That said a major problem arises with the current system as I know it. Freeholds are now more of a "family" or guild thing. That takes away a lot of the “my” freehold aspect as it is more our freehold. If a family has and is using a freehold, it is more likely that the family would want to have debates on what goes where, what it looks like, etc. In my opinion, it ruins the idea of how I wanted "my" freehold to look and feel. On the other hand, the owner could ignore they're families wishes and do what they want, but then it removes the idea of family. Guilds feel even less like a solo freehold type of activity. If the player is in a guild, that guild will have goals. Most likely, they would want the player's with the freehold to establish and build up the freeholds in certain areas and locations to suit the guild. It could completely remove the idea of your freehold. It would now be the guilds freehold that you hold for them like a landlord. It removes what I like about the freehold system, that you establish your own little plot of land and do with it what you will to make the game world more immersive and alive for other players and yourself.
tl;dr Freeholds have a lot of promise and a place for the player to do what they want, but the potential for it to be that is lower now. With the proposed systems, issues could arise in both the family setting and guild setting. For the family setting, the freehold can never truly be mine, if other players could potentially force me to change what I want my freehold to be. For guilds, the freehold could become less of yours and more of the guilds. Guilds band together for different reasons, but usually in bigger guilds, higher ups or guild founders direct the guild to what they need as a guild to thrive. Your freehold would be designed around what the guild needs, undermining the idea of the “your” freehold argument.
#5 Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I'm excited for all the freehold system and everything that comes along with it. It's going to be a great addition to the game to add more depth and feel to the world/environment. The amount of variety and functionality is also a welcome change from other games that are pretty limiting in their housing systems.
#6 Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
As stated above, the current freehold system of acquisition and as a whole is kind of terrifying as a player that wants to see the game do well. I can see a lot of problems going wrong, guilds getting most of the freehold land in developed nodes, families being a requirement to run or establish freeholds, locking of freehold roles because of economic needs or developments, etc. Another problem is the bidding system for freeholds, the level requirements, and the usage of pre-order cosmetics. The issues stem from a change in direction to freeholds from what we believed, while it wasn't set in stone, it ruins the fantasy of what I and many solo players wanted from freeholds. A simple homestead to do with as we wanted.
Now let's run over some potential solutions I could see for the problems.
Bullet List Time
Note: If a player joins a guild containing a freehold, if the guild already has max number of freeholds that player should be put back into pending with a message that reads along the lines of "the guild has to many freeholds, discuss with the guild about potentially removing one of their freeholds to make room for yours or sell yours to another player and try again." This way more freeholds could not be added to the max number of a guild's freehold count, potentially bypassing the solution. It would not affect bullet point three's first solution of smaller .5 acre plots for individuals, but the plots would no longer be upgradable as part of the second suggestion of that solution.
tl;dr A lot of points were covered, and I suggest reading the first paragraph at least to get an understanding of the problems I believe are appearing for the freehold system. The bullet list gives solutions to the potential problems that appear and stand out to me. They are long, but they need to be descriptive.
This took me an hour or two to lay my thoughts out in as concise a manner as I could. If you only want to read a small section of this now essay like post, read question 6 in full. I feel those are the current problems and most needed feedback. The suggestions aren't perfect in any way, but they are a potential start for discussion and worth expanding upon in my opinion. I love the idea of this game and what we have seen so far. I can't wait to play it and enjoy the game! Thank you for reading everyone! To the devs involved on the game, thanks for bringing this game to life! Have a nice day everyone!
A likely reprecussion and consequence of limiting Freehold access to a small 'elitist' segment of the player popupation and excluding the bulk of players from the games systems and content will be the following:
-Skins being sold to all players monthly in packs with the assumption freeholds will be available to players that wished to pursue them being upset. Players are voicing this.
-Only even a smaller minority of players will have access rights to apply skins to freeholds, even among the family groups that have rights to access freeholds as their base of operations.
-Freehold skins and Flying mount skins seem like theyre being designed in abundance but a tiny fraction of the player base will have the ability to use them (okay I can apply a flying dragon skin to a glider (not the same but ok)). I dont have major issue with this other than the disingenuity principle of advertising skins to the player base who wont be able to use them and without clear disclaimers that the ability to even utilize a freehold skin will be incredibly rare 1/100 players or less?
-Given the above, why is so much development time and resources being spent into designing art and robust systems for a tiny fraction of the community? Honestly, I dont care about skins if I wont have the ability to use them myself. Why should the average player be excited about various building skins if they'll likely never have access to own property and use them to customize to their player preference as was stated in the dev stream?
-As others have mentioned I think this is folly and Intrepid should use New World's housing system where the houses are in set locations (freeholds) and are instanced per player. You see your freehold shown as you approach or the most prestigious freehold of a given plot from all players who own an instanced version of that plot for plots a player is not a resident/owner of.
-If Intrepid moves forward and allows PVP to be conducted on Freehold's outside of node sieges/wars I think it obvious that the upset rabble is going to form bands and make life hell for the Freehold owners on their servers if they aren't aligned with them. Players (myself included) will likely form up with groups to raid and pillage freeholds and their owners constantly. Theyre in set known locations. Freehold residents cant guard them indefinitely.
-If the rabble is allowed to burn them to the ground they will. Intrepid will need to protect freehold owners from the masses.
-What will Intrepid's stance be to repetitive raids and ganking of Freehold owners who feel griefed by bandits upset with their elitist property ownership? Will pvp players who repeatedly rob, harrass, and destroy their freehold, person, and property be banned? They'll certainly be reported.
But what choice are you giving the masses who dont own Freehold's? They cant participate in freehold content via ownership so theyre living in the world as youve only allowed them to be (theives and outlaws and murderers). This system blocks them from civilization and non-hostile behavior by treating them like outcasts from a pillar of the games core content.
-Core gameplay systems should not be exlusionary in such a hard and fast way. Players that join the game late need viable avenues to achieve the games content. This system feels like it breeds server seasonality and if a player misses out on freehold ownership on one server that theyll look at asking/waiting for other servers to be introduced so they can participate in the content they wish to.
-I think a much better path is to instance Freeholds as I've suggested above or use some other variation and instead make the materials needed to process Master and Grand Master products be the bottle neck that requires group/guild coordination and acquire, retrieve, and use for the group's goals.
Planning to only release content in such a gated format I think is a bit lazy and I have faith that the Intrepid team will see a better path that allows all players to engage and participate in tasting the games content while also limiting the output of the rarest materials needed to craft the highest tier gear to coordinated groups or highest achieving witty folk out there.
Freeholds aren't a back breaker for me but if Intrepid next releases that ship ownership will only be a priviledge of 1% of the player population I know I would be bummed. So, I can understand why so many are voicing concern for the changes announced to the Freehold system they care about.
I dont care about the shape of the inventory, as long as you have an option to auto-organize. I dislike inventory management, so the less puzzle/weight stuff I have to manage, the better.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I would like the animals and livestock to roam about in their pen and not just stand still.
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?
Everything visual and 'feel' is very exciting. I like the possibilities a lot.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Here comes the big part to my post. There is indeed a lot that I am concerned about.
To me it seems like I've been stabbed in the back.
It seems like there is no room for people with normal jobs who can only play for 3 hours a day nor have a huge guild to sugar daddy them, in order to enjoy this core system.
I'm dreaming of owning a freehold, but it seems I won't be able to as a "casual player". By casual I mean limited available play time, aka no time to hardcore grinding, and apparently no real life job stopping you from playing all day long... For me personally, by the time AoC comes out, I don't think I will have 4+ hours each day to play, I wish though. So I consider myself a casual. I intent to be passionate about the game though and dedicate myself to it.
But I don't want NORMAL gamers like myself being left out on one of the core systems in the game.
And no, I don't want to "settle for less" and just own a house as the next best thing.
So here is a list of things I think you should reconsider with this system, as they worry me deeply.
I think it is dangerous to lock a core feature AND selling point to the game behind "privileged gamers" aka those with a lot of time to grind and play all day to get ahead. I don't mind that people can get ahead on other stuff - gear, endgame, you name it - you already have plenty of systems for that. But I feel like the freehold system should be for all kinds of players to interact with, and not just those who can "pay with time to win" - or "pay to win" (this bidding thing sounds so p2w).
Also - what about "new players" a few years in? They will NEVER be able to acquire a freehold.
Top tier crafting is still in node centres. Freeholds max out at Journeyman Crafting.
On the other hand, top tier Processing is at the freehold.
Yeah in scientific nodes only for t4 and t5 crafting last i heard. What a silly idea. Don't get me started on the whole situation again.
Furthermore, if farming is classed as processing, I class processing as crafting.
And for note : I loved the presentation, with a lot more in depth explanation. It helps us understand more of the systems and thought process of the dev team, so kudos to that. Do it more.
[*] How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
It is hard to tell for now actually. I am not against at least. It opens for a real use of bags and item management of resource with a little preparation and thinking about when we go for resources / scavenging / Raiding a Caravan / Dungeon Delving. So, it is interesting, but it is practical? I can’t know without testing the feature myself. Will it not be in certain case tedious? Do we need to place each item manually or can we do it automatically? Can we have filters / rules to ours bags to optimize it? But if it automatically done with a press of a button, it removes the management idea? There will need a real fine tuning to achieve something interesting in micromanagement but not tedious, it needs to be fun. Will it be? I do not know.
An example : If I raid a caravan successfully and need to manually set the resources in my bags I might be dead the time I do it, with the stress of the situation and after a Winning a situation where I took a lot of risks I would not appreciate as a player to lose everything for an inventory management issue. It feels like a double sentence. After the risks the rewards, not the risks again.
[*] 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?
As it been shown I suppose it is ok, I remember steven said we will have access to tools to help us do this more easily than manually. I have questions about how the seasons system works with it. Will there be a seasonality of crops ? Does the crops once harvested have an expiration date ?
[*] How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I am ok with the animal harvesting / death, I mean it does’nt bother me, after all it’s reality. And also we kill humans / animals in the game all the time so … for me it’s way worth than gathering leather and meat from a pig. The game will be R16/18 anyway ? So …
Raising livestock is great, I am eager to see how it really works. Will there be more “exotic” livestock ? will there be different “Quality” of milk if we really take care of our livestock ? as always is the time invested by player is rewarded in some way ?
[*] What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
The more the better, but it can wait post launch for me at least. I am way more interested in something mechanically impeccable and practical to use than more customization in the first place. Especially that we know now that the Freehold system will not be able to be used by everyone (10 % of the population of the server max will be Freehold owners as I understand it) I do not know if that much customization resources allocated to a system that less that 10 % of players will be able to enjoy, at least for buildings / processing stations. For the furniture sure, let’s go crazy!
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The new size is great
The freedom of layout too
Love the skilltrees for each building hope it will be developed / imrpoved post launch.
Will it be possible to reorganize freely the freehold ? Destroy / rebuild / reoriente etc like a “Building” mode with a top view
I do not know about the “Free placing” of the node tho.
[*] Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Okay there is a lot.
TL/DR : I miss crucial data (Details of the Bidding System, Exact Numbers of Freehold, Limitations / Rules for Big Guilds, Where are the Freeholds Plots) To have an objective opinion, but this raise a lot of questions and concerns. I am not a game developper, even if i have some game design experience and especially don't have the big picture that Steven and the team have to make that statements. But i think that the community do need more data / elements to work with to formulate a real feedback.TL/DR end
As Steven said a long time ago in a video : MMO Players have been hurt in the past, and been through a lot of frustration. And a lot of these concerns come from bad experiences. i do believe that Steven and the AoC Team have the best intentions and work hard to achieve a great game.
I originally posted my concerns in a form that was not opitmal for feedback / reading because it came as i said above from a place of hurt, if you wish to read this format feel free to read it (if anyone care) :
I am ok with the fact that a player needs to be worthy of his land. But if bidding is needed maybe, it is possible to not make it related with resources / gold, but more with reputation of the player, achievements, and personal quests to leverage the “Guild Funding” issue.
There is a lot that can change the picture: Guild Wars, Siege Nodes, Resources Scarcity, Market changes … in the long run MAYBE that will smooth the curve, but the first buyers will have an economic advantage for month maybe years as the Freehold is the SOLE master and grandmaster processing, it will be sought for.
Would we be able to “rent” processing stations for a fee? Doing it manually will be tedious tho. That would ensure a lot of people visiting the freehold and maybe the other business leading to interactions.
I am not against a real estate market, but I am questioning of how buying / selling will be achievable by “Normal People / little group of people” Maybe it would be interesting to limit the number of freeholds a guild can own, but it creates other issues …
An opinion: “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.” If a system or a mechanic is needed and interesting, there will be people who will try to have it / abuse it. For Freeholds as it is the sole way to process master grandmaster processing and in an efficient way (with the right perks) in a game crafting centric there will be wars for it. And wars are decided by resources and numbers mostly, numbers by guilds and organizations, resources by the people who will own the freehold and high-level processing stations, it’s not only a part in the real estate game, but also a slice of the economy itself. My previous MMO experience with these systems makes me very cautious of that and I do not believe (with the data I have in my hands) that it will regulate itself. At these stages Freeholds are like mutualized villages without the names and make the family system more of a “Way to access Freehold” than a real “Family” system. Where people pay to get to you family and get a “Share” of the freehold by paying a part of the bidding / buying of the freehold (if they are selling at all). It’s a little sad if it will be like that. Again I understand where you are coming from I hope you will give us an answer for those concerns and if not will come with practical solutions. For now without more data on how theses issues will be managed i have concerns.
For the Cosmetics too : Why not make the Skins purchased in the Packs available in the houses in nodes too ? That will at least mitigate … a little the issue.
- Concerns / Questions -
- Monopoly of large guilds / large organizations on the bidding and buying / selling system of Freeholds
Will there be systems in place to avoid this monopoly? Or is it the intention of the game design to favor these, because only they will have the means to afford / exploit it and pay the maintenance costs of the freehold?
- Ratio of Freehold compared to the number of active players wanting a freehold
Since there will only be a few thousand Freeholds available in the world, will the turnover by destruction and the real estate market be enough to satisfy a sufficient number of players wanting to invest in this system? How much time will a player / small group of players need to save to be able to use the system if it is their priority?
- Covetousness of freeholds because it is the only possibility for processing the highest materials
The game looks very oriented towards the harvesting / processing / crafting system so everyone will need (in the long term) high level material processing, if they don't want to pay the high price, how do you find the balance between the scarcity of Freeholds and the growing need for high-level materials from the player base as they progress through the endgame?
- Paid cosmetics
Assuming that most players who have purchased Freehold cosmetics will want to take advantage of them, how do you deal with the possibility (depending on their playstyle) that they may never be able to get a Freehold? Will there be the possibility of House Cosmetics to be used in "In node" housing too ?
Possibility / Impossibility of making other players pay a tax for using processing stations
Won't it be uncomfortable for players to go into a freehold and not be able to process their resources without the owner or family member there? Having an automatic system to create a tax for usage per refined item etc would ease the mental/time load on the player, while making his Freehold more popular for his other trades. I understand that in spirit you may find it more interesting that those who own this kind of high-level factories prefer to sell the processed materials directly to other players or using caravans to involve them in other systems organically . But the fact that family members are always present for these kinds of transactions could perhaps be "painful" in the long run.
Profitability of Freeholds vs Player investment in time and resources
In the end, the fact that freeholds aresought for or not, and all the worries I have come down to how interesting investing in a freehold is, I guess it is given the number of steps required and the time and the resources it requires, but how much? Because it is this profitability that will determine how much players will want to participate in the system. Is it only a question of means / resources for a Freehold to be profitable? Or is the investment of family members in game time to make the most of the freehold versus the sinking of resources & taxes is more important? How long does it take on average to administer a Freehold? Is this only possible for a single person playing 3-4 hours a day? Should he focus only on this aspect of the game?
Freeholds: Disguised shared villages see Corporations?
IF and I mean if freeholds become extremely sought after (for the above reasons) and the real estate market remains high and auctions are inaccessible to single people (at least not for several months) Aren't you afraid that the family system will be hijacked and that players will simply use this system to charge the entry fee or the "share" of access and use of the Freehold? Because it's not a family anymore...it's a business/corporation. Because Freeholds are not only Housing but really more oriented for processing and large-scale trade.
- Availability of "real houses"
How many houses will ultimately be available outside of the freeholds? not counting apartments.
Edited ! 07/02
- the way it has been presented with locking high end skilling (breeding and farming) compiled with the idea that plots will be bid on, sounds like it will create a "rich get richer" environment.
- 45 6 hour days thats 270 hours of gameplay to experience what for some people will be "the fun part" provided they even have the connections or means to win the bidding war against whatever clan/guild owns the main node to begin with.
- the more systems are gatekept like this the more casual players will just play something else that they feel values their time and gives them a realistic chance of achieving their goals.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I understand that the intent is to prevent players from just running around and grabbing everything in sight, so I agree that a solution is needed. I like what Steven said about different bag formats being optimized for different types of resources. I think that with some testing, this could be the right solution.
Weight is not a sufficient solution alone, because realistically, weight is an uneven balance of carrying capacity across different professions. A miner can carry a handful of precious stones and minerals, but an herbalist can carry a ton of high value herbs and berries. It’s just not a fair way to handle carrying capacity. Size and space with stack limits is a better way to balance the system, because it leaves room for obscurity to cheat the realism of various item weights a little. That being said, crafting mini-games are fun, bag management mini-games are not. The limit is good, the technical way in which it’s being restricted seems good, but there needs to be an intelligent auto-sort feature.
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?
Planting crops is good, I like the detail put into choosing how you want to harvest them, developing good crop rotations for soil health, optimizing your crops for the environment they’re planted in, etc. Some of the models need a little work though; I think the foliage artist who made that tomato plant needs to get some more reference images. In general, they all just looked really scrawny. A true field of crops is lush with vegetation, especially when you’re trying to pack as much as you can into a little homestead plot.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Raising livestock is great. Again, I like being able to choose how you want to utilize them. One idea for an alternative use for the pig - it would be fun if players could raise the pig as a truffle/mushroom hunter instead of for meat and command it to go outside the freehold with them on a quick tour of the nearby area and dig up some foragable goodies that players wouldn’t otherwise be able to find easily on their own. To make it even easier (this is a magical world after all) perhaps players could get some unique resources to lay down a plot space with special trees that provide the nutrients/conditions necessary for truffles/mushrooms to spawn within their freehold, so that the player could just walk the pig over there.
Otherwise, I hope the livestock will eventually have better idling patterns. It’s a bit dull when they just stand in one spot and sniff the ground now and then.
As for butchering, it’s an unfortunate but necessary part of the game (and of life) if you want to acquire meat from domesticated animals. What was included in the dev stream is gruesome enough, I think. For despawning, there should be a quick animation after the death of the animal where a player passes over the corpse with a knife (no, not a bunch of blood or dismantling of the body, just a generalized arm movement) after which the corpse fades away and the player receives the materials. That being said, not all farmers are butchers. You should give the player the option of paying a small fee for an NPC butcher to come overnight (perhaps the next time you log off or leave your freehold for more than thirty minutes) and have the meat deposited in a chest in your home. If the chest doesn’t have enough space, the money is refunded and the player is left a letter in their mailbox explaining the issue. Simple.
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?
This is a major thing for me - if I’m putting the time and effort that’s apparently now required to obtain a freehold, I want to be able to customize the walls around it. I very much dislike the idea that all I get are some little fence posts around my property that any old Jack or Jill could see / hop over. If I want to collect the stone required to build some aesthetic, mossy, 8ft tall stone walls around my property with a locked steel entrance gate, I should be able to do that. Sure, players could still get in with strategically ridden gliding or flying mounts, but having some privacy both from a visual and interactive standpoint is paramount for land ownership imo.
Along with this, if I own a tavern or other public building on my freehold, I should be able to position that building so the entrance is set on the edge of the plot and the walls of my freehold connect to the walls on either side of the front door, like so: __\ /__ In addition to this, I should be able to make the back door only passable by me. This could be controlled by making walking out the back door a fixed animation that only applies to me when the door is opened, keeping anyone else trying to “sneak through” inside the building. Personally, I don’t care about having a freehold to be more visible and show off to passersby. I want some privacy. These principals could also be a way of better reinforcing your freehold against a siege if you'd prefer to survive the looting and swear fealty to your new overlords.
I also understand the squared off edges of the perimeter for the sake of efficiency, but being able to customize the freehold in the placement UI to fit the same number of usable plots into a more diverse selection of footprints would be outstanding. I much prefer organic design. Makes it look less like a cheap farming sim and obscures the “mechanical efficiency” that only reminds me I’m playing a game.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Quite a lot, to be honest. I apologize for the length of my commentary, but there are a lot of points to touch on and some potential solutions I have.
I understand that freeholds are supposed to be somewhat rare, but I think there also needs to be heavy consideration as A2 rolls around given towards the balance of risk/reward when it comes to the threat of freehold destruction and how that relates to the manner/difficulty of acquisition.
Sure, different locations in the world and different servers will have different variables at play when it comes to the risk of war, but in general, if I spend months on end grinding the money to purchase a plot of land, and over the following month, a war develops and I lose the land I spent months of time earning money to buy, that’s going to feel terrible. I remember hearing that we get to keep some resources spent on buildings or furniture we placed or something? That it gets mailed to us somehow? That’s fine and all, but what about the monstrous sum of money I had to spend to get the land in the first place? Potentially gone before I even know it, no matter how hard I, personally, fight to defend it.
The only people who will be able to make this huge investment over and over again in order to make freehold ownership a core part of their gameplay throughout the rise and fall of their nodes are the super rich (and the rich get richer through freehold ownership), and that body of players will likely include a sizable number of those who either directly or through guild association benefit from RMT. Even if they aren’t, the players who capture freehold territory first are going to get a huge boost to future income and set themselves up very easily for long-term market domination.
When it comes to scarcity, I fully understand and am on board with preserving the natural design of large swaths of the game world by the use of this freehold-within-a-parcel system, but at what point does all the work put into freeholds become a relative waste? Steven said he thinks freeholds across the game world will be in the “low thousands”, I’d put that number at 3-4k. With a full server of 50k people, you’re suggesting less than 10% of the playerbase will get to experience freehold ownership at a time, and as I stated before, many of those owners will (partly by the nature of owning one) be in a financial position to bully out any competing players trying to enter the market later on, no matter where the gentry move or get forcibly relocated.
That being said, if we look at the size of the landmasses in the new game world - roughly 480 sq km, that equates to almost 120k acres. If we make a (very) rough estimation that half that space will be uninhabitable by freeholds (mountains, sharp inclines, bogs, lakes, node settlements, POIs, rivers, roadways, etc) then we’re left with 60,000 acres. If every player on the server wanted a freehold with a bit of land around it as a buffer, then nearly every remaining habitable space in the game world would have a freehold on it. Every player would get about 1.2 acres. So you’d have to shrink the freeholds down to an acre, put enough room to walk between each one, and hope you can cram everyone’s freehold into non-geometric spaces. Impossible. Even if you made them all half an acre, the vast majority of traversable areas in the game world would be occupied by node settlements or littered with freeholds. It would be awful looking. Not everyone gets a freehold. Sorry / not sorry.
As for solutions to these issues, here’s what I can come up with:
Have freehold plots be attainable through means specific to the ZOI which they exist in. My thoughts are gold bidding for economic, arena victory for military, non-tradeable merit-based currency bidding from quests and world events for divine, and non-tradeable profession-based currency bidding for scientific, which you obtain for advancing profession skill trees, making new discoveries, or completing profession-based achievements. There needs to be a way to separate the means of obtaining a freehold from RMT-accessible currency. I have no doubt the team has every intention to punish this behavior, but with 50k players on a full server, I have serious doubts that RMT will be squashed entirely.
This will also solve the problem (because it certainly is one) of freeholds being traded directly between players. Trading directly would create a system where large guilds (or conglomerations of smaller guilds ultimately acting as one guild) buy up all the land and only sell it between each other, likely favoring higher-ranking officers. Sure, they can get their boat rocked in a siege and lose the land, but they’ll have more than enough money to do it again to some other population somewhere else. That cycle isn’t a solution, it’s just a relocation of the same negative gameplay experience to someplace else. No direct selling. Home value can be an adjusted figure based on the evolution or de-evolution of the node it belongs to, allowing players to invest in the housing market and get a return should they later wish to sell back to the node and reinvest in a larger freehold (getting to that part) or something else.
Offer parcels/freeholds of different sizes. I don’t know exactly how big your current concept of a parcel is, but if we take that same 60k acre of available space estimation and divide it by your current goal of ~3.5k freeholds, that’s 17 acres on each parcel. That’s really not a lot, about a 4x4 acre square with your own freehold occupying 1.5 acres of it. Half the parcel size and you’d barely have enough walking room between freeholds.
However, If you reduce the freehold & parcel size of half the available units to roughly a third (a half acre freehold on a 6 acre parcel), and reduce the other half to two-thirds (a 1 acre freehold on a 9 acre parcel) then the rough 60,000 acre of available space estimate could contain 5k small parcels and roughly 3.5k large parcels. You’re now offering 8.5k freeholds to players of varying levels of in-game investment rather than only 3.5k, using the same total space and same ratio of space between freeholds. 17% ownership on a full server still isn’t great, but it’s better than 7%. Perhaps the smaller parcels can be clustered closer to the node settlements, almost like the surrounding settlements of a city, and the larger parcels can be more rural in the outer spaces between nodes, like actual farmsteads? These numbers are of course very rough estimates, but the same concept applies regardless of the actual numbers.
Giving players stepping stones is vital to helping them achieve larger goals. Going from no freehold to a massive freehold that takes an incredible amount of money to purchase is an enormous obstacle to overcome. But allow more players an easier chance to get a smaller plot, and give them opportunities on that plot to get ahead even further and eventually get a chance at earning a larger freehold, and I think you’ll have a happier community.
Introduce houseboats. The current alternatives to owning a freehold are static in-node housing and instanced apartments. House boats could serve the same purposes as these and provide more opportunities for players to have a livable, customizable space. Perhaps these are exclusive to coastal nodes, and the fun part of owning one is that you get a constant, static dock space outside the city where the houseboat sits? This way it serves the same purpose of granting citizenship of a node that an apartment or other static in-node housing does and gives you some visibility in the world.
With some adjustments, I think the freehold system can be an achievable and fulfilling content loop in the game that doesn’t create opportunities for RMT domination or strangleholds by large guilds. As always, testing is required to really know what form these adjustments will take. Looking forward to it! Thanks for reading/compiling.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
Unsure, the Resident Evil system was interesting as it said you have a case and things have different sizes and shapes and it's fun to tetris things around, i did like the adding bags and you get extra carry capacity, alot of games give you "an extra bag" which just doubles your storage but this looks like how many bags you can hold and what type of bags they are can change your carry capacity.
say you are a scribe and you have a pouch of scrolls (the size of the scrolls are smaller and you can carry more then if you had just your normal inventory slots)
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?
We saw about harvesting but nothing on how to actually plot/plant. is it a square place that locks so you can do rows of stuff easily or do ya just spread the seed over large area and hope the crops come in. I am actually looking forward to this system as I am planning on Freehold Farming and other stuff so i am very excited. But the idea of how do we plan crops? what do you mean by crop rotation? how does that work? does the soil make things easier to grow? more yield? rarer crops (say growing a winter plant in a desert biome?) we saw wheat and tomatoes how would you say plant tomatoes after the wheat? do you harvest the crop then have to retill the land or just plant different seeds? is that the crop rotation? what does it do to rotate crops?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I really like the idea, and I really like the system but had a question. ya killed the pig and got some meat but the corpse was still there. is there like a second harvest the corpse to maybe get bone? leather? other stuff? how long does the dead animal stay there before it despawns? do we have to move the body and dispose of it? will having larger animals yeild more meat and more stuff? considering i also want to try my hand at cooking i was like "pig bone makes good soup broth" can we have more stuff drop to better be killing and using the whole animal? is that part of the farming tier abilities? (say for the pig 2 meat, 2 choice meat (say ribs), 1 leather, 1 bone?) and one bone and one meat can make a stew? how will harvesting animals work the the cooking mechanic?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Ok i will just let go of my plan for my freehold (hope yall got the menu!) I want to make a tavern/inn that specializes in food and brewing buffs. (and yes even putting down the tables and chairs and bars and the guest rooms so like you want me to talk your ear off for 2 hours on this well just discord call me) so like maybe the tavern I can sell the stuff at and people can come (learn about local monsters, get food buffs, get well rested buffs, stock up on things like arrows or something) so farming the grain/grapes for ale/wine farmland is needed, a place to brew/distill would be needed so like a brewery/winery/distillery building would be needed. places to put animals needed to make the tavern food would be needed (basically what was on the stream)
I would like to customize my house alot maybe put the cooking refinements in my house (a really nice kitchen and dining room where i can experiment to get new recipes for the tavern.
The Freehold should be able to say craft 1 thing from start to finish. say raise the animals to make the stew and harvest them, then refine the ingredients in the kitchen and cook the meals and then finally craft the meals in the tavern for the best buffs. I know you don't want all the processing done on the Freehold but the idea of a self sustaining freehold that can gather and refine and craft say 1 grandmaster recipe if you build and allocate the land correctly should be doable
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview? HONESTLY THE WHOLE THING GOT ME EXCITED AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR SPOT TESTING ALPHA 2 PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SENPAI NOTICE ME!!!!
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
unsure if this is concerned...but was wondering could you have a place to tie up the mounts instead of just dismounting and them standing there? maybe a stable or something like where they used to tie up horses in old towns? how long does it take the pig to despawn after you kill it cause i never saw it despawn in the preview.
I would honestly like showing how the entire freehold was made from bare land laying the "this is my plot freehold space" to building the house, it was really cool to see the freeholds and what it can do but i really am the type of person who will spend most of the week customizing/saving a freehold type place (i play alot of Icarus right now to get my fix) no really if there as an alpha 2 "here is your spot of land go crazy making stuff" i would spend DAYS just customizing a freehold and being happier then a pig in mud
However I have some concerns to them.
First off, what about players who will never be able to get a freehold? If they have purchased any skins for the freeholds then they will never be able to use them and will have wasted money. Not everyone will be able to get a freehold because if you don't start grinding for money immediately when the game comes out then you will be significantly behind and no matter what you do other players (especially those in large groups) will have more money to win the auctions and get the freeholds. New players will never be able to achieve a freehold because of how progression in the game is going to work and can only be jealous of people who have access to parts of the game that they will never be able to experience. I feel that its not fair to players who just want to experience everything the game has to offer. I feel that not having enough freeholds for every player gives a sense of hopelessness to those who see the amount of work it will take to accomplish getting a freehold and making players feel hopeless is a good way to lose them.
Second, how will players who don't have freeholds craft high tier equipment? Every game I have played where only certain players have access to resources they 100% of the time become extremely greedy with those resources. If only certain players have access to high tier processing then they will not let anyone else have access to it and given that this game has a focus on pvp then they will likely not give access to it even by trade. What I see happening is that no one will get the chance to fight back against players who already have everything because they will have no way to earn the high level gear themselves. Its extremely exploitable and I can say with utmost certainty that many players will band together to control as much as they can and no one else will be able to get anything.
Allow me to give an example. I have just completed the quest that unlocks the ability to get a freehold. I go to the auction with my hefty sum of gold and am very excited to finally be able to craft some high tier equipment. However in the auction I see that someone has already put down an amount that is more than double my gold. How is this possible? I spent days doing quests and taking on jobs and selling materials to get all of this gold how on earth can these people have more than me? Well behind the scenes it turns out that a group of players have banded together to take over the area completely. One of there group already is mayor of the node who has friends that control the businesses within and all of them have been feeding gold into this one guy who will be the one placing crafting stations to further increase the power of his team. After my inevitable loss at the auction I try to contact the man who won to ask if he will make my equipment for me given that I provide the right materials. No response. I try again and even go to the node where I am killed by him or his buddies and I drop my materials that I was going to give to make my equipment. After losing my hard earned materials and not being able to get the freehold due to a rigged auction I promptly leave the game to await either an update that fixes everything which could take months or even years or I wait until the team of people controlling the freehold and node eventually get bored so I can try my luck again.
Now I know what some people may be thinking, that this is avoidable if you join a group or if you manage to make a name for yourself within the node then maybe they will let you have the freehold so you can help them. Well that is not likely and by not likely I mean its pretty much not even possible. If I had a group of friends that I have been playing games with for years and some guy showed up with good gear and nice skill, I would still choose my friends who I have known for years and trust to take the freehold. These problems are bound to happen the way things are now, its unavoidable.
What can the devs do to fix this? Well they can make freehold available to everyone no matter what (aside from doing a quest and spending a set amount of resources and gold) and make a freehold spot for every player slot on the server. The problems with this fix is that it would mean having to make the server size smaller as to not flood the world with freeholds which to me seems like it would be an okay thing to do. It would make it so that some areas of the world are populated by monsters and wildlife instead of players so that not every single area will have a bunch of towns and cities.
I feel that freeholds should be something everyone should have, not just the powerful who have been playing longer than anyone else, only event specific things should be saved for those people.
That was a lot and thank you to those who read everything.
I hope someone reads this, because i put a lot of thought and effort into this post
Overall i was very pleased with this livestream/update.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
- I think the size of the Material inventory is good. Maybe it could get to big if you can craft larger bags later on.
- I also realy like that it is a different tab, which realy helps with keeping the inventory in order.
What I dislike about it:
- The Tetris kind of part to it. I get what your tring to achive with it, to make inventory management more intresting and fun, but I think for most people its just unnessesary and inconvinient. I would enjoy a more simplistic style.
- That its divided into smaller inventories for each bag. I think one big Inventar screen and the bag slots at the top is better.
What I think would be best:
An seperat material inventory where every material I have is listed and the amount is next to it. and you can get different kind of bags which give you more space or other functionalitys for certain kind of Categorys.
And you can open spoilers which you need.
My example (values are only to visualise and need to be balanced ofc):
For my example if werre to focus on Mining. I would get a general bag which gives +10 slots to everything, so I can have random things I find or trade and 3 bags for Minerals which give +25 to Minerals, because thats what i need.
How i imgane it to look like:
Minerals:
Wood:
Animal husbandry:
I think this will make it simple, easy and convenient to use and understand on one hand, and also realy make the choice with your bags impactfull.
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?
One minor concern:
If you are only able to harvest and plant season dependent. Will there be enough goods output to sustain the market with basic things you might need, because I can imagine especially at launch you might run out of things in winter/spring and you need to wait until autumm again to harvest. I guess this can be balanced but i think you should keep an eye on it, because 3 weeks waiting between crops that only grow once per "year" might be to long of a time for people.
Ideas you probably have thought of already:
something like scarecrows as a placeable object would intresting if they can increase the yield of crops in a area. ( you could also sell nice skins for that on halloween
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
-Gathering reasources could be a bit tedious if you have to do them one by one, maybe a little cow/horse that pulls some farming equipment that plants or harvests a larger area at once could be intresting, or some kind of magic that is used for that.
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?
First of, i think bidding for Freeholds and not doing landgrab is an improvement.
I think putting Freeholds as a novalty is a mistake, because its a feature many people are looking forward to. I have played Archeage and ff14, so i have seen how crazy people are over it.
I know there will be taverns and instanced housing inside a city, but its just not the same. especially if they see other people having freeholds.
I think putting good and fun things of a game behind a wall, where you have to put a lot of effort in is a bad idea. Especially with such a fundemental game mechanic. There will be lots of people who play the game, who just want to do trading and farming etc.
And not all of those people will have enough time to compete with people like me who have no job and will play the game 12+ hours a day. I think its just not fair.
Suggestion:
I personally would just make more spots for housing maybe certain zones are full of it. like with the later archeage updates, they did that a lot. So people dont have to worry about if they can get a spot, but they will instead try to get the best ones, which is fine. And people who dont care about the system can just get a instanced house or dont want to get raided as easily when sieges happen can get instant housing in citys.
tldr.: You put something fun and fundemental into the game especially for crafting etc. and then prevent a lot of people from getting access to it.
I don't care too much about the whole drama atm regarding the scarcity of Freeholds. If the change gets reverted so Freeholds become more widely available I'd be fine with that, if not I don't care. My only bit of feedback is please don't revert the Freehold size back to 0.5 acres. If you do, at least give the option to upgrade your freehold size from 0.5 back to 1.5 through the use of in-game resources. Of course making Freeholds widely available would mean the map would seem more "littered" with Freeholds, so I'm not sure how to fix that beyond expanding the land size. Maybe reduce the gap between Freeholds from 150m as that does seem a bit big (even though there should definitely be a gap as ArcheAge didn't really have a gap between plots and it made it look really cluttered and ugly).
I'm not a fan of the "only family can use your freeholds facilities" idea. I think it'd make more sense to have a permissions list that you can manually add people to which allows them to use your freehold facilities. Some people have said to just make Freehold facilities "usable by anyone for a fee", but I think the owner should be manually required to put you on a permissions list as it means there needs to be some sort of social interaction between the two players. Player A who wants to use Player B's freehold has to come up to them and say "yo, can I use your freehold facilities" to which Player B either allows or doesn't. Ofc, the owner should be able to decide whether or not to charge the people on the permissions list too each time they use the facilities.
Regarding freehold accessibility, you could also make it so there are different freehold plot sizes. So have 0.5 acres that are easily accessible and there are enough plots for anyone to feasibly get (given they put in the effort), but also have 1.5 acre freeholds as shown on stream which are more difficult to obtain.
I still want little to do with nodes though but I'm sure I can work around these issues. I don't have to own a freehold but I think I know what plan of action to initiate if I do get hold of a freehold. I will have to liaise with guild affiliations and my family to come to an end application.
Thank you for your dedication,
Neurath
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
The Tetris-style inventory is interesting and different. That in itself doesn't necessarily mean good. As a general rule, the less time and focus inventory management takes, the better.
Now, based on what was shown, I'm working under the assumption that the shape of resources and the odd patterns of space in the bags are meant to be used as a soft limit to what resources can be held in a bag, rewarding specialisation while also allowing someone that kills you to pick up at least some of what you dropped.
And I cant help but wonder if it wouldn't be better to just stick with larger specialised bags that have a hard limit in what they can hold, and smaller bags that can hold everything. It still gives the ability to spec towards what you will be doing, but with less inventory-management-hassle.
In programming, there is this notion of avoiding clever solutions to a problem when there are straight-forward ones, because the clever ones usually confuse others later down the road or straight up comes back to bite you in the ass. I cant help but wonder if that is applicable for this too.
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 so far. Would need to know more to be able to say more. Once concern is the time it would take to harvest and reseed a large field. Could probably get tedious quickly.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Looks good so far. Would need to know more to be able to say more. I did enjoy the animations, and the thought that seems to have gone into them, to even have him reassure the pig as he slits it throat.
It might be an unecessary level of realism though for most people though...
What kind of customisation do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Placement and rotation of anything on it.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The whole thing looks awesome, but it is hard to get really hyped over something that is limited to such a degree.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I can fully get behind the idea that it is a privilege to leave your mark on the map, and the "achievement" of it all being something very few can have.
I am however very disappointed in having artisan-skills (for example husbandry and processing) limited in the same way. While I agree that reaching the pinnacle of any craft should require time and effort, I think that having that be at the level of privilege is taking it too far. Limiting "core" systems of the game in that way will in my humble opinion, limit player agency too much. With freehold owners not having a systemic way to rent out parts of their processing or fields to other players, this limit becomes much more apparent.
As for how to acquire freeholds, a lot has been said already. My two cents is that the system itself seems far too prone to "snowballing", and with it affecting artisan-skills in the way it currently does, I cant really say I like it. It's leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Ideally, money should not be a consideration to acquiring them, even if it is a part of the upkeep.
The problem with relying on money is that for money "the sky is the limit", so smaller groups and later arrivals will rarely, if ever, be able to compete. So I would argue that relying on systems that have caps or soft caps, such as tasks, quests, reputation or even dumb luck would be a much better solution for the system to feel relevant for players that join 1,2 or even 3 years in.
Re-sale of Freeholds seems like something that doesn't really add that much to the game, but invites a lot of potential trouble. The risk-reward of implementing that into the game seems out of whack to me, and the safer option would probably be to just not do it.
Based on what I have seen in other games, and based on how the current system is designed, I would strongly advise against trusting the player-base to self-regulate this in a manner that will be healthy for the game.
As a separate note, allowing PVP on a freehold is probably a bad idea. I can see a lot of people even avoiding the businesses on there just to avoid the risk associated with going there. And that's without touching on the nightmare of dealing with people taking out their frustration in not getting a freehold on anyone that has one. If the freeholds themselves are safe, that frustration will target the node instead, which will be more healthy for the game in the long run.
Inventory all looked pretty awesome, need to test it in game to know for sure.
The Crops seem amazing, I'm also curious if you can plant fruit trees and lumber trees.
Livestock looks like it will be fun, I wonder what the limits are on how many you can pack into one pen.
For Customization i hope the boundaries are very refined so that we can place buildings almost touching each other, or crops right up against fences without having wide "no placement" zones around every individual item.
I'm Excited about plotting out my land and figuring out which buildings to place on it and making it look beautiful
Concerns:
-Bidding system seems to favor large groups or those who cheat.
-RMT sellers hoarding houses to sell to all those desperate for housing.
-Large guilds incentivized to buy up all the land and sell for markup prices or for all their members.
-Greifers blocking doorways on your freehold buildings and home.
-Greifers killing players who are on the freehold as they craft, or killing them every time they leave the house.
-Players being griefed or harassed by other players who want that plot of land in an attempt to force them to sell it to them.
Solution ideas:
2.) Acquiring the freeholds is a hard one to solve, but maybe there can be a sort of merit system in place where the more of a certain type of quests or good deeds you do you get merits, and also people who craft/gather/process a lot and sell on the market can get merits as well. So overall being active and playing and interacting with other players in positive ways and with the economy will build your merits. With these merits you can bid on a house and the one who puts forth the highest merits will win. The difference between this and gold is that merits are account bound so no trading or RMT buying gold with real money to buy houses. People have to play the game themselves to earn merits and then use them all up to win a bid on a house, then pay the full gold price of that house to own it.
3.) Remove selling of houses, this way if someone wants to get rid of the house it goes into open auction for anyone to bid on with the merits i talked about above, then when it is sold, the person selling the house will get a portion of the houses full gold price. This will mean that there will always be houses going onto the open market as opposed to once all houses are sold they will all be private sales between individuals. This will also stop large guilds from being able to make a profit trying to buy and sell houses, because they cant sell to one person in particular and they wont gain any extra money because they will only be able to earn the original house gold cost back.
4.) The merit system working separately from the gold system will also help manage what type of activities they can be earned from. so instead of some bot farming gold all day to use on houses, you know that merits have to be earned doing legit activities and if you find bots farming them from a specific gameplay loop too effectively you can lower their drop rate from that specifically without effecting the economy much
5.) For Griefing, if you make it so that within freehold boundaries players and mounts can all pass through each other it will stop body blocking. Also if you stop player to player sales of houses it might stop people from harassing players to sell their land. Maybe some people will still do it to try to buy the land with merits but someone else could still outbid them so its a big risk.
6.) If the merit system wont work at all at least make it so players cant sell the house directly to other players. Make it so it goes on open market so the RMT sellers cant sell to someone who gives them real money.
These are just some ideas i came up with. i See a lot of people complaining they don't like Steven's ideas but not many are offering better solutions. I know there are probably many flaws in my ideas people will point out shortly, but hopefully it will inspire new ideas or iterations of this idea so we can all come up with a great final product together.
But that will absolutely 100% not be the case. Guilds will be real lucky if they get any freeholds. You know how much money has been spent in WoW for 1 single unlimited quantity uncommon raid item, that doesn't have a grandmaster crafting bench attached to it lol? Thousands of US dollars..
Now imagine if this game does pretty decent and what people will pay for a freehold.
There is no stopping RMT, it's literally impossible to stop and the only way you can put a dent in it is removing player traded gold, limiting stack sizes, limiting trade window slots, possibly having that economic algorithm or whatever Intrepid calls it value items and force semi-fair trades(think this would cause more harm than help), level restricting trades(to stop mules), have variable drop rates(to obscure prices, though I think this would fit well into AoC dynamic world either way) and a few other things.
But that doesn't stop it, that just hinders it, causes the price for currency(because something else other than gold will become currency, like orbs in PoE or runes in D2) to go through the roof and only lets very wealthy people RMT. Which in the case of freeholds might be better than not doing it.
The best option however is not making freeholds bound by currency and having some other system to decide who gets them. Something like the system that is used to decide mayors for each type of node.