Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Im not a fan of my game time not rewarding me with something. Not everyone plays MMOs to make friends. Sorry to say but "Show me the money!"
Showing a tree in the path of the caravan that can not be chopped up, clearing the path, only to be rapidly followed by a npc raider event, isn't risk vs reward. It's risk upon risk and we didn't even get to see the added risk of pvp.
I also would like to see stacks in caravan storage, maybe a glint reward for completing such risky adventure.
I would also like to see insurance on shipments, so a failed risk does not equal total loss. Let's say I am a shady hired Caravan Merchant hauling other players valuables... What prevents me from informing my pirate guild of when and where to just defeat me and take the other player(s) supplies, leaving them with nothing.
Will there be a reputation mechanic so players can see how many lost and delivered caravans one has?
EVE online has a pretty good mechanic for this, and logistics is still a costly and risky business without falling trees and npc robberies.
Will the player I hire to caravan my goods be able to see what's in my crates?
We will be able to agro Steven!
https://youtu.be/Sc7HJknNqjQ?t=1468
Overall, I thought the core caravan system: spawn a caravan, move from point A to point B, overcome obstacles, and get paid was great. I thought the system looked really fun, and it has the potential to offer a ton of repeatable and adaptable content.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Caravan system?
As above, I was excited by the potential of repeatable content. I tend to play MMOs with a small group of friends, and I think it could be fun to join up as mercenaries defending/attacking caravans with others. It seems like a great opportunity for Pick up Groups.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan System Preview?
I was mainly concerned with some of the aspects related to caravans (more below), and that the new caravan spawning system could be abused by larger guilds since players have potentially less visibility on safety. However, the overall direction seems great, and I think I could enjoy the new system if it's balanced to equally favor large and small caravan groups.
I had a lot of mixed feelings and apprehensions related to Glint and Commodities as they were explained in this showcase. First, it seemed like Steven was saying there are 5 types of currencies within the game: Gold, Glint, Commodities, Node Commodities, and Player Crafting Material (raw and processed). Also, each of these seems like it has it's own unique set of restrictions. Commodities cannot be carried outside of a caravan. Glint cannot be traded. Player Crafting Material is dropped on death. I saw some other people (Check out @Nerror & @Spodos ) posting about some the mechanical and economic shortfalls of this, so I won't repeat those. for some great comments there.
My question is, why? I am a pretty casual player without much of a mind for economy, so maybe this is great design that just goes over my head. However, this seems like a lot of excessive restrictions given some of AoC's other gameplay choices. To me it doesn't make sense that my raw material is dropped on death but not my glint. Gathering is normally among the most casual of life skills, but it basically makes them a target for PvP ganking if there is no reward in killing players farming glint. It also seems a bit odd that there would be several types of non-equivalent commodities that players can only interact with in specific circumstances. For example commodity beef vs cooking skill beef or trade commodity lumber vs node building commodity lumber.
To tie the above together, this seems over engineered and immersion breaking. If npcs trade glint for gold, then glint has an inherent worth, and why do I need gold? Player economy could be driven exclusively by glint if it were not mechanically bound to a player. If npcs give out commodities, why do I need to gather? I could just build/trade with the commodities at hand rather than risk my life to gather them.
Finally, I assume these currencies are in place to stand up the gameplay loops around the caravan and node system. I would not suggest getting rid of core mechanics if they are relevant and most importantly fun. However, some of the minor features and cosmetics/lore around why these currencies work the way they do gives me some apprehension.
How do you feel about the Caravan System Preview so far?
So in my personal opinion I found that the preview it's self was good for what it was intended to be, I would have liked to see some PvP considering you had 2 caravans and could have showcased the mechanics of losing one in battle to either it being stolen or destroyed etc.
But I liked the visual details for the upgrades indicating that the caravan is upgraded and quite substantially, the little lantern on "Not Stevens Caravan" was a nice touch. However, the visuals of the way a hunter (in this case) was holding his bow while riding the caravan is something that needs touching up so the hunter perhaps has the bow on his back as he can't fire it while driving etc. (Like I said I am picking at small details that will probably be sorted before full launch).
As for the time travelled I thought it was just right, a nice pace to get from one node to another. Another note, the way you can maneuver the caravan through woodland areas and chop down trees to clear paths was a very nice feature. Nothing is more stressful than carrying good that you don't want to lose and being stuck heading in set directions when you know death awaits simply because you can't adjust the enviroment.
I do think the horses backing up looked a little weird and needs a little adjustment in the animation and maybe in the speed as well, they didn't seem to want to move backwards much at all. Althrough I suppose IRL it would be just as difficult for a horse, gues thats one of those fine lines between realism and video games.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Caravan system?
I am mostly excited about convoying with the guild and travelling to all kinds of different places and making money selling along the way, kind of like a travelling merchant or a adventurer just looking to sell his wares from fantasy animes etc. Just gives me the good vibes.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan System Preview?
One thing I am concerned about is how static the traders/merchants etc look, they don't seem to have any life in them. I think setting them with pathing around the store/stall they reside to when not being interacted with would be a good idea, once they are interacted they can halt where they are and maybe face the direction of the centre of the room if in a store or at a stall they have their back to the stall. That way they don't end up stuck looking at a wall while players interact with them. Some nice idle animations and clip boards etc would go nicely too (I know these will probably be added later but still mentioning them)
A good example of the above is ESOm, they have good idle animations where the merchants and characters always seem to be doing something and they stop the animations specifically for the player interacting with them to do any dialogue or just look like they are interacting and then when finished they go back to the animation they were attending to.
Do you have thoughts or feelings regarding some of the aspects of Caravans, such as Caravan components, Glint, Commodities, Exchange Rates, etc?
I really like the glint system where you have to physically hold the glint on your person and not in just a menu listed under 'currency', I feel like seen as you loot these off monsters it is kinda like you are removing the 'Core' from the monsters to sell and this is a common feature I see in anime a lot and REALLY liked that aspect. I would like to see glint be combined to save storage space, so if you have 100 uncommon for example you can merge them for 1 of the next tier etc. I do want to make the legendary tier only obtainable by monster drop tho, that way it is more exciting to recieve 'Legendary' and you can't just trade up to it through collecting many of a lower tier.
I don't have much of an opinion on the caravan components as I don't know how rare the highest components will be or how hard they are to get, if you can only ever get the lowest tier and its so hard to upgrade that its just not worth it for a short trip etc then it could be an issue. Not saying the highest tier should be easily obtainable but a nice balance for the middle tier I think is necessary.
One thing with the caravan abilities I didn't like was how spamable the 'mega launcher' ability was (I forgot its name), but it seemed to not only launch the enemy to space but launched team mates too which seems very inconvenient IMO. Maybe if its once every like 500 seconds or something it would be fine but it was far to short of a cool down in the stream. You need to rely on your squad to protect the caravan rather than spaming those abilities, I think they should only be used for utility with shorter cool downs and defensive longer cool downs and have no offensive abilities. Just my take.
Hope this wasn't too lengthy and I hope it all made sense, if anyone wants me to expand or clarify any of these then let me know and I will try. My mind rambles on at times and even I sometimes don't know what I was trying to say xD
Overall pleased with the caravan showcase. I'm not 100% clear on the system, that's because you didn't make it all clear, you didn't display and explain everything. Because you're still cooking. But I'm unclear on the importance of caravaning commodities vs materials vs (forget what they're called) strategic node resources.
But the mechanics and function of the caravan itself all look good. I'm sure testing and abuse by players will lead to some tweaking and changes. But the direction right now looks good.
Glint being universal is a little strange to me. But the commodities I'm assuming are regional, not sure though. So I guess I'd kind of hope that glint is heavy, or takes up a lot of space, as in hard to transport (at least in the quantities you'd need to buy commodities). This could have the effect of making it de facto regional again.
Im excited for the pvp of the caravan system, and the risk vs reward, and the teamwork working with a group of friends or guild to run and hunt caravans. I'm excited to not just aoe grind mobs by the thousands and then sell trash loot to a vendor, but to have an option to caravan the loot for better rewards.
Edit: I have some of the same thoughts that Spodos does in his two posts on the first page of this thread. But again, I really don't fully understand the system as a whole yet. You're the cook Intrepid, I'm just getting glimpses of the process. So I'm just waiting to see more, and ultimately test.
Oh yeah the flag pole during the deployment of the caravan: I assume that's the kind of thing that if you found it was too hard to run caravans, you'd get rid of or reduce that kind of announcement marker. Conversely, if it was too easy to run caravans, you'd increase it or make it more prominent.
And I hate the word glint. Not looking forward to having to use it all the time. It's guttural, brusque. lol. I guess "essence" is too overused though.
So many posts have great points that are 100% reading. Reiterating what I think are some good points: Worrying about the desire to actually run / raid a caravan is real. The question if commodities are just Glint that can be sold for more or do they serve a purpose. Are caravans personal or npc generated, like customizations and upgrades. How do caravans effect and function with / on freeholds. Do caravans have any substance besides appearing and disappearing (the materials used and horses). Can caravans be used on raids or npcs (Repulsors going wild)? Some even went into the economy super hard and I LOVE reading those!
Can caravans be entirely on the river? Maybe that would just be a boat and use the ocean then haha
(I stand corrected steven already addressed what happened when a caravan is destroyed)
I think it'd be great if in the unfortunate even that the caravan was destroyed, that the loot couldn't be taken away immediately. The cargo would take time to package and load in the first place, so it would make sense that there would be time taken to identify the cargo, or less time to steal unknown cargo, do they just take the light cargo or are they prepared to carry the heavy stuff on their horses? Do mounts even carry about how much is on their back? Since the caravan had to come from a town and take time, do thief also needs special horses to carry the weight? OR can the just blow up the caravan, summon their favorite mount, and skedaddle super fast before anyone has a chance to intervene?
There's also the step of the cargo moving into and thief's hands. How would they be able to take something by hand that was otherwise required to be moved by box/wagon/caravan? In Valheim (maybe other games would be a better example like star citizen), if you had a lot of ore in a wagon, and someone came and destroyed you and your wagon. They'd have a hard time carry the shear weight of the commodity. They might try to steal the whole wagon itself or build their own to transport such heavy things. If they use a wagon or cart to move stolen goods, are there check points on main roads? Do they leave tracks? Can they stash the stolen goods in a tree stump and then come back later like a satchel in Rust?
Old railways used to use "burglarproof safes" that were extremely heavy. Outlaws intending to rob the train had to use a large charge of black powder or dynamite to blow it open. Maybe it would make sense that there tools or other carts / mounts that are good at raiding caravans. Maybe not all caravans are good, maybe there's a caravan of bandits that have prisoners aboard that need rescued. Maybe red players (bad karma players) can attempt to rob fully NPC caravan but then players get notified and can attempt to stop the robbery.
If the notification comes via horse or bird or flare, does the message / reinforcement time differ? That would also mean that the games entire TTK (time to kill) would be very important. If squad size NPC or player reinforcements take5 minutes to be notified and 5 min to get there, then it matters if it take 2 minutes or 4 min to kill guards.
I rather enjoy repairing things with tools or by another action in video games. A wheel breaks, do you have a spare or are you making a new piece to replace the broken joinery? I love the aspect of the environment having impact whether good or bad on the caravan. If Tumok knew there were slated meats in the caravan he would've been more interested maybe? What if there was an attachment that could ward off Tumok with bad smells, or scare the giant spiders with bright flames / lights? If yo knew your route ahead of time then it would make sense to plan ahead, like if it past by a wyvern nest or bandit stronghold.
I love realism and creative routes when it comes to fantasy and I hope my excitement and love for ashes comes across in my writing! thanks for reading
I find the stolen glint and black market concept a good way to motivate attackers.
Unless you can buy commodities with stolen glint its actually a real poor reward.
sure i may not be the best explainers, but pls dont judge my ideas based on my age when it comes to giving idea and theories. i may look young, so u may think my ideas are worthless, since im not old enough to give wisdom. and i repeat myself a lot, i know its alpha but i will still repeat those ideas, and i have more ideas and stuff that can possibly make the game better.
altho one thing i can mention here is that i personally am not a fan of items taking more than one slot. its just annoying, may be realistic but its annoying
It's fine if maybe half of the caravan runs are chill/boring, but I think more than that and it starts to feel like a waste of time. If caravans are going to take 10-15 minutes at a minimum, then they should be content; they should be fun in their own right. If they're just another economic chore, then that would be a bit disappointing. I feel like there are plenty of other chill economic chores in the game for people who just wanna grind out some gold (gathering and freehold farming/businesses). I don't want caravans to be just a very time-consuming alternative to vendoring Glint, and equally as fun.
Of course, we just gotta wait for alpha test to see how eventful the caravans actually are. Maybe they turn out to be constant PvP hotspots. But if they're not, I hope Intrepid is willing to fill the void with more PvE events like the zombie attack from the stream.
-Looks very basic but it does its job
-you could hire an NPC to defend you against attacking enemys or can you dismount and fight them before geting back on track?
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Caravan system?
if you had more Storage capacity it would be worth for trader and pvp player
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan System Preview?
looks like you are dependent on someone to defend yourself
Do you have thoughts or feelings regarding some of the aspects of Caravans, such as Caravan components, Glint, Commodities, Exchange Rates, etc?
-the caravan inventory - even if totally maxed out was very small and stuff didn't stack - so is it really worth the pvp and also for the merchant?
-can a node owner access there trasury and trade matereals that are already stored?
-can you deliver matereals to a town and store it there to sell it later?
-can bridges get some NPC so they defend the caravan against moobs and notice the node that there is a caravan incomming (to defend or attack)?
- can node owner manipulate streets to make them shorter /longer / more comfortable?
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
BDO had a simmilar system but i didn't enjoyed it much
Show the pvp side of the situations more.
The dynamic this brings to the game. The fact that it is connected with so many other systems and that on both sides (attacker/defender) are human players brings the potential of an everchanging gameplay.
It would be very cool if you could see from the style of a caravan where it originated from. Something like "hey... thats a dwarven caravan but here is no dwarven city around... so they may have highly valuable commodities."
But the fact that players can have custom Caravan skins makes it impossible to identify where the caran originaly came from. Maybe put an emblem or smth. like that on caravans?
Played Elite Dangerous and trading via transport ship may be similar. But in Elite (at least back in the days I played it) trading was kind of boring. It was too simple in my opinion (just look for the shortest route with the biggest delta in buy/sell by weight) and there was no real risk. It was just not rewarding enough to ambush and rob cargo ships so that nearly noone did it. And the NPCs who attacked you were too easy to get rid off.
The defenders should always have the advantage when it comes to caravan pvp. Generally if it is easier to attack a caravan than it is to defend a caravan then the system will become a gank fest and you could struggle to get people to engage with it. You see this in Eve, no one transports goods openly across low or null sec space.
If it is easier to defend a caravan than to attack, then there is real incentive to use and profit from it, since it is likely that you can see a return on investment. Also forcing pvpers to scout and plan out an attack and overcome the inherent disadvantage they have, makes a successful raid far more rewarding and encourages strong group dynamics.
How you incentivize, I don't know. You could use buffs or give the wagons defensive abilities (almost like a monster card, with someone piloting), up to you obviously, but give the defenders the clear advantage and force the attackers to overcome it.
Corruption won't be enough of a deterrent when direct profit is involved. Make them earn it.
Will Caravan Skins have thier own visuals for defensive upgrades as shown with the Kaelar Caravan, or will they not be shown when one is applied?
Will the cargo within said skinned caravans all look the same, or even further, will that cargo look different depending on the rarity of the good it contains? And if so, will the different skins have different looking cargo?
Can the driver of the caravan leave and enter the seat at any time or is there a cooldown?
To be frank, and my name isn't, I don't really have much to say other than I liked what I saw. A lot. And in terms of what was shown, I wouldn't change anything perhaps other than having additional seats onboard the caravan. What I love most is the amount of freedom given when it comes to how players can transport goods, and that it isn't an auto-pathed system where caravans can be seen leaving the gates of the city. Furthermore, given the freedom, the ability to perhaps launch decoys.
This is system with a vast amount of potential, but it is also a very volatile system with alot of dangers which could make it neigh imposible for players to finish a caravane-escort. The PVP-aspect could potentially make this a very unfair and unbalanced event. I realise that you really like the "MMO" aspect of gaming, and has the opionen that everything can't be fair and not everything is for everyone, but based on what you have showed, there is no incentiment to join a caravan-escort with the task of protecting it... as it is, the game will be alot about ressources and there is no reason to "help others" if you can just kill their caravan and steal their hard-earned loot. The way it is now, it seems to always become the entire world vs. the caravan-group (and the group will most likely lose that 90 % of the time).
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Caravan system?
This seems to be a very ground-breaking and still very old-school idea of an event-based way of moving materials / commodities that couldn't move otherwise. It makes for a thrilling event with high-risk, high-reward!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan System Preview?
The positive
The Negative
The PVP aspect as it is. It's really hard for me to see it work the way it is now... you would have to amass a huge amount of people to do this, and it might simply become a thing noone uses because the risk fare outweighs the rewards. The "map-ping" telling everyone where you are makes it impossible to be stealthy and try to sneak about in the wilderness and you kinda just have to stick to the road and try to high-tail it as fast as you can, and that's also a shame.
PVP vs PVE aspect
Now, if I may be so bold, as to propose a way this could be done (or a way to think about it differently). When you have gathered your glint and summon your caravan you should get two options: cowardly or pompous. If you choose cowardly, your position should only ping on the map if you travel on the road - otherwise, if you stick to the Wilderness it shouldn't be made known to other players that your caravan has been formed and has set sail for the next node. However, when you're in the wilderness you should start encountering more and more difficult PvE encounters - so if you just stay in the wilderness you might be overrun eventually by beast and highwaymen and monsters and such, but it makes for a great way to make this PVE friendly (... ofc if you run into a large group of people in the wild you might be screwed non the less, but atleast they didn't know you were there beforehand!)
If you on the other hand choose to be pompous your position should be known at all times, but perhabs the exchange rates are now 10 % greater (or something like that) so if you feel secure with your big guild behind you - go for it! challenge the world and see who's better!
Do you have thoughts or feelings regarding some of the aspects of Caravans, such as Caravan components, Glint, Commodities, Exchange Rates, etc?
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
This (almost) exact system exist in Red Dead Redemption Online. You as a player start a mission where you have to defend a caravan from start to finish, and all the other players can then attack you and steal the loot within the caravan should they succeed in taking you down. This was a good idea on paper, but rubbish in game. There was just about no chance to complete these events caus' you would get crushed just about instantly - again; there was no reason or incentiment for players to not just kill you and steal your stuff.. no reason to help or leave you alone - and that has to thought about!
Really excited about the direction things are going! Intrepid is demonstrating it can execute on its best designs. Thumbs up to the team – keep at it!
What excites you about playing and interacting with the caravan system?
I’m really excited about the design of the caravan launch system. You guys found a way for players to control how visible their launch is, but also left room for attackers to seek them out, while leaving enough room for strategy and skill on both sides. I’m also excited about how well the caravans appear to handle as vehicles. Even at this early stage it looks pretty smooth!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the caravan system preview?
Caravans are probably going to travel in groups, say 5-10, because there's safety in numbers. Healing and buffs might stack, giving defenders a significant advantage. This should be on the design team's radar, if it isn't already!
Also, there appears to be very little risk for attackers (but lots of reward). Perhaps attackers should still suffer some death penalty?
Last concern: given the low risk of transporting goods by mount, I think the team may eventually need to consider design tweaks to tip the risk/reward in caravans’ favour, especially for transporting high value resources over medium distances. Again, we shld wait until alpha-2 to see if this is needed, but it should be on the design teams’ radar (they may need to explicitly look for evidence of this). An example of a change the designers could make would be to set some portion of town storage to only be withdrawable into a caravan.
Do you have thoughts or feelings regarding some of the aspects of Caravans, such as Caravan components, Glint, Commodities, Exchange Rates, etc?
For glint, I’m impressed the team has found a clever system for combatting rmt! I’m also THRILLED that my inventory won’t be filled with useless wolf pelts and lizard teeth that I feel compelled to save for a vendor.
I am concerned that the only way to acquire glint is indeed through killing mobs. Seems like there’s an easy opportunity here to be inclusive to stardew-valley girlies by having some action-intensive crop that yields glint. I understand that ashes isn’t for everyone, but it would be asinine to exclude certain players when there is such an easy way to throw them a bone. But this is small beans.
All the best, Intrepid, keep going!! We love you!!!
UI
The first thing I want to talk about is the UI. The UI team I'm sure knows these things I'm about to say but its worth saying just for me knowing that I said it. The Caravan UI needs colors to make certain boxes pop better for finding the thing you need to click on. Here is a screenshot of the UI from the Caravan preview.
The "Purchase" button for the caravan is in a weird space. The top left, in my opinion, is a bad spot and should be on the botton right corner. The button size can be the same size however it lacks any color. It doesn't look like a button you can click on and adding a unified buy color for that Purchase button would be great. Again, I feel like I'm saying the obvious to the team but just wanted to mention it. The rest of the UI windows look good and I think will recieve more passes to make it even better.
Commodities
I've been on serveral podcast and discussed my concerns with the Commodities system. My main concern is the overall function and fundamental value of the commodities. Are all the commodities just for you to get gold? Spend your soulbound glint to purchase commodities and go somewhere else to get more gold? Can't you just do that with materials? Materials from gathering professions have a funamental value in that you can use these materials to craft weapons, gear, boats/ships and that these materials are regionalized and makes them rare in certain areas. When talking about the commodities in the livestream, you really just mention them to earn gold and that seems rather basic in function and would rather just turn in my glint to a glint vendor to earn gold. Scrap the commodities at that point. I also just want to mention that I feel like you, Intrepid, talk about these systems so much internally that when you get on the livestream, you almost assume that we know what your talking about when it comes to these systems. Maybe the commodities systems does do more but you didn't talk about it. So, if the commodities system needs to be expanded and right now the idea is to just make gold then this is my idea to make these commodities have a fundametal value to people caring about them.
⦁ Make commodities needed in level node progression. If you want this node to be level 3 then the node needs this certain commodity from somewhere else.
⦁ Use commodities in professions that require certain larger than life materials. Maybe for ships, legendary crafts, certain endgame Caravan components, you get the idea.
⦁ Make commodities needed during castle/node pre-siege time (before the actual war). I saw meats as a commodity in the livestream and what if you need meats to service the NPC bodyguards in the node/castle area. If they have those meats then they do 100% damage/health, if not then it gets lower as time goes on without it.
I will say as well that I don't want commodities to be used as a survival mechanic during non-siege time. Only during that time would be okay or maybe after depending on loss of castle or node.
Caravan Components
I LOVE the idea behind the meta for Caravan components. You won't just have a fool proof build at the endgame because you have to sacrifice in areas you may not want to. Great idea! I love the idea of abilities being component to an extent. I wanted to give an idea that Isth3reno1else said during the Voices of Verra podcast. What if the driver empowered certain components based off of their class? So we saw 3 abilities featured in the preview, a heal over time AoE, a seismic blast pushing players/enemies away and a speed boost. I believe you can have standard abilities that classes don't influence like the speed boost or the seismic blast. Let's say the heal over time AoE is a component you used for your caravan and you let a cleric be the driver. That ability then gets evolved into something greater based off of the driver.
⦁ If a cleric is driving, the heal over time aoe becomes larger, heals for more and any enemy players in that aoe get a damage over time debuff that stacks the longer they are in the AoE.
⦁ If a rogue is driving, you have a true AoE stealth for your party for 10 seconds compared to having a component that gives your party a camouflage which isn't as good to the true stealth.
⦁ If a fighter is driving, they have an evolved ability that allows the caravan to burst forward and ram enemy players for high damage and also burst through any barricades on the road.
⦁ If a Mage is driving, they have an evolved ability where they have an elemental orb above the caravan that shoots out Mage abilities like chain lightning to enemies, frost bolts, Flame walls for a period of time. Long CD.
⦁ If a Tank is driving, they have an evolved ability where they can place a shield in all directions of the caravan to make it take 90% less damage for a period of time. Defenders can also partake of this buff if they are close to the caravan.
⦁ If a ranger is driving, they have an evolved ability where they can place an AoE on the ground to rain arrows from the sky dealing damage over time and slowing them down. Short CD.
⦁ If a Bard is driving, they have an evolved ability to make enemy players and enemy creatures fall asleep for a short period of time as an AoE placement (Enemy creatures have a longer duration than enemy players).
⦁ If a summoner is driving, they have an evolved ability to summon a greater being for a period of time aiding in killing enemy players, creatures and the more it kills the stronger and faster it gets. Long CD.
This is the idea and would be really cool cause since you can change drivers as the caravan is moving, there would be more strategy in who is driving at a particular time.
The Change in Spawning the Caravan
I don't like the change personally. Again, it favors attackers more so than the people creating the caravan itself. This is a topic I will talk about later is the risk vs. reward being very lopsided in favor of attackers. So, let's break this down. The people creating the caravan have to go to the caravansei, put expensive components to have a good shot of making it to the desired location, put potentially hundreds if not thousands of gold worth of materials into said caravan, have an item go into your bags, run to the desired location of your choosing and wait almost 2 full minutes to then go 3 miles per hour once it spawns?? Is this not concerning? So, realistically, if someone else from a rival guild catches wind that you are going to make a caravan from a certain node. You are at a massive disadvantage already. In the previous iteration, you would at least teleport to your desired location with your whole group. If a stealth rogue was watching then they wouldn't know where you just poofed off to. You have a chance at least. I understand wanting to promote PvP but isn't the system already doing that? Having to wait 2 minutes is just adding gasoline to an already roaring fire. Personally, I would love to experience the teleport version of pinpointing on the map where I want my caravan to spawn and my team. Throw a bone to the people trying to use this system.
The Caravan itself
The caravan feels very lumbering and slow even with Tier 2 components. I felt so bad for Bucky who didn't have any components in his being so far behind. Now, I'm not trying to get RDR2 caravans in Ashes but they need to be at least at a basic level 10% faster. They were way too slow and again I understand there is an evolution to the caravan with better components but as it is. Most guilds will just wait to make let's say tier 4 components if those components feel better to drive the caravan. I want to encourage people to use this system early because I think it is a great and fun system if properly balanced.
Risk vs. Reward
The balance of risk vs. reward in terms of PvP is completely unbalanced in the caravan system. I think the people making caravans have way more risks to deal with than people just randomly attacking caravans all day. What are you risking when making a caravan?
⦁ Your risking your gold to making components that will give your caravan a fighting chance.
⦁ Your risking your materials/commodities to be stolen which can range in terms of gold to hundreds of not thousands.
⦁ Your risking your time in waiting like a sitting duck for people to destroy your caravan when it spawns.
⦁ Your risking more of your gold to maybe hire extra bodyguards from your alliance or people on your server to help protect your caravan. (Even that could be risky cause they can turn on you)
⦁ Your risking your teammates dying and taking durability loss on their gear.
What are you risking to attack a caravan?
⦁ Your reputation and your guilds for attacking someone on your server.
⦁ Your risking your teammates dying and taking durability loss on their gear.
That doesn't seem fair to me in terms of why I should make a caravan. Most people I talk to will just do these runs at 3am to run into the least amount of friction possible. That seems kinda lame and I feel the system would end up becoming despised by the community. The system needs to feel fun for all parties involved. The way we currently know the system just doesn't work. Mules will be the common way to transport materials (depending on how mules function). This is also hard to guage too cause I haven't played the game or this system so its hard to give real feedback in terms of what I'm seeing.
Final thoughts
I believe in the caravan system and will do everything in my power to see the true pain points of the system and smooth them out over the course of feedback. I do want to mention that I don't know if I like for you to visually see if the caravan is full or empty. I think, again throw a bone to the people making the caravan. I would show all the caravans being full even if they are empty. I really enjoyed seeing the preview and can't wait to see this play out in Alpha 2. I want to thank Intrepid for giving us amazing previews of systems and thanks for reading my feedback!
=== First, what was good ===
One thing I did like is that glint seems to be mostly gained from killing monsters & bandits. I've always enjoyed regular efficient mob farming/grinding on un-instanced overland map locations, and I appreciate a little incentive for doing it and getting other people interested to party up in efficient groups to engage in mob farming.
Another thing that impressed me is the caravan route-finding, and the intentionality invested into making choke points significant. That really makes the world come alive and rewards players for paying attention to details.
=== Now to summarise the negative ===
Caravans don't feel meaningful enough in the bigger picture. This is felt most intensely in their role as a potential motivation for PVP. But it's also strongly present in the pure "gameplay content" facet of caravans: If caravans only exist to give players additional wealth, then engaging in them feels like an extremely mindless part of grinding & farming.
Whether a caravan succeeds or gets raided feels utterly inconsequential. You just shoot your shot, and hope it works out; nice if it does - if not, just move on to the next themepark station. That's not good enough for me for such a central gameplay element, and seems like it will directly lead to caravans either becoming mindless mandatory dailies/weeklies/monthlies, or entirely irrelevant and unused. Neither of which is interesting gameplay.
Disclaimer: I understand the distinction between different types of caravans. I still think the changes I am talking about should be felt in all types of caravans, because even if mayoral caravans exist and are cooler or more impactful than individual players' ones, I don't think that should be a carte blanche to let ordinary caravans devolve into a mindless, insignificant fetch quest.
Glint management & caravan frequency:
Why is glint a bound currency that has to be regularly transported to goods vendors in bulk to maintain inventory space? Why is it not just a typical currency, perhaps taking up small amounts of storage space, that we can save until we feel in the mood to run a caravan?
Is that meant to make us regularly do our caravans? As dailies/weeklies/monthlies? Doesn't that waste a lot of the potential caravans had for being a source of resources for crafters and castle/node building? I understand that those caravans are separate - but why?
If you want to make sure caravans don't get spammed in server downtimes, so people don't get to avoid confrontation, then I think you have to employ more direct systems for that. Give people a cooldown on how many caravans they can run within a set timeframe, and disallow caravans when server activity is too low - there are natural, lore-friendly ways of implementing such restrictions.
=== The problem of PVP significance ===
I've never played games with caravans. Only all-day fort/castle sieging and player ganking in the warzone, to establish territory control and invade realms. That stuff was super fun, because it was a constant threat, determined purely by player activity, rather than artificial game design.
=== Example Solution ===
I like when games manage to balance continuously available small-scale PvP with equally non-synthetic, spontaneously occurring, significant, massive battles whose outcome matters.
So I would love it if caravan activity could directly and tangibly lead into, or affect, castle and node sieges, and then the outcomes of node and castle sieges could tangibly affect everyday life in the game.
Like say every time a caravan is destroyed, the node of which the caravan host is a citizen loses a bit of trust in its government (because its citizen wasn't able to protect their resources - which might be a representation of the government's weakness, or the citizens' weakness, which still reflects on the government), and becomes a little easier to siege. Or the timer until the next siege becomes available shrinks a little. Not as a binary stat, but handled by multiple parameters - including lore events and other non-PVP factors.
And ideally there would be ways to counteract this, so it doesn't just devolve into forced PVP all the time, which then leads to even more PVP.
For example, every time the caravan is successfully defended and makes it through, the node's realm build more defensive buildings that help caravans stay protected somehow. Or that realm is able to equip its higher-ranking citizens (whose caravans transport more valuable goods, and therefore affect this internal guild strength/node security/government satisfaction score more strongly) with tools to counteract caravan ganks - such as consumable magic effects that can transport the caravan 10% backwards or (more expensively) forwards when a ganking party shows up. Or other equipment for the caravan defenders. (Some of which should probably also have counter-measures by the attacking parties - like tools to make the caravan slow down, or follow the caravan more quickly.)
When I run a caravan, I want my fellow citizens and allied-node-citizens to care about its outcome. And I want my node's enemies to care about my caravan's failure.
Not by being guaranteed to show up and defending/attacking me from all harm, but just by being interested in the general safety/unsafety of the nodes I am travelling through.
This power dynamic of friends and enemies being interested in doing their best to take control will be what will control the tone of the discussion. So when a node has 60% of its caravans raided, the criticism won't automatically be
"Fix caravan balancing, it's way too hard,"
but rather:
"OUR NODE needs to do more against bandits. Other nodes are doing fine, we need to start defending more caravans, so we can invest into better guard systems and start kicking these guys back to their spawn every time they launch an attack, until we get strong enough for the system to protect itself."
=== Theoretical benefits of this change ===
This way, opposing realms and guilds are incentivised to be aggressive on the small scale, but every time the incumbent realm/guild successfully defends its territory, it becomes a little better prepared to fend off petty caravan bandits - and in turn become better equipped to withstand node/castle sieges in the long run, as more small-scale caravans continue to be successful.
That all would last until the next failed castle siege, at which point the defenders' and attackers' progress will be completely reset (and of course there should be natural power decay through game events, so nothing lasts forever by pure virtue of compounding benefits from past successes.)
If regular fights such as regular caravans can never matter in the bigger picture, playing the game for a PVP-preferring player becomes the constant choice of whether they are allowed to go out and have fun engaging in PVP, or if they have to stay at home and engage in PVE in order to build up resources and improve their gear in order to be prepared for the next chance when PVP that actually matters comes around.
This decision process is fine. But the PVP options should never be completely meaningless. It should always carry some weight in making progress towards the node's/guild's/player's overall objectives. There should just be times/events that are more valuable, and such that are less valuable, where the player would feel more incentivised to spend their time on something else than PVP.
If the PVP choice is always meaningless unless a scheduled big-impact siege or world boss is being contested, then the player who prefers PVP will always have to feel guilty about not doing PVE whenever those events aren't going on. Instead, incentivise both with big-picture impact, but just to varying degrees, depending on ongoing power dynamics.
Let there always be the chance of an impactful caravan or siege being just around the corner, making it worth for guilds and players to be on standby for those activities
Leave it up to guild diplomacy and effective long-term strategy for people to determine when is the right time to group up for large-scale PVP, small-scale PVP, individual content, or party PVE, at any given time, without predetermining the value of the decision by just letting some events be intrinsically less worthy of your time than others.
Conclusions:
That's what I care about, and the current system just doesn't encourage this style of authentic small-PVP-to-large-PVP transition/impact.
I realise that my suggestions are a bit heavily slanted towards encouraging more PVP, and I'd be completely satisfied with a toned-down implementation that encourages more PvE gameplay.
My suggestions only have this bias because I think it lends itself best to coming up with creative new ideas.
There are many ways of achieving this general change towards more purposeful choices and player interaction, and I trust the design team to come up with changes that fit into the systems behind Ashes of Creation. I just really hope they hear this general message.
=== Summary of recommendations ===
- Revamp the seemingly inconsequential caravan purchasing/spawning. Make it feel more like a deliberate decision where you plant your caravan, and where it goes to, tangibly affecting, or impacted by, the world, the guilds, and territory control.
- Generally make all player choices in the caravan process matter in some way. Don't let them become a mission of transporting a random flavour commodity from A to B, just to enrich the player through a daily/weekly pizza delivery quest with a minor chance of insignificant PVP.
- Let contesting caravans be a strategic option that matters in the bigger picture somehow. Just balance it out with enough alternatives and dis-incentives that there will be long stretches of time when doing something else than contesting caravans will matter more - so you don't have to worry that the game will just turn into a caravan PVP simulator.
So why would you buy commodities in the first instance? Why not just transport crates of Glint like the old monster certs?
Because the glint is not bound to locations. With this change they don't have to store into each piece of glint at which x,y,z coordinates you killed the NPC and then try to figure out how to reward those which transport it with caravans and not in inventory.
Steven really wants to make the caravan system to work because he advertised it 7 years long.
So glint stacks and players decide from which node to buy commodities. This gives some strategic choices to players too.
But you'd just take the glint crates to the nearest node. Like in Albion and Silk Road. Ganked outside the initiation point, 180 degree turn and just resell to the origin.
You get glint not glint crates from NPCs. If players keep accumulating glint in their inventory, they might lose part of it when killed. So they will probably chose to take it to a nearby node.
Where you gank the caravans is up to you. In AoC would better if the caravan is destroyed close to finish, so you can with little effort finish the transport with your own caravan.
The easiest location is right next to initiation or right at the end of travel. Either way, I foresee only guilds running the caravans which isn't a problem per say. It will be best if the devs uphold the pledge to make caravans allow group functions to input resources like stated many months ago.
Yes, I noticed they did not mentioned this group ownership anymore.
Solo players will have light caravans which move faster than players can run.
There will be choke points too.
The caravan driver might be hard to dismount on some caravans so attacking earlier, before finish is indeed better.
There must be caravan to caravan collision.
At least caravans move carefully over the bridge... to not cause damages.
Maybe bridges should be repaired regularly.
I am curious what choke points they create in desert.