Absolutely loved the PvP showcase!
Will say that I think there should be a place to equip buffs to caravans that also buff those who are defending. Like a gem slot that is enchanted with a specific buff the merchant wants to use. I say this because eventually it will get frustrating to use caravans if there isn't an uphill battle for those who want to raid it. Which there will be PvP guilds that all they will do is raid caravans and PK.
I’m dedinitely hoping for some hidden caravans. For example, a tightly-guarded npc caravan from the capital carrying a rare mount as a gift to a neighboring kingdom gets waylaid by players who alter the fate by denying the kingdom’s tribute. 10 caravans leave at the same time and only one of them has the mount.
I honestly thought the caravan “packing up” method was ingenious, and looks really well done.
The water raft was a great idea. However, as I mentioned in another post, the raft, in both it’s final design and transition, lose the meaning of being synonymous with the caravan as they are vastly different in size and shape. The sudden bulwarks also lost the coolness of the already shifting boards and gears of the caravan itself. I would highly recommend shifting to having the caravan itself fold out and become the raft.
I would recommend making the bottom of the caravan rounded in both forms and letting the sides fold out origami style to make a platform. You can have a player inside the caravan, “driving” by pushing gears to move the wheels. The mast can be stored inside the top of the caravan before folding out. The keel can slide out the back after it’s pushed far enough out into the water.
I like the caravan but i have some concerns for attackers. when you talk about the "pick a side and join a raid" This only works for the defending side. If me and my friends attack a caravan and 1-2 ppl show up and have the option to join.
1. They will always join the attacker if attacker is an organized group.
2. They can just open the chests real quick after we win and run off with the loot?
I feel like attackers need to be organized before attacking otherwise ppl in the area will just join the attack and take the easy loot every time. Also if you are attacking a caravan and another group of attackers show up. bandits dont team up it should become a defender V attacker1 v Attacker2 So the attacker groups also have to fight eachother. Having defenders freely join is logical but attackers should have to be organized groups.
Also read an idea from someone here that you should need a spacial hammer/magical item to destroy the caravan adding this in and making it have a decent cost could be a good way of adding risk to the attackers if its dropped on death. If you ever need to add abit of a downside to the attacking side. It also forces you to plan on "attacking" so not just any1 in the area can show up and attack if they see a caravan comming.
Make ppl have 2 use a demolition hammer or something to smash a caravan that has a 100% droprate make it pricy. It forces bandits to leave town with a purpose to attack not just i randomly saw a caravan and attacked it while out chilling with the boys.
Every other system forces you to plan what you are doing when leaving town.
The stolen goods should go into materials and you could have a specific backpack for it so you have to plan on attacking when leaving town.
How do you feel about the Caravan PvP Preview?
I enjoyed the showcase. There is a lot that will be worked on and systems that the dev team hinted at hidden in the shadows. I feel as though this is exactly what I was envisioning. I will say this type of system preview is what I prefer. Giving us much to discover for the risk v reward, how can I upgrade as an attacker or defender, etc. A little taste is what we all need (maybe not what we want )!
What excites you about playing and interacting with other players and the Caravan System?
I miss this type of social interaction within MMOs. The fact that we can plan a late night or early morning transport. Having "moles" in certain social communities. Curious how this system will exist within a vassal system vs a neighboring node system. The social interaction possibilities are what you want to see/experience as an MMO gamer.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan PvP Preview?
As someone that understands there is a lot of work to be done, no major concerns. You hear a lot about visual effects, time to kill, balance, etc. To me this will all be cleaned up on the back end. The progress is wonderful to witness! I do enjoy the lack of knowledge around the entire system. One of the best pieces when playing a new MMO is discovery. I would hate for everything to be completely fleshed out and min/max prior to release.
One last note. I am very happy PvP is the focal point for this game within MULTIPLE systems! A ton of games I have played, PvP took a backseat or was irrelevant. I am really impressed by the progress within this project. The blueprint is super solid and continues to drive excitement to test in A2. Thanks for the ongoing showcases!
Overall, I liked what I saw! Always room for improvement, and I do have some serious disagreements with how certain elements of this gameplay loop are being handled that I'll go into later, but overall, everything seems to be on a good track. I'm surprised by how much feedback I have for this system, but it's one that I care about a lot, so I hope you can bear with me. I'll try to keep it as organized as possible.
What excites you about playing and interacting with other players and the Caravan System?
I love how involved the economic systems in the game are, as well as how traversable the land/waterways are. The action of engaging with the economy in most MMOs feels very "game-y" (without actually being fun, somehow) and immersion-breaking. Walking around gathering from the same nodes on repeat for ages, then going to any old town to craft some stuff and sell it on an auction house or in trade chat. I'm looking forward to having gathering, processing, crafting, and transporting feel more realistic, as well as something you see happening in the world around you on a frequent basis. It'll feel so fun to be sitting on a dinghy fishing in the river and seeing a trade caravan raft or larger ship pass by every now and then. Sitting on the docks of a port city and seeing ships rolling in throughout the day bringing back ocean fish or trade goods. To feel the world bustling with activity in different ways and in numerous areas rather than the usual "designated pathway" to making money.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan PvP Preview?
I'll just give my reactions in chronological order along with the events in the showcase. Some of the following suggestions are going to include a bit more work on the players' parts, but I think it will end up being more immersive and rewarding for the effort.
PVP COMBAT FEEDBACK
- AoE spell effects may need to be adjusted so that enemy and ally spells are more easily differentiated. There was so much ball lightning going on, I feel like I wouldn't have been able to tell whose was whose if I was in that scenario.
CARAVAN FUNCTIONALITY FEEDBACK
- It's fun looking when the caravan essentially blows up and lies sitting on the side of the road in flames after it's destroyed, but I think it might be more immersive if it doesn't just explode like a big, firey, loot pinata.
I think there should be a few thresholds, maybe at each 25% health reduction, where the animation, model, and functionality of the caravan change. At 75% health, some of the doors/windows swing open and a couple spokes on the wheels bust. At 50% health, the animation starts getting a little rickety, a couple more spokes bust, a window or two bust out completely, and you get a 25% reduction to movement speed. At 25% health, one of the wheels completely busts off, the remaining doors/windows are flapping around, the whole frame is leaning back and forth as it lumbers onward, and you get a 50% reduction to movement speed.
The caravan can be repaired by any friendlies with tools if they aren't being interrupted by combat, but it takes a decent amount of time to make a full recovery from <25%, maybe a few minutes. This can be accompanied by a simple hammering animation. There can be a total of four people helping repair the caravan at a time, reducing the total repair time by a quarter for each additional repair person.
If a caravan is destroyed, then rather than having it blow up into a flaming heap, launching 50-pound crates of goods and materials every which way, you instead get some sort of wood/steel-splintering / dust / collapsing cloud instead of a fireball, and the carcass of the caravan lies on the ground waiting for you to loot the contents from inside of it. When you click to loot it, it shows the grid with all the goods inside like it does for your own caravan. From there, without revealing to the player what the actual contents of the crates are, just their type, they can choose which crates to forfeit and open right there in the open, and which to save for transport.
If they choose to transfer the crates to a new caravan, then this is how I think that system should change:
- Get rid of the whole "call an entire caravan to spawn right next to me out of nowhere after standing around for five minutes" thing. I have to be perfectly honest and say that it's horribly, terribly immersion breaking, boring, and lazy. Is there a bit of a thrill in knowing you could be attacked again while waiting for it to show up? Eh, sort of, but odds are, the people you attacked won't really regroup and strike again until your new caravan arrives. Anything beats just standing around doing nothing in a video game for minutes on end during a period of time that's supposed to be an adrenaline-rush.
In lieu of this system, I think marauders should have to bring their own form of transportation for stolen goods. If they want to transfer it all straight into a new caravan, they'll need to have their buddy drive a caravan over from the nearby village for them, or have it hiding behind the hill they all pour out from when they launch their attack. Alternatively, they could bring along a few hand-carts that can hold up to a few crates each, but move a little bit slower for each crate they're holding, or some beasts of burden that can carry crates over their backs like paniers. From there, players will have to go the rest of the way to their selling destination on foot, or just make for the nearest town that has a friendly caravan in it if they don't have a full one with them, and then launch it as their own after the fact. While traveling, multiple carriers in one raid will just show up as multiple targets on the opposing team's minimaps. If the raid decides to go the beast of burden / handcart route instead of a single caravan, the raid leader can just designate all the stolen crates to be placed in their personal storage, no matter who delivers them, or at whatever town they end up in. Splitting up at this point could be a useful, but risky strategy if securing all the goods seems unlikely.
- Overall, there's just way too much convenience infused into this system right now, and before it's even been called for by players. With a system like this, that's conceptually based on realistic player engagement in an economic system and emergent gameplay, I think it really needs to lean into those aspects and make players do a bit of heavy-lifting - literally.
When transferring crates from the broken caravan to the handcarts, beasts of burden, or new caravan, make the players pick up the crates from the broken caravan themselves and lug them at walking speed over to their new transport. We don't need mass-auto-loot in player vehicles. It barely takes any effort from the player to do this sort of thing, but that little bit of required engagement adds a sense of involvement, realism, and makes them feel like they're directly serving a purpose by being there.
- Similar to my previous comments, I think other party members can serve a better purpose when a caravan is converting to a raft. Simply make the scaffolding accessible if it isn't already and allow players to interact with the deconstructing caravan, lift a randomly generated piece of it from the model, and walk it up the steps to the raft. Each time a player completes the walk, it adds another few percentage points towards completion (again, go to percentages, not exact timers, it adds suspense). Same thing can be done in reverse when reassembling the caravan.
- Hopefully you can understand why I feel so strongly about this. While it's true that too many obstacles in a game can be pointless and annoying, I genuinely think these adjustments would make the system more meaningful, immersive, and rewarding for the player from moment to moment. Right now, the caravan as an object in the world feels little more than a PvP target. The caravan and its contents, as objects in the world, should feel more like objects and systems that you're able to visibly and meaningfully influence and need to physically interact with in order to accomplish your goals. Obstacles are good when they make players strategize, cooperate, and pitch in together to solve problems. Right now, none of that is happening. It's just a zergfest on top of a conveniently moving, valuable target.
WATER-BASED VEHICLE FEEDBACK
- As for the raft showcase, I loved the visuals, it all looks great, but I have a few critiques / future suggestions.
I think all watercraft should have a much longer transition from not moving to moving at full speed and from moving at full speed to stopping. It's a huge floating object, it should take a few seconds for it to seem like it's moving at all from a standstill, and taking your finger off the W key shouldn't just make it stop dead in its tracks. It shouldn't even be using tank controls, honestly, but more on that later.
I sincerely hope there can be a wind direction system in this game to be paired with the water current system. Any vessel with a sail needs to be influenced by wind direction, and virtually every vessel should have oars onboard in case you're sailing against the wind. Having a sail be full of wind no matter which direction it's facing these days just looks a bit silly, honestly.
Each oar, each sail, and the rudder, unless in a row boat where you can reach it all from one sitting position, should need a player to operate it. Players can switch back and forth between multiple parts, but unless they're close enough together, they cannot be manned simultaneously. This can be a way to upgrade your setup depending on the size of the group you typically roll with. Do you have two oar posts on your raft, or four? If you choose four, it adds more weight to your caravan, but can give you better speed on the water if you have enough people to man them all. Using the oars can also be used in tandem with the sail if you're sailing with the wind for an added speed bonus. Players using the oars operate them on their own, separate from the person using the rudder, giving a directionally appropriate speed boost while the interaction/animation is active. They'll have to pay attention, have a plan, and communicate in order to pilot the vessel effectively.
Additionally, when using a vessel with a sail, the system shouldn't be using tank controls. You should need to walk over to the sail (raised upon launch), interact with it to lower it, and depending on wind direction, your facing direction, and the current. the boat starts to move (or doesn't). Having the sail down when sailing against the wind is a net decrease to paddling speed. If you are using wind power and you want to slow down or stop, you need to have someone there to raise or lower it, or step away from the paddle / oar you're currently manning to raise the sail / lower it again appropriately. A half-mast option would be awesome as well, if you're trying to slow down a bit but not stop completely, like when Stephen was trying to make a U-turn while getting attacked by his vengeful victims. Lastly, whoever's operating the rudder doesn't actually give the vessel any speed at all. They simply apply a bias to the direction of propulsion from any source, paddle or sail.
This level of interaction and realism is possible, and should at least be attempted with our modern technology. If Ashes launches and water vessel play is just tank controls with no individual player interactions to operate ship parts and set-speeds only adjusted by water currents, I'll be quite disappointed. That sort of gameplay, apart from the water currents perhaps, which isn't all that revolutionary on its own, was available ages ago. This is an opportunity to really make a stellar foundation for water-vessel gameplay in the MMO space.
For reference, Valheim has some of the best video game sailing I've ever experienced. I know it's not an MMO, but it was developed in Unity by less than a dozen people. I think y'all could get something at least as good going in Unreal, even on a scale this large. It would be so incredibly epic. I bet that transition would be as impressive and crowd-drawing as the combat re-work all over again.
OVERALL CARAVAN-PVP SYSTEM FEEDBACK
- Lastly, I want to touch on an issue that I think will almost certainly come up once the game goes live: Loot distribution in an open-join public system. How will loot be properly distributed in a random "click here to join" caravan raid? Who gets to call their caravan to pick up all the stuff? Who's to stop random strangers you don't know from ninja looting the low-tier rewards from all the crates on the ground before anyone's caravan arrives? Do you really expect random strangers on the internet without guaranteed voice communication to figure this out during the fight before all the crates hit the floor?
Steven mentioned in a Livestream a few years ago that upon destruction, the area around the busted caravan will become a FFA "hungry-hungry-hippos" situation where people will fight each other over what just hit the floor, but that's absolutely not the picture he was painting during the livestream last week. I'll assume, for the sake of my concerns here, that we don't want to encourage a chaotic, hungry-hungry-hippos, "bust open the crates as fast as possible and destroy any chance of a coordinated delivery" caravan-assault meta.
Let's be realistic, reputation only controls people's actions to a certain extent, and when you're all randoms from potentially all over a huge server with thousands of players online at any given time, who's going to really care whether Jon and Jane Doe ninja'd all the crates off the ground during that one random caravan raid the other day while five other randoms were arguing in chat over who should call their caravan to pick everything up?
- One might think the solution could be to remove the ability for crates to be opened in the field. They drop from the caravan, and they must be returned to a node somewhere, or forfeited after a period of time has passed. This way, you at least know that no random people will join your coordinated group of 20 and steal all the stuff from the crates out from under you after you beat the defenders. However, this still leaves the question of, "Who in this group of strangers gets to call their caravan to make the delivery and hopefully pay a bunch of random people out for their time and effort without lying about how much the delivery paid out?"
As for guaranteeing a fair share of the payout, it's impossible to enforce without dumbing down the cargo system. You'd have to program a bunch of qualifiers and scan the whole defending group upon delivery in order to see who actually deserves to get paid out and at what percentage rate, force the delivering player to sell all the cargo ASAP so that they aren't shorting anyone, and have the game automatically distribute the funds via a mail service or PO box at the caravansary. None of it could be optional either, because as the system is right now, it's just one big random group against one big random group. There needs to be some kind of a guarantee in place for anyone who's actually serious about engaging with the system on a higher level in order for them to take it seriously and make the time investment.
Now, even with all that effort into making an automated system for payouts, let's say a group of random people try to form some consensus mid- or post-battle, decide (for some reason) to trust each other not to bust open the crates on the ground, and the majority agree that attacker 1 should call their caravan since they have the strongest one, even though it's a few minutes further away than attacker 2's. What's to stop attacker 2 from calling their crummy low level caravan sooner because it's in a closer town, scooping up all the crates, and dooming the shipment to destruction by the returning defenders? There are just too many unknown variables when the system relies on a mass-invite pug group format for anyone to enjoy it on a level higher than "smash it all to bits and take the scraps".
- Why are these issues such a big deal? When a player sets out with a caravan, they're taking a huge risk and making a major investment. When you encourage smash and grab behavior from your assault teams, they barely have to make any time investment to completely ruin the merchant's day. All they need to do is win one zergfest and run away with a few crumbs. The level of risk/reward that's being unintentionally fostered here is totally imbalanced. Even if there are a few players in the random group who want to deliver the crates on a fresh caravan, they'll likely be too scared of missing out on the hungry-hungry-hippos frenzy while they try to organize a pickup.
- Now, for what I think the actual solution could be. Remove the system that mass-invites anyone nearby to attack the caravan as one big group. If you want to attack the caravan, then you need to form a party and go attack it. Within the caravan PvP zone, all individual entrants into the battle are their own team. That means individuals, single parties, and raids. On each player's screen, anyone currently in the fray who's not on your team will have a red symbol next to their name-plate. You can still use the sword and shield to signal attacker and defender, but color should be used as well to signify friend or foe. I've been playing a new FPS called The Finals recently, and the dynamic of having 3-4 small teams pitted against each other at the same time instead of just 2 big ones is wonderfully dynamic and refreshing, and I think it should be implemented in more game types.
Best I can think of for the attacker limit is a soft cap. Let's assume the current caravan raid group cap is 40. In the new system, if there are spaces left below that soft cap, then you can push it up to 45 with your group, but if the soft cap of 40 players has already been reached or exceeded by any group, then you'll be rejected. So the max number of people you'll ever be attacked by will only be 45. Any other group too big to join will be rejected with a message telling them the number of spots left below the max cap if they want to try joining again with a smaller group.
At the end of the day, I think the act of making assaults on player-driven caravans needs to be a pre-organized affair only, with multiple opposing teams allowed to go at it at once, so that every involved party agrees on who's allowed in their group, who's going to be the caravan driver if the assault is successful, where they're going to be delivering to, and that they trust the delivery person to pay them their fair share. I just can't think of any way to keep payouts fair for a bunch of random people hopping into the fray at different times, some contributing more while others contribute less, and with no voice chat or defined leader, without completely dumbing down the system.
- Now, with all that being said, I think Ashes can still provide mass-invite, random-group caravan content for casual / solo players in the form of NPC caravans that either only call for defense from NPC enemies in exchange for an automated reward upon completion (GW2 had a lot of dynamic events like this; they were a bit dull because the fights were always way too easy, but y'all could do a better job), or that call for players to either attack or defend, and fight off the other team until the caravan either makes it to its destination or is destroyed by the attacking players. This is where you could implement your programmed qualifiers to see who deserves what and just pay it out through the caravansary for defenders and via automatically divided loot from a single click point on the caravan wreckage for attackers.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Not too experienced with other games that have caravan systems, but Valheim is the best example of small-to-medium sized vessel sailing I've played before, and could certainly be improved upon in Unreal 5 with a team of your size and experience.
Thanks again for all your hard work. See you next month!
Overall, I loved the showcase, especially the raft gameplay – the natural choke points, the water currents. Awesome!
However, I can't help but feel a bit meh about the caravan summoning. What if instead of summoning, the attackers would have to rush their own caravan to the battle. I think it'd up the stakes for attackers, add some more complexity to the attack planning, and make the world feel just a bit more alive.
What excites you about playing and interacting with other players and the Caravan System?
Joining random caravan runs i think would be fun and may be a good way to traverse the world. I wonder if it will make me want to stay around my area or use it to venture off around the world. I do worry though that it will regress into only one weekly caravan run where everyone who wants to ship materials to a node will get together and just run one massive caravan. I think, depending on how the system runs in A2 it would be neat to see merchant NPCs ferrying their own goods through caravans on the roads, this would be really cool also from a summoning caravan perspective as that should spawn an NPC caravan to begin riding towards you. Now if you don't want to do that you can have your bandit team have caravan resources on them and build one in the wild.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan PvP Preview?
I am very excited for the prospect of roaming PvP zones and the connection that that may bring. I am kinda worried about the scale. I think if it's too large scale it could be very boring.
On TTK
You need to be so so careful with it. Having played BDO for about 6ish years i've seen TTK spike and drop down a well all within a year.
As i see it there are 6 vesrsions of PvP - 1v1, 2v2, small scale (3-10v3-10), medium scale (10-20v10-20), anything over 40 people on screen is large scale PvP. The last version of PvP is just zergs x v X.
The issue with a high TTK is that in larger fights you have to be super coordinated to achieve anything. It essentially becomes a battle on who can focus down who faster. But also in smaller fights if you have even one less person you are at such a massive disadvantage.
On the other hand if the TTK is low then you get sniped from something you never even saw and that's the issue where ranged characters really grow in power as the scale of the fight increases and at some level afew rangers will blow up anything that starts to get close. So in essence, melee characters who don't have stealth become irrelevant and unplayable vs the massive dmg of an entire line of casters/ranged. Now in BDO this was kinda fixed by giving characters the ability to traverse the entire render distance in a second but that's a terrible solution.
In general i think it's better to err slightly on the lower time to kill but its something that will need to be monitored as the game progresses and as we figure out the scale of wars that are happening.
Also caravans destroyed on the water should result in derelict and flotsam!
One other thing I thought about when the raft decelerates I'd love to see the sail go slack and flap about a bit and when you accelerates the sail becomes more taut like a proper sail.
progress counter/timer text on screen = fail
visual/audio hints = win
unknown / randomness / chaos = good
To all the people who want enemy/friend spell colors - wake up.
No way you will distinguish them in a massive battle where hundreds of spells are flying every second.
I loved it all. Everything looked fantastic and I'm still so excited to play. I've read some of the comments in previous posts and can support, but much feels like at this point we're not there. I think A2 will be the place to address many of the "smaller" concerns. Keep going, you're doing a fantastic job. Loved the video!
What I did want to add my two cents about was the HP question Steven posed. On one hand, I get WHY you're asking. However, when you asked I felt something that was like, "You know, at some point, you gotta make YOUR game." It's YOURS. I think you said it. You said what you enjoy. So that means some are going to agree and some are going to disagree. In thinking about it, I don't think it really matters much. I can say I'm not a big PVP person, however I played everyday, sometimes all day for years in WoW-some other games enough . I agree, I feel that "hiding the hps" exact number adds an element to the game that feels fun and appropriate for PVP.
But, again, it's your game. Elden Ring never asked me how hard it should be and if I want to play the game I have to realize that it can be difficult. That's the game that was made. And I say that because, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time." No matter what you do, someone will complain and rage quit.
The good news is it can be changed later if it's not working. Sometimes you don't know until much later what is best when there is more information.
I did have one question that I'm not sure is addressed...when all is said and done and the goods are delivered and sold/stored, etc., HOW are the participants equally compensated/rewarded. There was a moment when Steven was "going to pay" in the black market building, everyone lined up, and HE LEFT!!!
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AliceMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited February 7
For splitting loot, there should be an option for the raid leader to trade the entire raid at once in one menu, that also shows the total loot and leader's share, and a button to auto-split.
Here is my idea on how it could be done:
When the items are sold to the NPC, instead of the profit going to the leader's inventory, it goes to the NPC's storage, that is linked to the raid and all members can see the loot but can't take. In the storage it shows the money and where it came from, to ensure that the leader did indeed sell all trade packs. The members don't need to gather up on the NPC, the same storage UI should open up during the splitting of the loot.
Something like this > Other than that, everything that was shown in my opinion was inferior to Archeage's. Idle gameplay is not gameplay. Remove all the idle waiting and replace it with active gameplay like carrying the trade packs to a ship, instead of waiting 2 minutes for caravan to come, and another 2.15 minutes for the caravan to turn into a ship. In Archeage, we could just summon caravans and ships from scrolls (lore-wise, they are stored in the otherworld). Thus, the attackers will have to split into 2 groups, defending and moving the trade packs.
I didn't like the idea of the caravan converting into a ship, would rather summon the ship separately or have a pirate king friend summon their giant armored ship that nobody else has. Keyword here is SUMMON.
I don't get why you're being too strict about fast travel in a "high fantasy MMO", "magically influenced world". Running around the world can quickly feel repetitive and tedious, we don't play MMOs for a walking/riding simulator. *coughs*newworld*coughs* As other people have already mentioned, it is much easier to attack than to defend.
It would help if the defender could hire NPC guards whose stats are based on the player's, or if the caravan/ship emits a defensive buff like Captain's Intuition from Archeage which gives immunity to CC and 50% damage reduction. If the attackers sell the stolen packs, the poor farmer who worked so hard to make the packs and had their caravan destroyed should still get "Crafter share"; again, this is an idea from Archeage. 80% of the profit goes to the deliverer, 20% to the crafter, though I think it should be more than 20% for Ashes because the risk is unavoidable, whereas in Archeage taking risks for extra profit (by selling in enemy's territory) was optional.
Not sure if this has been said or not (going through all the pages would be terribly lengthy), but why not make the risk associated with one of your other neat systems apply to attackers too? What if they fail to take the Caravan and it survives? Then the Caravan Owner can report those attackers to the Node, and the Node can place them onto the Bounty System. This way, anytime they enter the zone of influence of that node, they are flagged for bounty hunting!
That way, you have the risk of being flagged when you enter that node. Of course, you could have a set amount of bounties on individuals, and perhaps only those who reside in that node can also be the only ones who can take said bounty to minimize big guilds from abusing that system to clear their 'debt'. (It's not infallible, and players will always find a way to abuse things, but it has the added protection of needing to be a citizen of that node to take on those contracts!)
Plus, if big guilds do abuse that privilege, then players will have their own justice system in place and just start doing Caravans elsewhere, encouraging the node to tighten its belt due to the loss of that activity and its benefits.
For splitting loot, there should be an option for the raid leader to trade the entire raid at once in one menu, that also shows the total loot and leader's share, and a button to
I don't get why you're being too strict about fast travel in a "high fantasy MMO", "magically influenced world". Running around the world can quickly feel repetitive and tedious, we don't play MMOs for a walking/riding simulator. *coughs*newworld*coughs*
The above quote is no longer accurate as the original post was edited at 2:03 pm. However, I still stand by my statement below (as I felt it was merely an opinion) and have chosen to retain it. I want to clarify that I did not add any words to the original individual's statement and I believe their opinion is valid, even if I may not personally agree with it.
I appreciate the old-school mindset of relying on mounts to traverse the land. Discussing the importance of nodes and the changing seasons of the world, adding fast travel and flight to any game significantly diminishes the sense of scale and exploration. Personally, I believe the limitations in place are perfect; they encourage players in a PvP-oriented world to engage with the content rather than teleporting everywhere to avoid travel dangers.
I understand this might not be a popular opinion, but games like Final Fantasy XI and older ones, where risk was an integral part of the journey, created memorable (albeit sometimes frustrating) experiences. While there are nodes that already allow for quicker modes of travel, I feel that maintaining a sense of challenge and adventure in traversal adds depth to the game world. Again, this is just my perspective from the less vocal minority.
Absolutely adore summoning or bringing a wagon to loot the wreckage.
Appreciate the radius around the looting caravan.
Enjoy the crates themselves.
Like the wreckage with fire and smoke; could be taller for visibility over the treetops.
Agree that cracking crates and experiencing some loot loss adds depth to the game.
Found the fight to be awesome.
Think the UI is looking good.
Very good, but still work on:
Loved the convert to raft ability; it's gorgeous and easy to understand. Suggest adding construction sounds like hammering, sawing, and banging planks. When the construction finishes, it should go silent so players can monitor progress by sound.
Unsure if the player releases the raft into the water or if it's ejected after construction. Hope it won't happen automatically and suggest allowing random people to release or hijack the raft.
Hope players can jump from cliffs and land on the raft.
Ballista wagon when? Let people go Mad Max on the road.
Not fond of:
Dislike loot certificates/glints; prefer organic and visceral looting experience where players need a mule, wagon, or inventory space. Imagine going fishing in real life and instead a fish comming out of the water it comes a certificate written "Congratulations, now go to the fish market and reclaim your fish"
Small feature suggestion for the party window:
Propose adding a function in the party window to give gold to the party and split it evenly. We don't have that in EVE we suffer greatly when paying bills, ramsoms, srp, payouts, etc.
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
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Personally, I believe the limitations in place are perfect; they encourage players in a PvP-oriented world to engage with the content rather than teleporting everywhere to avoid travel dangers.
Adding fast traveling doesn't necessarily reduce the travel dangers. In Archeage for example,
the portals opened by players remain opened for a whole 30-60 seconds(+ long casting time); exposing their own location because it shows the name of the destination above the portal, and they can be used by the enemy chasing them, or used as a 200IQ bait. It has more play potential than a plain hold W chase or whatever. The destinations for the teleport are limited, so mounts are still important.
I don't think you're among the vocal minority judging by posts like [Fast Travel & Mounts], I just wanted to express my dislike regardless about the idea of holding W for +10 minutes riding from point A to B over and over every single time that it becomes a large portion of the gameplay, leading to an unproductive day, which doesn't feel good.
The ability effects might be a bit TOO color coded. At times the PvP looked a lot like Star Wars. I'm happy with the overall idea, but the class visuals could be subtler.
Also, the ability effects could be more subdued in general. The impressiveness of some of the effects (aoe heal, ranger arrow rain) didn't match the visuals. I want to spare visual space on the screen for the abilities I can play around like the lightning ball. I don't really need 50% of my screen to tell me that I've been chipped by a ranger aoe (unless it's hitting me for 50% of my health).
OH YEAH ALSO. I don't see the risk for the attackers...i feel like there's basically nothing happening there. The defenders have everything to lose and attackers have basically nothing to lose.
Out on the road, attackers have absolutely nothing to lose; they should face consequences afterward.
This is precisely why I've emphasized in many threads that Intrepid must track the losses inflicted by attackers on others, quantified in gold. This way, bounties can be placed on them, giving bounty hunters meaningful tasks.
If ten attackers obliterate an entire caravan, pillaging the wagon, looting everything, damaging the defenders gear due to killing them, and the losses are assessed at 100,000 gold (wagon, goods, gear), then each of the ten attackers will carry a bounty of 10,000 gold.
Therefore, in the future, when a bounty hunter locates and dispatches any of them, if, for instance, the bandit's gear damage necessitates 5000 gold for full repair, then 2500 gold should be granted to the bounty hunter as a bounty. So, this bandit will have to suffer in the long run four losses of 2500 in losses (this loss is based on the estimated price for repairing his gear) if he keeps running this same gear, and his bounty is off.
If the bandit is using a very expensive gear and when he dies he will have to spend 500,000 gold, then the bounty hunter will collect 10,000 in one go and the bounty is off. When the damages are way bigger than the bounty then just fully pay the bounty to the bounty hunter and the bandit is off the hook.
Now the burnning question: should a bounty hunter be able to hunt a bandit even when the bandit is flagged as green? I say yes, or at least should be a yes under certain conditions to be discussed.
Got it?
PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
You mentioned in the video about protecting your caravan by potentially hiring mercenary guilds or people of the like. Do you plan on making some sort of hub or board accessible to everyone for people to do this? For both people who want to purchase that sort of service and for guilds wanting to be known as guilds for hire? Will there be some sort of community tower that out sources this task or will it be an open world LFG type of deal
You mentioned in the video about protecting your caravan by potentially hiring mercenary guilds or people of the like. Do you plan on making some sort of hub or board accessible to everyone for people to do this? For both people who want to purchase that sort of service and for guilds wanting to be known as guilds for hire? Will there be some sort of community tower that out sources this task or will it be an open world LFG type of deal
You will want to hire someone you trust 😄 not some random 😉
Incidentally, I was chiming in on another dev discussion (one about dream nodes) Basically Pallies vs Death Knights Light vs Darkness type of thing. Each side having their own PVP node. Well lets go with followoing criteria. For role playing details I am just going to refer to that thread.
1. Both sides attacke each other nodes every weekend.
2. During the week is more of a build period for the comming sieges on the weekend, plus minor skimirshes.
3. There Node caravans that help rebuild node from last weekend battles.
4. Basicall Open world rts game ran by palyers.( so insert typical rts game mechinics here)
If I remember correctly Creative Director has already confirmed PvP caravans for Nodes. So it may seem like what I am talking about is already in game but there is a slight difference.
See in this scenerio Nodes are gauranteed to fight each other during the weeking so stopping opposing enemy caravans actually becoms a PvP objective that will have an effect in the near future. So if i log in for three days and dedicate an hour to caravan hunting each day and on the third day I find one and alert my teamates and destroy it; then it would be worth it. In this scenerio scouting is actually a thing and caravans (if designed correctly) are worth the time invested to hunt them down and destroy them. (PvP objective)
If one side decides not take out caravans then the opposing Nodes will be so heavily fortified that they can just focus on offensive operations and leave a skeleton crew to defend their own node.
You may be reading this and think well they already have node vs node open world PVP. I actually do not know the details of node vs node but from what I do know it is more like Open world PvP event. Not .like an open world PvP game were factions (in this case nodes) are in constant war with each other with PvP objectives: To be fair to AoC they could already be planning something like this. Just from were I am standing game mechinics do not line up with Open world PvP gamelike experience.
In this example there is a huge incentive spend time hunting caravans to take out caravans. Not just we got some gold.
I want to emphasize ounce more that what was in the video looked like lots of fun I mean really good content.
Really just needs more incentive to do that content.
1. I understand that people think that attackers need more of a risk when attacking caravans, and I actually agree. Although it's not really possible to showcase the social and political implications that raiding a caravan would have. Perhaps there only needs to be a slight mechanical deterrent for raiding a caravan? Someone mentioned a fee to be able to use the black market in a node, and since not every node will have a black market, I question the practicality of this idea, but I think it's a good start.
2. I think the conversion from caravan to raft and back is really great! I would like for there to be an option to interact with the 'temporary dock' (not sure on the actual name), and when this happens the player would start an animation to work on the dock to speed up the conversion process. Maybe there could be some kind of mini game as well? That might not be very MMORPG-like though, it could feel a little out of place.
3. I know that group mounts will eventually be a thing, what about group caravans? Would make a lot more sense to have to have a 'co-pilot' or something like that to be able to use some of the more effective abilities.
Hello, thank you for the PVP and caravans preview! I really enjoyed it. I have a couple of ideas that I believe could enhance the overall experience of this activity. I apologize if these suggestions have already been mentioned or considered.
Visual Change for Caravans Based on Damage Received:
I propose a visual change for caravans based on the amount of damage they've taken. I believe this would greatly enhance immersion and realism within the game.
Mechanic for Caravans to Drop Items Based on Damage Received:
Allow me to elaborate on this suggestion:
Lore Explanation:
Consider the visual model of the caravan, with items loaded on top. During combat, it's feasible that attacks could cause some of these items to fall off the caravan, presenting an opportunity for attackers to steal them even before the caravan is fully destroyed. This mechanic aligns with real-world physics and possibilities.
Mechanic Explanation:
The idea is that as the caravan sustains damage, it progressively drops some of its cargo. For instance, after sustaining damage equal to 25% of its health, it drops one box from its loadout. Subsequent damage increments of 25% result in more boxes being dropped. Upon complete destruction, attackers receive any remaining cargo.
Defenders should have the ability to return dropped items to the caravan, but this poses a risk during combat. Boxes dropped due to damage should be randomly selected based on the taken damage.
Additionally, different types of slots within the caravan could dictate when items are dropped:
(1) Fully protected slots: Items from these slots are only dropped upon full caravan destruction.
(2) Slots where items are dropped at 25% health.
(3) Slots where items are dropped at 50% health.
(4) Slots where items are dropped at 75% health.
So, when the caravan is at 75%, only few boxes from the (4) range can be dropped. When it's at 50%, few boxes from (3) and (4) are dropped, and so on.
These numbers can be adjusted as needed.
Furthermore, different types of caravans could introduce strategic choices. For example, slower caravans might have more protected slots, while faster ones have fewer, but they reach their destination quicker, potentially avoiding confrontations. Extensions for caravans could offer various trade-offs, such as removing all protected slots but increasing the number of slots that drop items at 25% health.
Example:
Let's imagine that our caravan has 20 slots for different items. You have 16 boxes of the "very rare, almost legendary donuts" that you can sell for over 100,500 gold, and 4 boxes of some junk from the last boss of the game: various gems, a glowing sword with the description "it can destroy the whole world, or you can simply stick it into the planet for a few expansions," and so on. I hope you get the picture—it's quite the eclectic mix!
Suppose you have 5 slots of each aforementioned type. In the protected slots, you can place 5 boxes. But if you want to deliver all 16 boxes, there's a risk: you can place these boxes in less protected slots and risk someone stealing a few from those less protected slots. Or you can try to deliver 2-3 caravans where almost each box of donuts will be in the protected slots. But there's also a risk here because when you deliver 3 caravans, one of them might be fully destroyed, resulting in the loss not only of a few donut boxes, but 5.
Overall, I think this mechanic fits into the ideology of the game, where higher risk gives you higher reward.
In case of any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I'll be glad to answer them!
New World struggled with particles and there was a huge complaint from the community that they couldn't tell if damaging and healing effects were friend or foe. It is very important to clearly indicate to players if they should run towards or away from particle effects. Watching this video made me realize that AoC may have the same problem that New World originally had.
I don't like the caravan summoning mechanic from some remote node.
I would prefer bandits to have to carry the components required to assemble the caravan.
Caravans hastily assembled on the spot should be less robust.
Hello!
PvP looks great, but I felt really uncomfortable to see so many identical AOE spells from both raid parties. I didn't notice any visual differences between ally and enemy AoE. I think it would be great to understand if a player will take damage from this spell or not.
Also about raft caravan. The controls seem too simple. In real life, it is impossible to completely stop a raft or boat in just one second. I believe this is not the final version, but still...
Thank you for your work, I'm so excited to see where this game is going.
Comments
Will say that I think there should be a place to equip buffs to caravans that also buff those who are defending. Like a gem slot that is enchanted with a specific buff the merchant wants to use. I say this because eventually it will get frustrating to use caravans if there isn't an uphill battle for those who want to raid it. Which there will be PvP guilds that all they will do is raid caravans and PK.
I honestly thought the caravan “packing up” method was ingenious, and looks really well done.
The water raft was a great idea. However, as I mentioned in another post, the raft, in both it’s final design and transition, lose the meaning of being synonymous with the caravan as they are vastly different in size and shape. The sudden bulwarks also lost the coolness of the already shifting boards and gears of the caravan itself. I would highly recommend shifting to having the caravan itself fold out and become the raft.
I would recommend making the bottom of the caravan rounded in both forms and letting the sides fold out origami style to make a platform. You can have a player inside the caravan, “driving” by pushing gears to move the wheels. The mast can be stored inside the top of the caravan before folding out. The keel can slide out the back after it’s pushed far enough out into the water.
Hope this helps
1. They will always join the attacker if attacker is an organized group.
2. They can just open the chests real quick after we win and run off with the loot?
I feel like attackers need to be organized before attacking otherwise ppl in the area will just join the attack and take the easy loot every time. Also if you are attacking a caravan and another group of attackers show up. bandits dont team up it should become a defender V attacker1 v Attacker2 So the attacker groups also have to fight eachother. Having defenders freely join is logical but attackers should have to be organized groups.
Also read an idea from someone here that you should need a spacial hammer/magical item to destroy the caravan adding this in and making it have a decent cost could be a good way of adding risk to the attackers if its dropped on death. If you ever need to add abit of a downside to the attacking side. It also forces you to plan on "attacking" so not just any1 in the area can show up and attack if they see a caravan comming.
Make ppl have 2 use a demolition hammer or something to smash a caravan that has a 100% droprate make it pricy. It forces bandits to leave town with a purpose to attack not just i randomly saw a caravan and attacked it while out chilling with the boys.
Every other system forces you to plan what you are doing when leaving town.
The stolen goods should go into materials and you could have a specific backpack for it so you have to plan on attacking when leaving town.
I enjoyed the showcase. There is a lot that will be worked on and systems that the dev team hinted at hidden in the shadows. I feel as though this is exactly what I was envisioning. I will say this type of system preview is what I prefer. Giving us much to discover for the risk v reward, how can I upgrade as an attacker or defender, etc. A little taste is what we all need (maybe not what we want
What excites you about playing and interacting with other players and the Caravan System?
I miss this type of social interaction within MMOs. The fact that we can plan a late night or early morning transport. Having "moles" in certain social communities. Curious how this system will exist within a vassal system vs a neighboring node system. The social interaction possibilities are what you want to see/experience as an MMO gamer.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan PvP Preview?
As someone that understands there is a lot of work to be done, no major concerns. You hear a lot about visual effects, time to kill, balance, etc. To me this will all be cleaned up on the back end. The progress is wonderful to witness! I do enjoy the lack of knowledge around the entire system. One of the best pieces when playing a new MMO is discovery. I would hate for everything to be completely fleshed out and min/max prior to release.
One last note. I am very happy PvP is the focal point for this game within MULTIPLE systems! A ton of games I have played, PvP took a backseat or was irrelevant. I am really impressed by the progress within this project. The blueprint is super solid and continues to drive excitement to test in A2. Thanks for the ongoing showcases!
Overall, I liked what I saw! Always room for improvement, and I do have some serious disagreements with how certain elements of this gameplay loop are being handled that I'll go into later, but overall, everything seems to be on a good track. I'm surprised by how much feedback I have for this system, but it's one that I care about a lot, so I hope you can bear with me. I'll try to keep it as organized as possible.
What excites you about playing and interacting with other players and the Caravan System?
I love how involved the economic systems in the game are, as well as how traversable the land/waterways are. The action of engaging with the economy in most MMOs feels very "game-y" (without actually being fun, somehow) and immersion-breaking. Walking around gathering from the same nodes on repeat for ages, then going to any old town to craft some stuff and sell it on an auction house or in trade chat. I'm looking forward to having gathering, processing, crafting, and transporting feel more realistic, as well as something you see happening in the world around you on a frequent basis. It'll feel so fun to be sitting on a dinghy fishing in the river and seeing a trade caravan raft or larger ship pass by every now and then. Sitting on the docks of a port city and seeing ships rolling in throughout the day bringing back ocean fish or trade goods. To feel the world bustling with activity in different ways and in numerous areas rather than the usual "designated pathway" to making money.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan PvP Preview?
I'll just give my reactions in chronological order along with the events in the showcase. Some of the following suggestions are going to include a bit more work on the players' parts, but I think it will end up being more immersive and rewarding for the effort.
PVP COMBAT FEEDBACK
- AoE spell effects may need to be adjusted so that enemy and ally spells are more easily differentiated. There was so much ball lightning going on, I feel like I wouldn't have been able to tell whose was whose if I was in that scenario.
CARAVAN FUNCTIONALITY FEEDBACK
- It's fun looking when the caravan essentially blows up and lies sitting on the side of the road in flames after it's destroyed, but I think it might be more immersive if it doesn't just explode like a big, firey, loot pinata.
I think there should be a few thresholds, maybe at each 25% health reduction, where the animation, model, and functionality of the caravan change. At 75% health, some of the doors/windows swing open and a couple spokes on the wheels bust. At 50% health, the animation starts getting a little rickety, a couple more spokes bust, a window or two bust out completely, and you get a 25% reduction to movement speed. At 25% health, one of the wheels completely busts off, the remaining doors/windows are flapping around, the whole frame is leaning back and forth as it lumbers onward, and you get a 50% reduction to movement speed.
The caravan can be repaired by any friendlies with tools if they aren't being interrupted by combat, but it takes a decent amount of time to make a full recovery from <25%, maybe a few minutes. This can be accompanied by a simple hammering animation. There can be a total of four people helping repair the caravan at a time, reducing the total repair time by a quarter for each additional repair person.
If a caravan is destroyed, then rather than having it blow up into a flaming heap, launching 50-pound crates of goods and materials every which way, you instead get some sort of wood/steel-splintering / dust / collapsing cloud instead of a fireball, and the carcass of the caravan lies on the ground waiting for you to loot the contents from inside of it. When you click to loot it, it shows the grid with all the goods inside like it does for your own caravan. From there, without revealing to the player what the actual contents of the crates are, just their type, they can choose which crates to forfeit and open right there in the open, and which to save for transport.
If they choose to transfer the crates to a new caravan, then this is how I think that system should change:
- Get rid of the whole "call an entire caravan to spawn right next to me out of nowhere after standing around for five minutes" thing. I have to be perfectly honest and say that it's horribly, terribly immersion breaking, boring, and lazy. Is there a bit of a thrill in knowing you could be attacked again while waiting for it to show up? Eh, sort of, but odds are, the people you attacked won't really regroup and strike again until your new caravan arrives. Anything beats just standing around doing nothing in a video game for minutes on end during a period of time that's supposed to be an adrenaline-rush.
In lieu of this system, I think marauders should have to bring their own form of transportation for stolen goods. If they want to transfer it all straight into a new caravan, they'll need to have their buddy drive a caravan over from the nearby village for them, or have it hiding behind the hill they all pour out from when they launch their attack. Alternatively, they could bring along a few hand-carts that can hold up to a few crates each, but move a little bit slower for each crate they're holding, or some beasts of burden that can carry crates over their backs like paniers. From there, players will have to go the rest of the way to their selling destination on foot, or just make for the nearest town that has a friendly caravan in it if they don't have a full one with them, and then launch it as their own after the fact. While traveling, multiple carriers in one raid will just show up as multiple targets on the opposing team's minimaps. If the raid decides to go the beast of burden / handcart route instead of a single caravan, the raid leader can just designate all the stolen crates to be placed in their personal storage, no matter who delivers them, or at whatever town they end up in. Splitting up at this point could be a useful, but risky strategy if securing all the goods seems unlikely.
- Overall, there's just way too much convenience infused into this system right now, and before it's even been called for by players. With a system like this, that's conceptually based on realistic player engagement in an economic system and emergent gameplay, I think it really needs to lean into those aspects and make players do a bit of heavy-lifting - literally.
When transferring crates from the broken caravan to the handcarts, beasts of burden, or new caravan, make the players pick up the crates from the broken caravan themselves and lug them at walking speed over to their new transport. We don't need mass-auto-loot in player vehicles. It barely takes any effort from the player to do this sort of thing, but that little bit of required engagement adds a sense of involvement, realism, and makes them feel like they're directly serving a purpose by being there.
- Similar to my previous comments, I think other party members can serve a better purpose when a caravan is converting to a raft. Simply make the scaffolding accessible if it isn't already and allow players to interact with the deconstructing caravan, lift a randomly generated piece of it from the model, and walk it up the steps to the raft. Each time a player completes the walk, it adds another few percentage points towards completion (again, go to percentages, not exact timers, it adds suspense). Same thing can be done in reverse when reassembling the caravan.
- Hopefully you can understand why I feel so strongly about this. While it's true that too many obstacles in a game can be pointless and annoying, I genuinely think these adjustments would make the system more meaningful, immersive, and rewarding for the player from moment to moment. Right now, the caravan as an object in the world feels little more than a PvP target. The caravan and its contents, as objects in the world, should feel more like objects and systems that you're able to visibly and meaningfully influence and need to physically interact with in order to accomplish your goals. Obstacles are good when they make players strategize, cooperate, and pitch in together to solve problems. Right now, none of that is happening. It's just a zergfest on top of a conveniently moving, valuable target.
WATER-BASED VEHICLE FEEDBACK
- As for the raft showcase, I loved the visuals, it all looks great, but I have a few critiques / future suggestions.
I think all watercraft should have a much longer transition from not moving to moving at full speed and from moving at full speed to stopping. It's a huge floating object, it should take a few seconds for it to seem like it's moving at all from a standstill, and taking your finger off the W key shouldn't just make it stop dead in its tracks. It shouldn't even be using tank controls, honestly, but more on that later.
I sincerely hope there can be a wind direction system in this game to be paired with the water current system. Any vessel with a sail needs to be influenced by wind direction, and virtually every vessel should have oars onboard in case you're sailing against the wind. Having a sail be full of wind no matter which direction it's facing these days just looks a bit silly, honestly.
Each oar, each sail, and the rudder, unless in a row boat where you can reach it all from one sitting position, should need a player to operate it. Players can switch back and forth between multiple parts, but unless they're close enough together, they cannot be manned simultaneously. This can be a way to upgrade your setup depending on the size of the group you typically roll with. Do you have two oar posts on your raft, or four? If you choose four, it adds more weight to your caravan, but can give you better speed on the water if you have enough people to man them all. Using the oars can also be used in tandem with the sail if you're sailing with the wind for an added speed bonus. Players using the oars operate them on their own, separate from the person using the rudder, giving a directionally appropriate speed boost while the interaction/animation is active. They'll have to pay attention, have a plan, and communicate in order to pilot the vessel effectively.
Additionally, when using a vessel with a sail, the system shouldn't be using tank controls. You should need to walk over to the sail (raised upon launch), interact with it to lower it, and depending on wind direction, your facing direction, and the current. the boat starts to move (or doesn't). Having the sail down when sailing against the wind is a net decrease to paddling speed. If you are using wind power and you want to slow down or stop, you need to have someone there to raise or lower it, or step away from the paddle / oar you're currently manning to raise the sail / lower it again appropriately. A half-mast option would be awesome as well, if you're trying to slow down a bit but not stop completely, like when Stephen was trying to make a U-turn while getting attacked by his vengeful victims. Lastly, whoever's operating the rudder doesn't actually give the vessel any speed at all. They simply apply a bias to the direction of propulsion from any source, paddle or sail.
This level of interaction and realism is possible, and should at least be attempted with our modern technology. If Ashes launches and water vessel play is just tank controls with no individual player interactions to operate ship parts and set-speeds only adjusted by water currents, I'll be quite disappointed. That sort of gameplay, apart from the water currents perhaps, which isn't all that revolutionary on its own, was available ages ago. This is an opportunity to really make a stellar foundation for water-vessel gameplay in the MMO space.
For reference, Valheim has some of the best video game sailing I've ever experienced. I know it's not an MMO, but it was developed in Unity by less than a dozen people. I think y'all could get something at least as good going in Unreal, even on a scale this large. It would be so incredibly epic. I bet that transition would be as impressive and crowd-drawing as the combat re-work all over again.
OVERALL CARAVAN-PVP SYSTEM FEEDBACK
- Lastly, I want to touch on an issue that I think will almost certainly come up once the game goes live: Loot distribution in an open-join public system. How will loot be properly distributed in a random "click here to join" caravan raid? Who gets to call their caravan to pick up all the stuff? Who's to stop random strangers you don't know from ninja looting the low-tier rewards from all the crates on the ground before anyone's caravan arrives? Do you really expect random strangers on the internet without guaranteed voice communication to figure this out during the fight before all the crates hit the floor?
Steven mentioned in a Livestream a few years ago that upon destruction, the area around the busted caravan will become a FFA "hungry-hungry-hippos" situation where people will fight each other over what just hit the floor, but that's absolutely not the picture he was painting during the livestream last week. I'll assume, for the sake of my concerns here, that we don't want to encourage a chaotic, hungry-hungry-hippos, "bust open the crates as fast as possible and destroy any chance of a coordinated delivery" caravan-assault meta.
Let's be realistic, reputation only controls people's actions to a certain extent, and when you're all randoms from potentially all over a huge server with thousands of players online at any given time, who's going to really care whether Jon and Jane Doe ninja'd all the crates off the ground during that one random caravan raid the other day while five other randoms were arguing in chat over who should call their caravan to pick everything up?
- One might think the solution could be to remove the ability for crates to be opened in the field. They drop from the caravan, and they must be returned to a node somewhere, or forfeited after a period of time has passed. This way, you at least know that no random people will join your coordinated group of 20 and steal all the stuff from the crates out from under you after you beat the defenders. However, this still leaves the question of, "Who in this group of strangers gets to call their caravan to make the delivery and hopefully pay a bunch of random people out for their time and effort without lying about how much the delivery paid out?"
As for guaranteeing a fair share of the payout, it's impossible to enforce without dumbing down the cargo system. You'd have to program a bunch of qualifiers and scan the whole defending group upon delivery in order to see who actually deserves to get paid out and at what percentage rate, force the delivering player to sell all the cargo ASAP so that they aren't shorting anyone, and have the game automatically distribute the funds via a mail service or PO box at the caravansary. None of it could be optional either, because as the system is right now, it's just one big random group against one big random group. There needs to be some kind of a guarantee in place for anyone who's actually serious about engaging with the system on a higher level in order for them to take it seriously and make the time investment.
Now, even with all that effort into making an automated system for payouts, let's say a group of random people try to form some consensus mid- or post-battle, decide (for some reason) to trust each other not to bust open the crates on the ground, and the majority agree that attacker 1 should call their caravan since they have the strongest one, even though it's a few minutes further away than attacker 2's. What's to stop attacker 2 from calling their crummy low level caravan sooner because it's in a closer town, scooping up all the crates, and dooming the shipment to destruction by the returning defenders? There are just too many unknown variables when the system relies on a mass-invite pug group format for anyone to enjoy it on a level higher than "smash it all to bits and take the scraps".
- Why are these issues such a big deal? When a player sets out with a caravan, they're taking a huge risk and making a major investment. When you encourage smash and grab behavior from your assault teams, they barely have to make any time investment to completely ruin the merchant's day. All they need to do is win one zergfest and run away with a few crumbs. The level of risk/reward that's being unintentionally fostered here is totally imbalanced. Even if there are a few players in the random group who want to deliver the crates on a fresh caravan, they'll likely be too scared of missing out on the hungry-hungry-hippos frenzy while they try to organize a pickup.
- Now, for what I think the actual solution could be. Remove the system that mass-invites anyone nearby to attack the caravan as one big group. If you want to attack the caravan, then you need to form a party and go attack it. Within the caravan PvP zone, all individual entrants into the battle are their own team. That means individuals, single parties, and raids. On each player's screen, anyone currently in the fray who's not on your team will have a red symbol next to their name-plate. You can still use the sword and shield to signal attacker and defender, but color should be used as well to signify friend or foe. I've been playing a new FPS called The Finals recently, and the dynamic of having 3-4 small teams pitted against each other at the same time instead of just 2 big ones is wonderfully dynamic and refreshing, and I think it should be implemented in more game types.
Best I can think of for the attacker limit is a soft cap. Let's assume the current caravan raid group cap is 40. In the new system, if there are spaces left below that soft cap, then you can push it up to 45 with your group, but if the soft cap of 40 players has already been reached or exceeded by any group, then you'll be rejected. So the max number of people you'll ever be attacked by will only be 45. Any other group too big to join will be rejected with a message telling them the number of spots left below the max cap if they want to try joining again with a smaller group.
At the end of the day, I think the act of making assaults on player-driven caravans needs to be a pre-organized affair only, with multiple opposing teams allowed to go at it at once, so that every involved party agrees on who's allowed in their group, who's going to be the caravan driver if the assault is successful, where they're going to be delivering to, and that they trust the delivery person to pay them their fair share. I just can't think of any way to keep payouts fair for a bunch of random people hopping into the fray at different times, some contributing more while others contribute less, and with no voice chat or defined leader, without completely dumbing down the system.
- Now, with all that being said, I think Ashes can still provide mass-invite, random-group caravan content for casual / solo players in the form of NPC caravans that either only call for defense from NPC enemies in exchange for an automated reward upon completion (GW2 had a lot of dynamic events like this; they were a bit dull because the fights were always way too easy, but y'all could do a better job), or that call for players to either attack or defend, and fight off the other team until the caravan either makes it to its destination or is destroyed by the attacking players. This is where you could implement your programmed qualifiers to see who deserves what and just pay it out through the caravansary for defenders and via automatically divided loot from a single click point on the caravan wreckage for attackers.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Not too experienced with other games that have caravan systems, but Valheim is the best example of small-to-medium sized vessel sailing I've played before, and could certainly be improved upon in Unreal 5 with a team of your size and experience.
Thanks again for all your hard work. See you next month!
However, I can't help but feel a bit meh about the caravan summoning. What if instead of summoning, the attackers would have to rush their own caravan to the battle. I think it'd up the stakes for attackers, add some more complexity to the attack planning, and make the world feel just a bit more alive.
What excites you about playing and interacting with other players and the Caravan System?
Joining random caravan runs i think would be fun and may be a good way to traverse the world. I wonder if it will make me want to stay around my area or use it to venture off around the world. I do worry though that it will regress into only one weekly caravan run where everyone who wants to ship materials to a node will get together and just run one massive caravan. I think, depending on how the system runs in A2 it would be neat to see merchant NPCs ferrying their own goods through caravans on the roads, this would be really cool also from a summoning caravan perspective as that should spawn an NPC caravan to begin riding towards you. Now if you don't want to do that you can have your bandit team have caravan resources on them and build one in the wild.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Caravan PvP Preview?
I am very excited for the prospect of roaming PvP zones and the connection that that may bring. I am kinda worried about the scale. I think if it's too large scale it could be very boring.
On TTK
You need to be so so careful with it. Having played BDO for about 6ish years i've seen TTK spike and drop down a well all within a year.
As i see it there are 6 vesrsions of PvP - 1v1, 2v2, small scale (3-10v3-10), medium scale (10-20v10-20), anything over 40 people on screen is large scale PvP. The last version of PvP is just zergs x v X.
The issue with a high TTK is that in larger fights you have to be super coordinated to achieve anything. It essentially becomes a battle on who can focus down who faster. But also in smaller fights if you have even one less person you are at such a massive disadvantage.
On the other hand if the TTK is low then you get sniped from something you never even saw and that's the issue where ranged characters really grow in power as the scale of the fight increases and at some level afew rangers will blow up anything that starts to get close. So in essence, melee characters who don't have stealth become irrelevant and unplayable vs the massive dmg of an entire line of casters/ranged. Now in BDO this was kinda fixed by giving characters the ability to traverse the entire render distance in a second but that's a terrible solution.
I want to showcase afew clips from BDO to really highlight this low TTK being an issue.
(TIMESTAMP NOT WORKING SKIP TO 5 MINS)
(also obviously BDO has alot of AOE but the point still stands)
In general i think it's better to err slightly on the lower time to kill but its something that will need to be monitored as the game progresses and as we figure out the scale of wars that are happening.
Also caravans destroyed on the water should result in derelict and flotsam!
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/58864/if-fast-travel-is-going-to-be-limited-why-can-we-fast-travel-a-caravan-to-loot#latest
visual/audio hints = win
unknown / randomness / chaos = good
To all the people who want enemy/friend spell colors - wake up.
No way you will distinguish them in a massive battle where hundreds of spells are flying every second.
What I did want to add my two cents about was the HP question Steven posed. On one hand, I get WHY you're asking. However, when you asked I felt something that was like, "You know, at some point, you gotta make YOUR game." It's YOURS. I think you said it. You said what you enjoy. So that means some are going to agree and some are going to disagree. In thinking about it, I don't think it really matters much. I can say I'm not a big PVP person, however I played everyday, sometimes all day for years in WoW-some other games enough . I agree, I feel that "hiding the hps" exact number adds an element to the game that feels fun and appropriate for PVP.
But, again, it's your game. Elden Ring never asked me how hard it should be and if I want to play the game I have to realize that it can be difficult. That's the game that was made. And I say that because, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time." No matter what you do, someone will complain and rage quit.
The good news is it can be changed later if it's not working. Sometimes you don't know until much later what is best when there is more information.
I did have one question that I'm not sure is addressed...when all is said and done and the goods are delivered and sold/stored, etc., HOW are the participants equally compensated/rewarded. There was a moment when Steven was "going to pay" in the black market building, everyone lined up, and HE LEFT!!!
Here is my idea on how it could be done:
When the items are sold to the NPC, instead of the profit going to the leader's inventory, it goes to the NPC's storage, that is linked to the raid and all members can see the loot but can't take. In the storage it shows the money and where it came from, to ensure that the leader did indeed sell all trade packs. The members don't need to gather up on the NPC, the same storage UI should open up during the splitting of the loot.
Something like this >
Other than that, everything that was shown in my opinion was inferior to Archeage's. Idle gameplay is not gameplay. Remove all the idle waiting and replace it with active gameplay like carrying the trade packs to a ship, instead of waiting 2 minutes for caravan to come, and another 2.15 minutes for the caravan to turn into a ship. In Archeage, we could just summon caravans and ships from scrolls (lore-wise, they are stored in the otherworld). Thus, the attackers will have to split into 2 groups, defending and moving the trade packs.
I didn't like the idea of the caravan converting into a ship, would rather summon the ship separately or have a pirate king friend summon their giant armored ship that nobody else has. Keyword here is SUMMON.
I don't get why you're being too strict about fast travel in a "high fantasy MMO", "magically influenced world". Running around the world can quickly feel repetitive and tedious, we don't play MMOs for a walking/riding simulator. *coughs*newworld*coughs*
As other people have already mentioned, it is much easier to attack than to defend.
It would help if the defender could hire NPC guards whose stats are based on the player's, or if the caravan/ship emits a defensive buff like Captain's Intuition from Archeage which gives immunity to CC and 50% damage reduction. If the attackers sell the stolen packs, the poor farmer who worked so hard to make the packs and had their caravan destroyed should still get "Crafter share"; again, this is an idea from Archeage. 80% of the profit goes to the deliverer, 20% to the crafter, though I think it should be more than 20% for Ashes because the risk is unavoidable, whereas in Archeage taking risks for extra profit (by selling in enemy's territory) was optional.
Not sure if this has been said or not (going through all the pages would be terribly lengthy), but why not make the risk associated with one of your other neat systems apply to attackers too? What if they fail to take the Caravan and it survives? Then the Caravan Owner can report those attackers to the Node, and the Node can place them onto the Bounty System. This way, anytime they enter the zone of influence of that node, they are flagged for bounty hunting!
That way, you have the risk of being flagged when you enter that node. Of course, you could have a set amount of bounties on individuals, and perhaps only those who reside in that node can also be the only ones who can take said bounty to minimize big guilds from abusing that system to clear their 'debt'. (It's not infallible, and players will always find a way to abuse things, but it has the added protection of needing to be a citizen of that node to take on those contracts!)
Plus, if big guilds do abuse that privilege, then players will have their own justice system in place and just start doing Caravans elsewhere, encouraging the node to tighten its belt due to the loss of that activity and its benefits.
The above quote is no longer accurate as the original post was edited at 2:03 pm. However, I still stand by my statement below (as I felt it was merely an opinion) and have chosen to retain it. I want to clarify that I did not add any words to the original individual's statement and I believe their opinion is valid, even if I may not personally agree with it.
I appreciate the old-school mindset of relying on mounts to traverse the land. Discussing the importance of nodes and the changing seasons of the world, adding fast travel and flight to any game significantly diminishes the sense of scale and exploration. Personally, I believe the limitations in place are perfect; they encourage players in a PvP-oriented world to engage with the content rather than teleporting everywhere to avoid travel dangers.
I understand this might not be a popular opinion, but games like Final Fantasy XI and older ones, where risk was an integral part of the journey, created memorable (albeit sometimes frustrating) experiences. While there are nodes that already allow for quicker modes of travel, I feel that maintaining a sense of challenge and adventure in traversal adds depth to the game world. Again, this is just my perspective from the less vocal minority.
Very good, but still work on:
Not fond of:
Small feature suggestion for the party window:
the portals opened by players remain opened for a whole 30-60 seconds(+ long casting time); exposing their own location because it shows the name of the destination above the portal, and they can be used by the enemy chasing them, or used as a 200IQ bait. It has more play potential than a plain hold W chase or whatever. The destinations for the teleport are limited, so mounts are still important.
I don't think you're among the vocal minority judging by posts like [Fast Travel & Mounts], I just wanted to express my dislike regardless about the idea of holding W for +10 minutes riding from point A to B over and over every single time that it becomes a large portion of the gameplay, leading to an unproductive day, which doesn't feel good. That's a good point. Hmm well, we'll see if it's worth the sacrifice when the game is out.
Also, the ability effects could be more subdued in general. The impressiveness of some of the effects (aoe heal, ranger arrow rain) didn't match the visuals. I want to spare visual space on the screen for the abilities I can play around like the lightning ball. I don't really need 50% of my screen to tell me that I've been chipped by a ranger aoe (unless it's hitting me for 50% of my health).
Otherwise the PvP looked like PvP.
This is precisely why I've emphasized in many threads that Intrepid must track the losses inflicted by attackers on others, quantified in gold. This way, bounties can be placed on them, giving bounty hunters meaningful tasks.
If ten attackers obliterate an entire caravan, pillaging the wagon, looting everything, damaging the defenders gear due to killing them, and the losses are assessed at 100,000 gold (wagon, goods, gear), then each of the ten attackers will carry a bounty of 10,000 gold.
Therefore, in the future, when a bounty hunter locates and dispatches any of them, if, for instance, the bandit's gear damage necessitates 5000 gold for full repair, then 2500 gold should be granted to the bounty hunter as a bounty. So, this bandit will have to suffer in the long run four losses of 2500 in losses (this loss is based on the estimated price for repairing his gear) if he keeps running this same gear, and his bounty is off.
If the bandit is using a very expensive gear and when he dies he will have to spend 500,000 gold, then the bounty hunter will collect 10,000 in one go and the bounty is off. When the damages are way bigger than the bounty then just fully pay the bounty to the bounty hunter and the bandit is off the hook.
Now the burnning question: should a bounty hunter be able to hunt a bandit even when the bandit is flagged as green? I say yes, or at least should be a yes under certain conditions to be discussed.
Got it?
You will want to hire someone you trust 😄 not some random 😉
1. Both sides attacke each other nodes every weekend.
2. During the week is more of a build period for the comming sieges on the weekend, plus minor skimirshes.
3. There Node caravans that help rebuild node from last weekend battles.
4. Basicall Open world rts game ran by palyers.( so insert typical rts game mechinics here)
If I remember correctly Creative Director has already confirmed PvP caravans for Nodes. So it may seem like what I am talking about is already in game but there is a slight difference.
See in this scenerio Nodes are gauranteed to fight each other during the weeking so stopping opposing enemy caravans actually becoms a PvP objective that will have an effect in the near future. So if i log in for three days and dedicate an hour to caravan hunting each day and on the third day I find one and alert my teamates and destroy it; then it would be worth it. In this scenerio scouting is actually a thing and caravans (if designed correctly) are worth the time invested to hunt them down and destroy them. (PvP objective)
If one side decides not take out caravans then the opposing Nodes will be so heavily fortified that they can just focus on offensive operations and leave a skeleton crew to defend their own node.
You may be reading this and think well they already have node vs node open world PVP. I actually do not know the details of node vs node but from what I do know it is more like Open world PvP event. Not .like an open world PvP game were factions (in this case nodes) are in constant war with each other with PvP objectives: To be fair to AoC they could already be planning something like this. Just from were I am standing game mechinics do not line up with Open world PvP gamelike experience.
In this example there is a huge incentive spend time hunting caravans to take out caravans. Not just we got some gold.
I want to emphasize ounce more that what was in the video looked like lots of fun I mean really good content.
Really just needs more incentive to do that content.
2. I think the conversion from caravan to raft and back is really great! I would like for there to be an option to interact with the 'temporary dock' (not sure on the actual name), and when this happens the player would start an animation to work on the dock to speed up the conversion process. Maybe there could be some kind of mini game as well? That might not be very MMORPG-like though, it could feel a little out of place.
3. I know that group mounts will eventually be a thing, what about group caravans? Would make a lot more sense to have to have a 'co-pilot' or something like that to be able to use some of the more effective abilities.
Visual Change for Caravans Based on Damage Received:
I propose a visual change for caravans based on the amount of damage they've taken. I believe this would greatly enhance immersion and realism within the game.
Mechanic for Caravans to Drop Items Based on Damage Received:
Allow me to elaborate on this suggestion:
Lore Explanation:
Consider the visual model of the caravan, with items loaded on top. During combat, it's feasible that attacks could cause some of these items to fall off the caravan, presenting an opportunity for attackers to steal them even before the caravan is fully destroyed. This mechanic aligns with real-world physics and possibilities.
Mechanic Explanation:
The idea is that as the caravan sustains damage, it progressively drops some of its cargo. For instance, after sustaining damage equal to 25% of its health, it drops one box from its loadout. Subsequent damage increments of 25% result in more boxes being dropped. Upon complete destruction, attackers receive any remaining cargo.
Defenders should have the ability to return dropped items to the caravan, but this poses a risk during combat. Boxes dropped due to damage should be randomly selected based on the taken damage.
Additionally, different types of slots within the caravan could dictate when items are dropped:
(1) Fully protected slots: Items from these slots are only dropped upon full caravan destruction.
(2) Slots where items are dropped at 25% health.
(3) Slots where items are dropped at 50% health.
(4) Slots where items are dropped at 75% health.
So, when the caravan is at 75%, only few boxes from the (4) range can be dropped. When it's at 50%, few boxes from (3) and (4) are dropped, and so on.
These numbers can be adjusted as needed.
Furthermore, different types of caravans could introduce strategic choices. For example, slower caravans might have more protected slots, while faster ones have fewer, but they reach their destination quicker, potentially avoiding confrontations. Extensions for caravans could offer various trade-offs, such as removing all protected slots but increasing the number of slots that drop items at 25% health.
Example:
Let's imagine that our caravan has 20 slots for different items. You have 16 boxes of the "very rare, almost legendary donuts" that you can sell for over 100,500 gold, and 4 boxes of some junk from the last boss of the game: various gems, a glowing sword with the description "it can destroy the whole world, or you can simply stick it into the planet for a few expansions," and so on. I hope you get the picture—it's quite the eclectic mix!
Suppose you have 5 slots of each aforementioned type. In the protected slots, you can place 5 boxes. But if you want to deliver all 16 boxes, there's a risk: you can place these boxes in less protected slots and risk someone stealing a few from those less protected slots. Or you can try to deliver 2-3 caravans where almost each box of donuts will be in the protected slots. But there's also a risk here because when you deliver 3 caravans, one of them might be fully destroyed, resulting in the loss not only of a few donut boxes, but 5.
Overall, I think this mechanic fits into the ideology of the game, where higher risk gives you higher reward.
In case of any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I'll be glad to answer them!
New World struggled with particles and there was a huge complaint from the community that they couldn't tell if damaging and healing effects were friend or foe. It is very important to clearly indicate to players if they should run towards or away from particle effects. Watching this video made me realize that AoC may have the same problem that New World originally had.
I would prefer bandits to have to carry the components required to assemble the caravan.
Caravans hastily assembled on the spot should be less robust.
PvP looks great, but I felt really uncomfortable to see so many identical AOE spells from both raid parties. I didn't notice any visual differences between ally and enemy AoE. I think it would be great to understand if a player will take damage from this spell or not.
Also about raft caravan. The controls seem too simple. In real life, it is impossible to completely stop a raft or boat in just one second. I believe this is not the final version, but still...
Thank you for your work, I'm so excited to see where this game is going.
This section deserve an award 🤣