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A Suggestion and A Question about instanced housing
Dezmerizing
Member
I started this thread cause I seek to understand the negative sigma towards instanced housing.
And by this I do not mean Ashes specific "node housing" (although I do not think these are instanced?) nor aparentments, I mean instanced housing in general.
Personally, the best housing experience I've had was many, many, many moons ago in Puzzle Pirates. (Yeah, THAT many moons ago x] ). There were many kind of different buildings, all with a pre-set cost. Any player could buy it and have as many "roomies" as the house permited (larger houses could have more, smaller houses could have less). There were very big houses (castles, if you will) that were reserved for the Kings and Queens of the islands and many very expensive houses that only very rich captains (guild leaders, if you will) and extremely wealthy players could afford. But, there were plenty of smaller options from everything to the free Shack to the more-than-decent houses. They came in all forms and shapes, some with gardens, some with many bedrooms, some with stairs, some with basements etc.... It was an amazing experience to pick your home island, buy a house and commit to your home there. Players also had their own shops where they could sell whatever they desired - tailors, blacksmithers, ship-builders... anything your virtual pirate could desire.
Would a system like this not work for AoC?
As I see it, it would fix a lot of problems.
* It would completely solve the issue of "un-immersive housing all over the place" (problem from AA)
* The type of houses (aka yards, no yards, small houses, big houses etc) would be set by the node mayor - as would the static price. The buildings CANNOT be sold nor traded to other players, and if they buy a house elsewhere, then their house is sold back to the node. (Just like if they'd change apartment, in-node house or freehold)
* Crafting/processing could be offered for these builds, but with much lesser quantity than that of freeholds (and a muuuch slower production/upgrade ladder towards better quality; like 500-1 000% slower than Freeholds).
* It would allow casual players to find a "place of their own" (as Steven put it) within their economy range. Someone who wants to farm could buy a land with a yard, no matter how small etc.
* The casual players would still be in the risk-reward zone as their node can still be destroyed. More housing would also encourage more people to actually defend their node.
* Freeholds would still be very desirable as they'd be bigger than the best instanced houses, and they'd by default have much quicker processing, crafting and upgrades.
* Instanced housing would NOT have NPC helping out with crops, animals and w/e. That is a luxery reserved for the freeholds.
* EDIT: also, this would allow even the casual crowd to use the skins they possibly bought over the years...
Obviously, this would be instead of the apartment AND the in-node design. So it would basically be reduced to FREEHOLDS and INSTANCED NODE HOUSING. I thought it could fit pretty well into the AoC design - and give the casual player base something obtainable. Thoughts?
And by this I do not mean Ashes specific "node housing" (although I do not think these are instanced?) nor aparentments, I mean instanced housing in general.
Personally, the best housing experience I've had was many, many, many moons ago in Puzzle Pirates. (Yeah, THAT many moons ago x] ). There were many kind of different buildings, all with a pre-set cost. Any player could buy it and have as many "roomies" as the house permited (larger houses could have more, smaller houses could have less). There were very big houses (castles, if you will) that were reserved for the Kings and Queens of the islands and many very expensive houses that only very rich captains (guild leaders, if you will) and extremely wealthy players could afford. But, there were plenty of smaller options from everything to the free Shack to the more-than-decent houses. They came in all forms and shapes, some with gardens, some with many bedrooms, some with stairs, some with basements etc.... It was an amazing experience to pick your home island, buy a house and commit to your home there. Players also had their own shops where they could sell whatever they desired - tailors, blacksmithers, ship-builders... anything your virtual pirate could desire.
Would a system like this not work for AoC?
As I see it, it would fix a lot of problems.
* It would completely solve the issue of "un-immersive housing all over the place" (problem from AA)
* The type of houses (aka yards, no yards, small houses, big houses etc) would be set by the node mayor - as would the static price. The buildings CANNOT be sold nor traded to other players, and if they buy a house elsewhere, then their house is sold back to the node. (Just like if they'd change apartment, in-node house or freehold)
* Crafting/processing could be offered for these builds, but with much lesser quantity than that of freeholds (and a muuuch slower production/upgrade ladder towards better quality; like 500-1 000% slower than Freeholds).
* It would allow casual players to find a "place of their own" (as Steven put it) within their economy range. Someone who wants to farm could buy a land with a yard, no matter how small etc.
* The casual players would still be in the risk-reward zone as their node can still be destroyed. More housing would also encourage more people to actually defend their node.
* Freeholds would still be very desirable as they'd be bigger than the best instanced houses, and they'd by default have much quicker processing, crafting and upgrades.
* Instanced housing would NOT have NPC helping out with crops, animals and w/e. That is a luxery reserved for the freeholds.
* EDIT: also, this would allow even the casual crowd to use the skins they possibly bought over the years...
Obviously, this would be instead of the apartment AND the in-node design. So it would basically be reduced to FREEHOLDS and INSTANCED NODE HOUSING. I thought it could fit pretty well into the AoC design - and give the casual player base something obtainable. Thoughts?
1
Comments
I'm quite upset my bright pink and bright purple Py'Rai trees won't ever be planted lol.
I thoroughly enjoyed EQ2 housing. It was still a challenge to get even though it was instanced.
Keep in mind that EVERYTHING in Ashes comes back to the node. The scarcity of Freeholds is a BIG lever to motivate players to invest into a node. For those players (or groups of players) that are able to get a Freehold, that's a BIG reason to protect the node, for those players that want a Freehold it's a BIG reason to compete in all the pre-req'ts within that node (hypothetically growing the economy exponentially). There's a tauntness to this model that has to be managed carefully, as you want enough tension to keep players across the economy engaged, but too much tension and the 'have-nots' will completely disengage - unraveling the player base.
The Rubicon (point of no return) element is that the launch version of the game will be the most difficult version. If it's too hard, you can slide the dynamics toward casual over time. If you launch with a casual configuration (e.g. with instanced Freeholds), you cannot go backward toward a more hardcore stance.
Possibly. But remember that there are games that DID go from casual to more difficult. GW2s first expansion Heart of Thorns went from extremely player friendly open world to MUCH more difficult in the expansion update. The expansion was still quite popular.
And at the same time, because of the very nature of AoC, excluding a target audience will result in many of them not trying the game even if the hardcore philosophy would lessen over time. I guess some players just do not like the feeling of being behind.
If the game do mellow out later, you can somewhat handle the "late starter problem" with fresh start and similar things. You just need to re-ignite the hype, which might or might not be hard depending on how bad the situation is.
They are. As far as we are aware, anyways. :]
Okay cool. Thanks
Good point. I would much prefer this. Give the people who worked for the node to even exist the best chances of acquiring one of the freeholds and in-node housing, instead of just any random high-roller coming through town.
As for instanced housing, I really want the in-world housing to work. I just want more tiers of housing and less exclusivity for the sake of exclusivity.
Funny you say that, because all I see are a handful of loud people desperately trying to defend this bad change to the system, with a lot of people having problems with how limited freeholds now are in contrast.
Was that aimed at me? Because I most certainly do not defend the current system and have voiced my opinion on the matter in multiple threads(as Individuated Soul so kindly noted). :] This was merely a suggestion based on one of my favorite housing systems - and an attempt to understand why people dislike instances housing in general.
Oh. My bad! :']
No worries. I'm not against instanced housing.