Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Player housing/ Freehold proposal since people seem to be worried
Dolyem
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Instead of looking at Freeholds as their own separate thing, people really need to look at them as player housing, and honestly I feel like it'd be a good idea for Intrepid to depict all housing in a Tier system. Such as what follows.
Tier 1: apartments
Tier 2: node level 3 static housing
Tier 3: node level 4 static housing upgrades
Tier 4: node level 5 static housing upgrades
Tier 5: node level 6 static housing upgrades
Tier 6: freeholds
Disclaimer, these are ideas and suggestion for how things can progress amongst player housing.
Tier 1: Apartments would have bare bones housing amenities. Maybe a small garden, a small animal like a chicken that can produce, some storage, and maybe some basic furniture perks and an artisan station (not master)
Tier 2: basic housing amenities with more space than an apartment. Slightly bigger gardening options, maybe a medium animal and small animal. Limited storage yet greater than apartments, limited furniture yet more options than apartments. 2 artisan stations (not master)
Tier 3: moderate housing amenities with more space than tier 2. Slightly bigger gardening options, a couple medium animals and small animals. More storage and furniture options than tier 2. 3 artisan stations (not master)
Tier 4: high housing amenities with more space than tier 3. Bigger gardening options, a large animal, a couple medium animals, and small animals. More storage and furniture options than tier 3. 3 artisan stations, 1 mastered excluding processing.
Tier 5: Royal housing amenities with more space than tier 4. Bigger gardening options, a large animal, several medium animals, and small animals. More storage and furniture options than tier 4 . 3 artisan stations, 2 mastered including processing.
Tier 5: Freehold. Substantially bigger gardening options, a stable option. Top tier storage and furniture options. Artisan stations including mastered processing. Business options. All of the freehold perks mentioned in their showcase. Etc.
Let me know what you all think of this as compared to "oh God I can't have a freehold so the game is ruined"
Tier 1: apartments
Tier 2: node level 3 static housing
Tier 3: node level 4 static housing upgrades
Tier 4: node level 5 static housing upgrades
Tier 5: node level 6 static housing upgrades
Tier 6: freeholds
Disclaimer, these are ideas and suggestion for how things can progress amongst player housing.
Tier 1: Apartments would have bare bones housing amenities. Maybe a small garden, a small animal like a chicken that can produce, some storage, and maybe some basic furniture perks and an artisan station (not master)
Tier 2: basic housing amenities with more space than an apartment. Slightly bigger gardening options, maybe a medium animal and small animal. Limited storage yet greater than apartments, limited furniture yet more options than apartments. 2 artisan stations (not master)
Tier 3: moderate housing amenities with more space than tier 2. Slightly bigger gardening options, a couple medium animals and small animals. More storage and furniture options than tier 2. 3 artisan stations (not master)
Tier 4: high housing amenities with more space than tier 3. Bigger gardening options, a large animal, a couple medium animals, and small animals. More storage and furniture options than tier 3. 3 artisan stations, 1 mastered excluding processing.
Tier 5: Royal housing amenities with more space than tier 4. Bigger gardening options, a large animal, several medium animals, and small animals. More storage and furniture options than tier 4 . 3 artisan stations, 2 mastered including processing.
Tier 5: Freehold. Substantially bigger gardening options, a stable option. Top tier storage and furniture options. Artisan stations including mastered processing. Business options. All of the freehold perks mentioned in their showcase. Etc.
Let me know what you all think of this as compared to "oh God I can't have a freehold so the game is ruined"
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Comments
And less in number than freeholds. They also will allow for only plants in pots. No gardens.
They did speak about being able to have plots for processing in the nodes though up to tier 3. I look at it as something of a community garden.
Maybe you can’t really animal husbandry a giant flying lizard bird, but you could breed a few horses and stuff. Or farm a crop or 2.
I’ve always pictured those being in the open world but who knows what they’ll actually look like. I’m hoping we get to see a bit about them in this months showcase for sure.
*edit*
Oh well nvm I hadn’t seen that nodes was moved to next month. Oh wells. Excited to see what they’ve done with the cleric none the less.
That said, since freeholds have such drastically different functionality to the other housing options, it is not simply a part of that tier system.
What the hell is a leasehold? Hahaha
And I mean, they are housing, just uber housing, which is why I put them at the top. Call them tier 10 to emphasize difference if you want.
This leads me to a possibly derailing counterquestion that I hope at least a few people can take seriously since I don't want to make a thread for it. If it hijacks yours, I'll remove it, so lmk @Dolyem.
I have no idea how to interact with Ashes forums anymore. It's never been the best place for me, and my group basically noped out since the last livestream (not due to the changes nor from following the game, just from forums) and I have been 'released from duty'.
The short version as to why is that if I were to elaborate on my first line, it would become pointless. Most people currently around didn't care to hear much reasonings in the first place. Only a few people who have a response other than 'Intrepid should do their thing and then we will test it' even seem to think it matters anymore, and of course I know there are some people who would actively prefer that I left/continued to stay away, I just don't know if that's the majority of forumers now.
So I can answer your question in one line, refuse to elaborate, and leave (the thread), or I can run the gauntlet for no benefit, with no 'requirement', and with no recent sign that this matters to Intrepid at all.
This design alleviates none of my concerns, as a Logistician/Econ player/whatever you want to call it. But I have a negative response toward 'trying to have a discussion about it here', so:
1) Is this answer enough?
2) Was it worth giving at all considering that I have switched to considering discussion 'below priority'?
The concept I have been talking about since the day of the freehold livestream to fix the issue.
Allow people that own a freehold location to lease out portions of that larger area in which they can place their freehold to up to three (node level depending) other players. These players can then place a leasehold property the size of the original freehold in that area, and pay a lease to the freehold owner.
The amount of problems this fixes makes it a no-brainer.
In-Node Housing might be fewer in number than Freeholds.
Hope that's not my fault.
I always love to hear your perspective, so I would love for you to share some it - hopefully more than just one line, but whatever you feel comfortable with.
I always really enjoy your perspectives, even (especially?) when we disagree, so sure, take a break, but I hope you come back with your usual elaborations at some point.
he wont. thats what he does. then never replies. just a way to stop people from disagreeing with him
This sounds like a terrible idea honestly. You're exponentially increasing the amount a freehold owner can earn without really putting in much effort outside of what it takes to earn the freehold. Once that occurs you just sit on it and earn money from other players who rent a piece of a freehold yet they all still have a full sized freehold? Makes no sense to me as far as good design goes. On top of that, imagine running 4 accounts and basically leasing to yourself to literally have 3 freeholds plus whatever is left of the original for space.
I agree, this isn't a post to say they shouldn't be exclusive, this is just a way to say there are still other forms of housing for casuals besides freeholds
I'll admit I didn't see the point of explaining whether or not you should post on the forums anymore in a discussion about freeholds.
And I'm not sure what your stance is on this post other than you don't agree.
Yeah their post blew my mind with self importance that nobody actually cares about.
Both good points.
Seems like Azherae needs to find her safe space and take time to heal.
for who tho? bc for most people that are happy playing WoW, FF14, GW2 or will be happy with the Riot MMO - Ashes was always a "lesser game" for the pvp and risk vs reward design, some people are just finding that out
the game was never meant to be for everyone, myself and multiple other communities are happy with the design and will be supporting the game hopefully for as long as other niche games like EVE been online (+20 years)
And then there was the bait and switch from Meaningful Conflict (and Corruption active everywhere) to an obsession with Risk v Reward - where the rewards are basically just more loot (which is not any more meaningful than any other PvP/PvX MMORPG.)
You should know better than to assume I haven't thought these things through, and obviously I Wasn't going to give a full overview of the suggestion in a post designed to introduce you to it.
Two main points - first, if you have a leasehold on your estate, your taxes for said estate go up.
Second, while it isn't something you bought up, it would essentially require an addition to the freehold system whereby a player can only have permissions to use one freehold or leasehold at a time (something that probably should exist anyway).
The idea here is that a player with a freehold will want to lease out the space they have in order to make more money, but in doing so increases the taxes they pay. The decision to open land up to having a leasehold is permanant, so that player would want someone in place that is willing and able to have that land long term.
If a freehold has space for 6 buildings (I think that is correct), a leasehold that is a third the size has space for 2. If we assume that a homestead is required before placing down any profession buildings, that means a freehold can contain 5 profession buildings while a leasehold can only have one. This is a key aspect of maintaining balance, and keeping actual value in a freehold.
The person that owns the leasehold has to pay their lease to the freehold owner, and since it is a fairly high amount based on how much land they have, that player really needs to maximize the use of their land in order to make a profit back from the leasehold.
Now, some people may just lease land out to guild members rather than other players. That is where the notion of only being able to access one leasehold or freehold comes in. The hope there is that as guilds gain what is needed to upgrade buildings and/or workbenches on a freehold, it becomes more profitable to the player and guild for that player to gain access to the freehold. The idea here being it should be better for any give guild member to have access to 5 upgraded profession buildings than one that isn't (or isn't yet) upgraded. Since a player (account) can't have access to both that freehold and the leasehold, the idea here is that as the freehold gets upgraded, the leaseholds will be passed on to other players.
Obviously, some guilds will attempt to keep these things all in house - that's all good. Some people and guilds will happily lease them out to others, opening up land ownership to people that otherwise wouldn't have a shot.
But you're also providing instanced freeholds for the ones leasing, which itself is a problem for how freeholds are designed to be part of the open world. What happens during a siege? Can those leased freeholds buy even more guards for the freehold?
And how would the taxes be determined? A flat rate, or by the mayor? Could the freehold owner choose how much to charge?
I'm not sure how one let alone 3 players get an entire freehold from a part of one.
The only way I can think of to make your idea more feasible is just to allow players the option to allow other players to purchase services to use their freehold buildings.
Edit: or to keep freehold owners from being too wealthy, those service fees go to the node.
When you get a deed to a freehold, you have a whole estate that you can then pick a location within where you place your freehold. The estate is fairly large, the freehold is fairly small in comparison to the whole estate. The leasehold is even smaller than the freehold.
The idea of the leasehold is that it can be also placed on that same estate, but somewhere other than where the freehold is. Thus, both exist in the world at the same time, in different locations, but within the same estate.
They may, for example, be right next to each other. Or, one may be at one end of the estate, while the other is at the other end. Or it may be something in between. Essentially, think of it more like houses on a street. Just because the houses (freeholds and leaseholds) are on the same street (estate), that doesn't mean they are all in the same location.
As for how the taxes would be determined, without more information on taxes it is impossible to give specifics. All that needs to be said is that the tax increase should be enough to make sure that if you have added leasehold plots to your estate, you will want to make sure they are always full. This is because the additional tax exists in part as an incentive to keep these freeholds full.
As to whether leaseholds can hire guards - that is so besides the point that I personally don't actually care. I may care about things like that when (when, not if) a system like this is in the game, but right now it really is immaterial to the discussion.
This only addresses a part of the issue. It is a major part, to be fair, but only a part.
As to your comments about preventing freehold owners getting too waelthy - if a server has 1000 freeholds, the top 1000 people will own them. This is almost a guarantee, as they will generate wealth for their owner in addition to what ever other means other players have for generating wealth.
I don't hate it. From the way you originally worded it it sounded like you were saying to have each lease grant a full plot.
I would.be concerned with visual clutter, unless it consequently made the original freehold smaller.
No, you know that I disagree for logistics/Econ reasons, and that I want to know if you care about that.
You could make up almost any 'solution' to the 'problem' with the information we have. And if I disagree with it, I have to deal with the half dozen 'But Intrepid would just design it without that flaw you pointed out'.
You could make up pretty much anything, there's always someone who will go 'yeah that will probably work' if their priors or preferences line up. And then get into a circular argument with people whose priors don't line up and refuse to adapt them.
I don't know that you even care about the Economy aspect of this, some people are rating 'less visual clutter' higher than 'better economic state of the server' in their priorities. I believe that you're empathetic enough to see why I wouldn't want to write 9000 words to explain 'why this fucks up the Economy' to then get the 10 word answer: "They can make it work, besides, it's less visual clutter."
If not, so it is.