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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
fair enough, indeed localized drops sound more interesting to me over globally available drops, I wasn't really thinking about that in my previous comment,
I wonder why this change was made, we know mats/resources are localized, and caravans can transport those, and they did kept part of the localized thing with commodities, with each node having their own unique packs that you need to move around the world for profit, I wonder if it is to make things easier in the grinding part which would entice PKing a lot more, or simplified and reduce development load or something, by having just a single certificate currency across multiple loot tables,
not sure how I feel about it, would need to test and see all the details first,
I think stylistically the certs were cooler because they felt local to which beast/enemy you were fighting and added vibrancy to the world, but glint is just so so so much easier on inventory and it entirely removes one aspect of the puzzle which was mixing and matching certs for goods. Now you just get a normalized token which the devs can mess with in terms of drop rate etc (TBD from future streams/A2) and this makes it a wayyy easier lift for the devs to balance which nodes have which commodities since it's only a one sided puzzle now.
Do I agree with it? I am not sure yet, I am going to re-watch the stream and listen to everyone on the forums before I make me decision but I do see some glaring holes in what was presented to us.
But you are confusing the glint (old Hunting Certificates) with materials, both drop from mobs, materials have a separate inventory, Glint never was supposed to have their own inventory
Then I have even less of a problem with it if the material drops aren't even affected. Only issue I see is the balance issue as it related to the economic impact of standardized glint.
One thing this makes me think about a lot is... what exactly is the main Gold faucet 'pre-Glint'?
Like, it must exist, right? We enter the world, there are no Village Nodes. We fight things and get Glint, but there's no Hunting Lodge yet (maybe there's just a random one at each Divine Gateway?)
Then we get a village up, but Caravan trade requires a second village to trade WITH and it would be super unsafe and somewhat foolish to begin doing so, this early. Also, we had to have enough to buy the Caravan, probably?
The economy has to be working already without any of this, and then suddenly it becomes 'ok turn on the BIG faucet now!' once enough Nodes are up...
In the end I just don't want any faucet that is hard to predict or control, or that has the 'competitive FOMO' aspect that this probably has. If 'first Caravan' gets 8x, 'second Caravan' gets 7x, and so on down... We're getting into the weeds of PvP game design again...
PvP Logic dictates that you rob others to get rich. PvP Logic also dictates that you don't take a caravan, you just accept the local price because the local price does not change at all. The local price is constant and the local price is based on a gold standard.
I actually didn't think about this at all, but I guess the mini-faucet is just local node acquisitions (either hold onto resources or turn into vendors? lol) until the network is large enough because it will just be a literal feeding frenzy for the first 5-10 nodes being so condensed. I am unsure how long it will *actually* take to get the server "off the ground" but it doesn't feel like there is any actual income happening other than questing to max level. Whatever that looks like gold wise in tandem with just turning in stuff for whatever that node/person will buy for.
So you'll just be selling glint directly to them to get some pittance.
But the really smart guilds will grind out those first few days w/o selling any glint and then travel between the starting nodes on their first caravans.
If glint drops like mats and not goes to everyone in the party (jfc please let it drop like mats) then guilds will have designated Glinters, who will then fill up the very first caravans to then track them between nodes. Several days worth of hardcore grind multiplied by, potentially, x20+. Most likely run during the night to minimize the chance to get attacked.
Even if it takes 2h to go from starting node to starting node, that's still a shitton of money in no time. And you'd be running a group of these caravans obviously, so it's just insane money within the first week.
My god this system is trash.
See the value in that 2 day head start now?
Can stockpile glint for 2 days and keep stock piling glint with the new comers...Once the nodes advance you can then take the first caravans. Thus, you will always have more gold than everyone else if you continue to perform the tasks required. Centralised homes or freeholds in no time if the right node is chosen to settle in.
Either way, I think this strat is a money printer, unless smth changes.
If all the new early access freehold owners are processors I won't mind so much. I think the earlier we get processors in operation the smoother the ride will be.
The WM will presumably stop you. The problem with the WM stopping you is that you are now racing to be the first to arrive before the WM stops you.
Elite solves this by having in-node production per tick of commodities and a massive datastructure built up around it, because that was 'the entire game they always wanted to make', and there's no player to player trading (easily) and you can't buy power directly from other players, only assistance.
But let's not tear them down without knowing the intent here, as the thread is aimed toward. I'm surprised they asked about opinions on the other stuff (why? We don't have enough information to give any effective feedback on it), but they asked, so we should give.
We can't just ignore their 'Magic Boxes' just because we don't know the magic, though. If the WM 'magic box' is clearly defined as a thing that solves a specific part of the problem, we just gotta trust that it will and look for other flaws or disliked points.
tl;dr it's not a money printer, it's economic inequality!
Glint a.k.a. VerraCoin is better than the real world analogues because you can pay your taxes with it!
Or do you mean it would try to stop the commodity "abuse"?
VerraCoin to the mooooooon
Let's at minimum assume the following. I hate assuming, but since the numbers are interchangeable, perhaps it is fair.
There is some demand for Commodity A from Node A, in Node B. The reward is 8x the Gold for just selling it in Node A.
When a Caravan of Commodity A is delivered, the demand goes down. After some period of time, the reward goes down too. It is 'some number less than 8x'. At some point it becomes 'not worth it to run the Caravan' (for some reason).
The WM can easily 'turn off the faucet', so that the inflow of Gold to the overall economy is controlled. So yes, it stops what you are referring to as 'Commodity Abuse', until players relearn how exactly to 'abuse' it. The problem here is not that people can make Gold this way, the WM can easily control how much Gold you can gain by doing it.
It was implied that you could even, instead of just selling the Commodity immediately, just put it in a warehouse and wait for the price to go back up. Just sit on the stock and refuse to share it until people are willing to pay you for your hard work of bringing it all over there. What are they gonna do, burn their own Node to the ground to get your Wine barrels?
I wouldn't stock pile any commodities with the limited Caravan Space. I can't imagine how many caravan runs a month a stockpile/backlog would take to shift let alone a 6 month stockpile/backlog.
I guess that's the risk/reward of this system (on top of pvp), but then we come back to the "is it fun though" that your group had problems with. And I'd definitely agree that prepping a big glint pile, physically going to another node to check what it needs, trucking the caravan for over an hour - all just to learn that I was late and that my coms are now relatively worthless would feel like utter shite
And if the check rate is not instantaneous then you just line up your caravans right outside the node and bring them all in at the same time. EZ
Its basically 1.50 gold for 2 Glints right now. That's 75 silver per mob. That's the local price which doesn't diminish. Therefore, it makes no sense to go travelling to distant nodes on the off chance the price is going to be high - everyone will be packing commodity runs because there's only one way to make gold from the Glint, via commodities. The rest of glint is a sink.
75 silver per mob is more than old Rare Bosses in Age of Conan which I used to farm. Though of course, you don't have a chance of rare gear. These small amounts of gold/silver might not seem like much but if you're paying taxes in Glints, buying properties in Glints and have access to guild crafters then how much gold do you really need?
If com runs are useless because it's always more beneficial to simply keep grinding, then the only issue with this system is its sheer pointless existence. Otherwise - it's a question of how far do you need to go and how much planning do you gotta do before going.
Yeah, I know the numbers don't matter. The principle is the local price doesn't diminish. I see the main need for caravans to be the resource runs and the taxation runs. Not the commodity runs. In my mind, a Legendary Glint can pay for my levelling all the way to 50 if I get a Legendary Glint under level 10. Basically, the nature of the beast is fluidity. You would partake in the earliest days but by golly you won't need to participate in the later days. I'd rather fuel the early Processors at freeholds with resources than run Glint bought commodities to NPCs. You only need enough gold to repair your armour and pay for enchantments. Possibly to also purchase a mount...I don't know of any other functional purpose of Gold unless you want to win an Economic Node Mayorial Election. Considering the devs want to use soul bound currency to stop RMT, I'd wager Gold for Economic Mayorial Election might also be replaced by Glint.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Head_start
Yes. However, some guilds have both head starters and normal players inside the ranks...so who knows which way the wind will blow.
Universal as fuck. But also requires crates for big movement. So I guess it's somewhere between the certs and what I thought
So... the Glint is part of the 'Tetris Inventory' too...
I'm sure someone will enjoy it.
More on loot tables than just glint.
Glint taken from Caravan Cargo will be considered 'Stolen'.
Rarity increases with level.
So I guess at least lowbie bot-like grinds won't work as much as I thought they would.
But this then also implies that you'll need to have several kinds of glints for commodities, all of which you have to farm yourself, which will be such a damn mess.
Large grinds will require a caravan to carry to Glint. Which gets broadcast to everyone nearby and no corruption for the pvp.