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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
The nodes were almost next to eachother though, you could be at the other end of the map or in the middle of the ocean or on another continent, unless you are already leveling close to this node it doesnt make much sense
consider that steven stopped many times waiting for bucky. also, he wasnt spamming the speed boost skill. also, these werent the top caravans, they were low tier caravans. also, they just weren't rushing...
i dont see how 3-4 people can destroy one good vehicle. and this is a good thing
I think the caravan can be destroyed in very few hits once the defenders are dealt with. I liked the old system.
That picture tells you how long it takes to travel between almost the farthest points on the map. And it takes the caravan more than half that time to move between neighboring nodes.
Any longer transfer would take longer than it would take literally anyone at any point on the map to get to that caravan before it finishes its travel.
so the only way to destroy a vehicle should be after killing all the defenders?
what if you kill half the defenders, then they come back to the fight because the respawns are close. how many times do you have to kill the same guy so that you can now destroy the caravan?
I dont ever think there should be 100 people attackimg a caravan but what i would like to see would be something like this,
Whilst driving the caravan you have between 2-10 npcs that can be upgraded / bought essentially as mercs guarding your caravan, you also have say 3 friends with you and your self,
You get attacked by a group of 5, you get out of the caravan and your caravan becomes essentially immune to damage whilst you are alive in the vinxinity, if you die yohr caravan becomes attackable after say 1 minute game time, giving you maybe enough time to get back depending on where you died and how far the graveyard is, this now becomes a fight to see who gains control of the caravan, obviously this is just one way it could work but anything seems better than you fighting in your caravan with op attacks, its boring gameplay and makes gearing for pvp less worthwhile if you are not even playing your character
This could be further improved on by the npcs that guard you being npcs you have met whilst in the world and helped with quests, you could also upgrade their gear and armor adding lots more fun mechanics
I think respawns should be randomised and not close to a caravan defence. A caravan defence is not a siege. You either want a PvP event or you want a mess. Because, even if the caravan can move or be destroyed after a lot of damage people can still resurrect nearby and come and intervene again. I would state the caravan should scale to the number of people who have clicked 'Attack Caravan' - I assume the same system still applies where you choose to attack or defend but having not seen pvp yesterday I'm not certain. So, the caravan should be a scalable tank but not a weapon.
Mate i dont think many people realise how long 75 minutes of straight running actually is lol it would not be worth it
You could setup your ambush so you hit them at a spot far away from the spirit healer, i understand thougj im just thinking of work arounds lol
But even outside of that. Let's say it's 15 minutes for a fast caravan between 2 nodes. Faster caravans will have less space, which would give attackers more chances to ambush it (cause the runners would have to make several trips). Faster caravan might not have as much hp/def, which makes it easier to destroy.
And even if all of those are not true and a tanky huge caravan can still make the trip in 10 minutes between neighboring nodes - that's still just a single node's length of travel. So unless we're getting insane multipliers on money gains - I doubt people will be running caravans between direct neighbors.
BUT EVEN IF THAT IS THE CASE. 10 minutes is enough to cover the length of 3 nodes. With even the tiniest bit of planning or knowledge you'd be able to come hit the caravan from quite far away (especially considering the starting announcement and wait period).
The game is about socializing. If you're not helping your mates when they need it - why in the hell would they ever help you?
she said 2 or 5. we also didnt see all the parts. they talked about parts to make it go faster on road, off road, faster in general, tankier, etc.
and yes you can hit the caravan. thats why its a large group activity.
iirc, there are penalties for failing when you attack a caravan as well. so people might think it twice if they dont have a good group for it.
They are all "epic", which is the 5th tier of items.
That comes down to planning and/or willingness of the attackers.
I was just making a point that the speed of caravans is slow enough for other people to run up to it, even if they were far away. Especially if the caravan is traveling further than to the neighboring node.
How long it should take 100 people to destroy a Caravan depends on the defense systems on the Caravan and how many players are defending the Caravan. As well as level discrepancies.
and yes the speed for travel time depending on route does seem like a lot, but it would also be twice that with a round trip if you needed to caravan back as well lol.
This is why it's important to create a supply chain across the nodes.
Travel to more practical nodes and make trades generally within your relative safety scope.
Using a linear example:
node A and node D need things from each other, the nodes in between will be your supply chain primaries if you don't want to directly travel to node D.. Check out node B, node C etc. Closer to node D the more affordable but higher "risk". Node D would equally be between A and G. Just a way to scale value and risk. So if A and G need stuff from each other, node D would be their half way affordable value.
Yes, I think that's the key element: purpose vs. profitability. The showcase did not present only the caravan system, it was also about the glint (hunting certificates) to gold conversion, and how the two are working together. But they are systems on their own, players can use one without the other being involved.
I think Azherae was talking about this in the official thread, the rate at which one could farm glint. If you can farm more glint for a local sell and make more gold than you would by taking the same time to move the local commodities elsewhere, it's not worth the risks and investments in a caravan. If the main goal is to make gold out of commodities, long distance caravans should have rewards worth all the risks.*
But there is also room for the short distance moving of goods. If they're not commodities but players made goods, resources for a node upgrade, raw material for processing where the proper stations is located, etc. Harder to stumble upon maybe, but much more profitable. Players will figure it out.
* I envision epic cross continental treks, stretched over multiple play sessions, to deliver what was only a common commodity in one part of the world, but quite exotic on the opposite end of the world.
The point is to give players a chance so they aren't ' zerged 24/7. They aren't creating the game to scare people off of it and make everything annoying. If you are scouting caravans you will know the event which gives you time to know there are some you can attack. This is why there is no fast travel so you can just instant travel and gank them.
For pvp and their game what they have shown is what needed to be designed from look on paper atleast. It is their way of creating these kinds of pvp events without it being one sided for attackers.
I will be running around with a guild so it will be much more than 15 people....
And here's the thing, if enemy faction finds you, and attack you, it was very hard to defend, the cart didn't have much defense, or skills and if you get attacked, you often lose your commodities.... and this is in a game with factions with much of the map being safe areas.
On top of this, there were groups of people and even a faction completely dedicated to pvp and looting other people's commodities... because quite frankly it's pretty fun.
Meanwhile however, Archeage doesn't have factions, there are no safe areas, anyone can attack you, and they can attack you anywhere....And I guarantee you that there will be many people who will dedicate their gameplay to be "pirates", to find and attack people's caravans... and unlike in Archeage, in AOC they will be able to do this anywhere and everywhere....
So of course in Archeage the caravan needs to be tankier, it needs skills like heals etc etc because it is going to need it.... mind you what you saw in the showcase is just preliminary works, they did say that it's all still a work in progress and the heals/armor etc can change if it's too strong.
Farming with a Caravan for the glint crates will broadcast the location to all nearby people. The PvP will mean no flagging protections if we're attacked. No corruption protection in the farm zones and one person in the group unable to dismount (at least steven never dismounted). We really need to be able to dismount lol.
1. How to solo a caravan
You don't, it's a group (8 players) oriented game and caravans from a PvP perspective are an objective for groups. And obviously since a caravan in most cases will have bodyguards expecting that to be an objective for a solo highwayman is out of scope IMO.
2. Caravan too strong?
Balancing begins in the Alpha but will only be finalized during the Beta, so I think we can expect that a group of 4 will ultimately be able to take on the smaller caravans. But if someone puts in the effort to create an expensive upgraded caravan vehicle with these magical artifacts and so on, I would hope they don't break easily because a caravan destroyed means all or a lot of its components be lost. So with rising investment costs players have to make to build a vehicle, it is to be expected that the loot also becomes worth the effort to take it down. After all nobody will risk their super expensive caravan wagon to transport half a cup of salt. I think this will ultimately be the balancing factor for the "defense team" during caravan missions.
3. Boring objective, boring chore
If you think that Intrepid has shown us all the possible events and obstacles a caravan may encounter and you plan on just taking one route every time because you gather the same goods all the time to the same places, sure, might get a bit dull. But that sounds like a player decision rather the fault of the ones setting up the system.
If I rember correctly Steven mentioned during the bit about land to sea transistion that there will be another caravan showcase which will show this transition, which would also give the opportunity to take a look at the PvP interaction. So far I personally am quite satisfied with the progress.
But that's me - what did you expect to see to not think that the caravans were boring daily chores?