Bidding is a terrible way to handle freeholds

Hi,

in my opinion bidding is and will be a horrible way to handle things.

It's an easy solution, and I get that Steven thinks "wouldn't it be cool if you can bid and trade these things etc.".

But it's a game, an MMO and you have to think about the implications.
Even in nodes etc. it's already clear that in most cases they will be ruled by large guilds. Also open pvp dungeons, fortresses etc.

Now we will have another aspect of the game that is highly locked for non super hardcore players. They (the guilds) will just collect money from their members and will win every single auction in a node and potentially sell these things.

And especially since the highest crafting tiers are locked behind freeholds, they will even get richer over time, because these guilds have the monopoly on top tier crafting.

I know that a node cannot be owned by a guild, but of course a guild can place their leader as a major. Instead of locking out other node citizens by keeping top tier crafting in freeholds, the big groups should contribute to the node itself and make the node special, good for other players and a desirable place. Top tier crafting should be shifted to node cities again!

New players will never ever have a chance to get access to such freeholds if the mechanic is handled this way.
Honestly I am thinking how intrepid can seriously think, that this is the way to go, i can barely think of a worse way to handle it.

It's okay that it's a big achievement, and you have to do something, but just putting a big price label on it feels so cheap.

What alternatives do we have?

A fixed price - first come first serve
drop in pvx
a questchain
a certain contribution to the "node XP" in general

I really hope that they will change this system.

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Comments

Songcaller

Basically, read up on l2 and then accept a lot of l2 parameters will be in Ashes. I'm not saying its always a good thing though.

Noaani

Biddding on freeholds is PvP!

Liniker

I like it

Garrtok

Liniker wrote: »

I like it

Why? How?

Liniker

Garrtok wrote: »

Why? How?

I always thought freeholds were going to be extremely limited and guilds would be the first to acquire the majority of them, I've been saying this for years, whoever thought casual players would be playing their farmville fantasy being a Master farmer/breeder just don't understand the game.

There are 3 types of Housing, only 1 out of 3 is being made as extremely rare and group focused, how is that bad?

The argument for P2W is also one of the worst an most ridiculous arguments I've been reading, because we will have LEGENDARY UNIQUE items that only 1 per server exist on an open economy with free trading.

How is RMT around freeholds an "issue" but not RMT around literal gear = Power lol people are just trying to find random reasons to complain.

In regards to the bidding system, whoever thought a casual player had Any chances to get a freehold, housing, BiS gear or anything at all in AoC before the biggest guilds never played EVE, L2, Archeage, or pretty much any MMO that Ashes takes inspiration from.

You need to be level 50 to unlock the freehold, so zero chance any casual will get there before the tryhards, and if gold is involved zero chance to get any large amount of gold before the tryhards.

So the 90% would already be left out in pretty much every scenario, however, they can still save up gold and buy one, someday.

Or they can accept what Steven has been saying for years that "not everyone will be a winner" and be happy with the other 2 types of housing.

Flying mounts, castles, legendary gear, world bosses, there are many things out of reach for players that do not want to be part of those large guilds, not only freeholds. Just like in every MMO that AoC takes inspiration from.

Noaani

Liniker wrote: »

Just like in every MMO that AoC takes inspiration from.

Actually, both SWG and Archeage (two games Ashes takes inspiration from) had fairly plentiful player owned land.

Archeages first month was a little hard to find space, but that was fixed fairly quickly.

Garrtok

Liniker wrote: »

Garrtok wrote: »

Why? How?

I always thought freeholds were going to be extremely limited and guilds would be the first to acquire the majority of them, I've been saying this for years, whoever thought casual players would be playing their farmville fantasy being a Master farmer/breeder just don't understand the game.

There are 3 types of Housing, only 1 out of 3 is being made as extremely rare and group focused, how is that bad?

The argument for P2W is also one of the worst an most ridiculous arguments I've been reading, because we will have LEGENDARY UNIQUE items that only 1 per server exist on an open economy with free trading.

How is RMT around freeholds an "issue" but not RMT around literal gear = Power lol people are just trying to find random reasons to complain.

In regards to the bidding system, whoever thought a casual player had Any chances to get a freehold, housing, BiS gear or anything at all in AoC before the biggest guilds never played EVE, L2, Archeage, or pretty much any MMO that Ashes takes inspiration from.

You need to be level 50 to unlock the freehold, so zero chance any casual will get there before the tryhards, and if gold is involved zero chance to get any large amount of gold before the tryhards.

So the 90% would already be left out in pretty much every scenario, however, they can still save up gold and buy one, someday.

Or they can accept what Steven has been saying for years that "not everyone will be a winner" and be happy with the other 2 types of housing.

Flying mounts, castles, legendary gear, world bosses, there are many things out of reach for players that do not want to be part of those large guilds, not only freeholds. Just like in every MMO that AoC takes inspiration from.

What a rubbish response. Its like youre not saying what specifically is good about the bidding decision, youre just justifying it. That other MMOs do it also doesnt mean its good.

Azherae

Garrtok wrote: »

Liniker wrote: »

Garrtok wrote: »

Why? How?

I always thought freeholds were going to be extremely limited and guilds would be the first to acquire the majority of them, I've been saying this for years, whoever thought casual players would be playing their farmville fantasy being a Master farmer/breeder just don't understand the game.

There are 3 types of Housing, only 1 out of 3 is being made as extremely rare and group focused, how is that bad?

The argument for P2W is also one of the worst an most ridiculous arguments I've been reading, because we will have LEGENDARY UNIQUE items that only 1 per server exist on an open economy with free trading.

How is RMT around freeholds an "issue" but not RMT around literal gear = Power lol people are just trying to find random reasons to complain.

In regards to the bidding system, whoever thought a casual player had Any chances to get a freehold, housing, BiS gear or anything at all in AoC before the biggest guilds never played EVE, L2, Archeage, or pretty much any MMO that Ashes takes inspiration from.

You need to be level 50 to unlock the freehold, so zero chance any casual will get there before the tryhards, and if gold is involved zero chance to get any large amount of gold before the tryhards.

So the 90% would already be left out in pretty much every scenario, however, they can still save up gold and buy one, someday.

Or they can accept what Steven has been saying for years that "not everyone will be a winner" and be happy with the other 2 types of housing.

Flying mounts, castles, legendary gear, world bosses, there are many things out of reach for players that do not want to be part of those large guilds, not only freeholds. Just like in every MMO that AoC takes inspiration from.

What a rubbish response. Its like youre not saying what specifically is good about the bidding decision, youre just justifying it. That other MMOs do it also doesnt mean its good.

But in order to make the argument you'd have to clarify to Intrepid what the difference between the two content types is.

For a certain player type it's fine to tell someone 'just live in your instanced housing', if you need Crafting Stations rent them from the landed gentry.

It's just that a lot of people don't play fantasy MMORPGs to be serfs/peasants.

Ludullu

Garrtok wrote: »

What alternatives do we have?
A fixed price - first come first serve

drop in pvx

a questchain

a certain contribution to the "node XP" in general

Just to make sure, you do realize that literally all of those will be dominated by the very guilds that would be able to outbid anyone in the current system, right?

The guilds would be the ones who can come first. The guild will be the ones farming anyone and anything in pvx. The guilds will be the first ones to do questchains (PKing others, if they have to). Guilds are the ones contributing the most.

Like Liniker said, freeholds were literally always a guild thing (or at the very least a party one). People were god damn delusional if they thought that they'd be able to get a freehold solo. The "a ton of effort" that Steven kept saying in reference to freeholds pretty much meant "you'll need to be a hardcore player who'd be high on the guild ladder". But of course people didn't think about that because they thought they were a precious special and unique flower who'll be able to get anything and everything they want.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Garrtok wrote: »

What alternatives do we have?
A fixed price - first come first serve

drop in pvx

a questchain

a certain contribution to the "node XP" in general

Just to make sure, you do realize that literally all of those will be dominated by the very guilds that would be able to outbid anyone in the current system, right?

The guilds would be the ones who can come first. The guild will be the ones farming anyone and anything in pvx. The guilds will be the first ones to do questchains (PKing others, if they have to). Guilds are the ones contributing the most.

Like Liniker said, freeholds were literally always a guild thing (or at the very least a party one). People were god damn delusional if they thought that they'd be able to get a freehold solo. The "a ton of effort" that Steven kept saying in reference to freeholds pretty much meant "you'll need to be a hardcore player who'd be high on the guild ladder". But of course people didn't think about that because they thought they were a precious special and unique flower who'll be able to get anything and everything they want.

There is no reason you wouldn't be able to get a Freehold solo given the original information we had.

Now I accept that I'm just delusional here, but there was no data to indicate that you wouldn't be able to get one.

That doesn't make sense as a design to me when there was another obvious and still core-appropriate way for it to happen.

I'm a periwinkle personally.

Songcaller

I think the packs were sold to cater to everyone - even solo players. Now, we find out we still don't know what we can use the skins on, we also most likely won't be able to use the skins because we'll have to compete with 7 other people in a family who also have skins.

Raven016

Garrtok wrote: »

Even in nodes etc. it's already clear that in most cases they will be ruled by large guilds. Also open pvp dungeons, fortresses etc.
...
New players will never ever have a chance to get access to such freeholds if the mechanic is handled this way.

Unless they join a large guild.
Is it bad to be part of a large guild?
I like to be part of a guild and help it achieve it's goals. I get help too.

Songcaller

In SWG we had three guilds working as one. We had our own cities and our own housing inside the cities. The system was perfect and the worlds were vibrant. Guilds already has guild halls and castles, now guilds also have freeholds. I'm not sure why the castles can't have freeholds attached and the freeholds on nodes can't be for node citizens.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

There is no reason you wouldn't be able to get a Freehold solo given the original information we had.

What information was that though? Maybe I missed something? We've always known that freeholds will be limited due to them being open world. Don't think Steven ever said that literally everyone would have a freehold, it was always "you have the ability to get one". And to me it's just logical to see that anything that's limited and valuable will be gobbled up by big and strong guilds. That's just how things go in games that don't have instanced "everyone gets one" design.

The only "solo" players who might've gotten a freehold outside of a bid system would've been the super hardcore people who played the game non-stop up until there were freeholds on sale. And in, like, 99% of cases those kinds of players would at the very least be in a group, which would then most likely be in a strong guild.

But even w/o that guild, a party like that would literally be able to put a good bid in the current system as well. So literally nothing changed imo. What am I missing?

Depraved

Garrtok wrote: »

Hi,

in my opinion bidding is and will be a horrible way to handle things.

It's an easy solution, and I get that Steven thinks "wouldn't it be cool if you can bid and trade these things etc.".

But it's a game, an MMO and you have to think about the implications.
Even in nodes etc. it's already clear that in most cases they will be ruled by large guilds. Also open pvp dungeons, fortresses etc.

Now we will have another aspect of the game that is highly locked for non super hardcore players. They (the guilds) will just collect money from their members and will win every single auction in a node and potentially sell these things.

And especially since the highest crafting tiers are locked behind freeholds, they will even get richer over time, because these guilds have the monopoly on top tier crafting.

I know that a node cannot be owned by a guild, but of course a guild can place their leader as a major. Instead of locking out other node citizens by keeping top tier crafting in freeholds, the big groups should contribute to the node itself and make the node special, good for other players and a desirable place. Top tier crafting should be shifted to node cities again!

New players will never ever have a chance to get access to such freeholds if the mechanic is handled this way.
Honestly I am thinking how intrepid can seriously think, that this is the way to go, i can barely think of a worse way to handle it.

It's okay that it's a big achievement, and you have to do something, but just putting a big price label on it feels so cheap.

What alternatives do we have?
A fixed price - first come first serve

drop in pvx

a questchain

a certain contribution to the "node XP" in general

I really hope that they will change this system.

why don't you join a guild then? instead of making a 5 people guild, join with your 5 friends to a bigger guild. everybody wants to be guild leader and get everybody to give them gear har har.

this is a PVP game. players compete against each other for the things you can acquire in the game, including freehold. not everybody is a winner.

also consider the following:

not every player will be interested in obtaining a freehold.
guilds, no matter how large, wont have all the players in a server.
guilds, no matter how large have a finite amount of resources, if they compete against each other, they will try to outbid each other and spend all their resources.
even if they get freehold, they wont be able to acquire freehold for all their players faster than other people can bid. example, a guild has 1000 players, they all pool their resources to buy 1 freehold for player 1. now they have to do this again to buy another one for player 2, then 3, etc. while this is happening, there are other players who arent in that guild trying to get a freehold somewhere else.
why everybody wants things for non super hardcore players? as if they are entitled somehow or deserve it more for the hardcore player? so I'm putting 10 hours every day in this game and you are only playing 1-2 a day, and somehow this means you deserve the freehold and I don't? by giving you what you want, you are taking it from me, who is making a bigger effort to get it.
new players will have a chance to get a freehold...because older players will quit or lose their freehold. will be hard, sure, they will have to make money and bid...but again, why the new player deserves it more than the guy who has been playing for months or a year and gathering wealth?

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

In SWG we had three guilds working as one. We had our own cities and our own housing inside the cities. The system was perfect and the worlds were vibrant. Guilds already has guild halls and castles, now guilds also have freeholds. I'm not sure why the castles can't have freeholds attached and the freeholds on nodes can't be for node citizens.

Even if you divorce freeholds from guilds and maybe even literally prevent anyone who's in a guild from bidding on a freehold, people will just leave their guild for the period of bidding, get the freehold with their guild's money and then join back up.

You could maybe completely prevent any relation of freeholds to guilds, so that the person with a freehold could not even join a guild, but at that point you'd alienate the same amount of people as right now, because the whole game is built around being in a guild (ideally).

Freeholds being bought up by guilds was always inevitable.

Songcaller

I don't believe it was an inevitable outcome for guilds to buy up Freeholds. In a non bidding system I could get a freehold in a first come first serve scenario - simple for someone who will play 16 hours a day. Now, in a bidding system I imagine bids can be put in during a set duration, which means, anyone can take the freehold once the gold has been amassed. That means that now, the likelihood I could obtain a freehold solo is next to nil because it won't matter how fast I am at getting the gold, getting to the plot or 'buying' the plot, there will be a window where others can come along and take the freehold for a higher bid.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

There is no reason you wouldn't be able to get a Freehold solo given the original information we had.

What information was that though? Maybe I missed something? We've always known that freeholds will be limited due to them being open world. Don't think Steven ever said that literally everyone would have a freehold, it was always "you have the ability to get one". And to me it's just logical to see that anything that's limited and valuable will be gobbled up by big and strong guilds. That's just how things go in games that don't have instanced "everyone gets one" design.

The only "solo" players who might've gotten a freehold outside of a bid system would've been the super hardcore people who played the game non-stop up until there were freeholds on sale. And in, like, 99% of cases those kinds of players would at the very least be in a group, which would then most likely be in a strong guild.

But even w/o that guild, a party like that would literally be able to put a good bid in the current system as well. So literally nothing changed imo. What am I missing?

Nothing, I guess?

It's just not the first design a person thinking about a game they enjoy will think of given everything else about Ashes.

It's the fact that there's a scale, and the scale has now gone much further to one side than another. So Freeholds were explicitly made bigger, you can't bring them close enough to form communities, and now everyone who wants to do Farming or Animal Husbandry has a 72% chance of being a serf if not in a Guild who in turn has some incalculable chance of seeing or viewing them as a Serf anyway.

Ugh I don't even feel like talking about this, but...

The sensible way was always that Freeholds in GOOD spots were hard to get, and you could strike out to a far Node and have your own much less 'good' place, and at some point there would be people who would consider that 'not worth the time or effort' because it wasn't their play style. This is the healthy way.

The Freeholds are all still subject to danger but if you're living in the outlands with your family in some node no one pays attention to, you'd get one and no one would care because they can't just steamroll your choice with their money.

Do I need to explain the rest? I'm deciding if I'm a flower or a snowflake today.

Fantmx

Liniker wrote: »

whoever thought casual players would be playing their farmville fantasy being a Master farmer/breeder just don't understand the game.

If you lose the casual Farmville fantasy players this game will be a shadow of what it could be.

I've never understood why this is so hard to understand.

I'm a lifetime sub, so dedicated to this game I've been doing a regular show since 2016. The entire time (look our past interviews with Steven) I've only wanted a freehold to farm. That is my role here and a role that is being intentionally created by the development team. My life will simply not allow me to be a hardcore player. So the reality of the current situation is if I am never able to own a freehold and do things I have planned to, and been told all along I could, do I will probably end up living in Pax Dei.

Obviously this will be tested. But you now have a lot of players again considering what their future will actually be in Ashes.

Songcaller

Yeah, I think we lost a lot of players thank to the sea pvp change and we'll lose a lot of players thanks to the freehold change. I guess that's the issue with transparent gaming development. Facets change and its bad to get attached to facets in the early stages.

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