Debunking misconceptions on the Caravan System - Attackers don't need extra risk.
I have had this discussion with many, many people over the last few years, and I think I finally understand where the majority of the misconceptions about the PvP systems in AoC such as the Caravan System come from,
A large portion of the players and Content Creators that are following AoC and sharing feedback are mainly theme-park MMO players, from WoW, to FF14, to New World or BDO, there is a very large portion of the community that never experienced a tradepack system with pvp, that makes it completely understandable that takes like "only guilds will run caravans" or "everyone will be attacking caravans and no one will do them" exist.
The undeniable fact is, this system is not new, its not original to AoC, it has been done before with multiple iterations, but all with the same core feature in place: Deliver tradepacks/resources for you or your guild's own self-interest and profit, and risk being attacked and losing your shit with minor to no risk on the attacking side,
and it always worked, all the way from 2004 with Silkroad, to 2013 with Archeage, and 2023 with Ravendawn, all those games had other issues, of course, but you won't hear players commenting that no one would do tradepacks in Silkroad or Archeage because of attackers having no risk, and those tradepacks were extremely popular, from solo players to small groups, to large guilds everyone ran tradepacks and why? because of the Reward... making 5x or 10x profit, transporting high-demand resources those benefits are worth the risk, this is how it always played out,
even now in 2024 with Ravendawn, an "indie" mmo that launched has this same system, delivering packs getting a % bonus based on distance traveled people do it all the time and again, from solos to large guilds, more often than not, in every 5 trips maybe you lose 1 or 2, and that is still worth it, especially when a lot of players do them with groups to reduce the risk, and you don't see everyone walking around in a massive zerg destroying every caravan all the time, they are better off not wasting time and doing their own caravans if they have the numbers so they can min-max their profit
also, you don't need to worry about no one helping you defend your caravan, first, this is supposedly a group content that you need to make friends, get in a guild, make allies and arrange to run important caravans together, but also, defending caravans in your region happens naturally, in AoC your reputation matters a lot more than in most MMOs, this is a region-based game, the META, the most effective way to play is by not being on everyone's KOS list within your own region, so you can actually farm and progress, players will naturally fight off foreign attackers in their own territory, and that's where all the "PUG" defenders will come from, your neighbor citizens helping to keep your node region safe, and ofc, players will go assault caravans from different nodes, in a territory vs territory style gameplay, there is no reason to assume AoC will be different from every other game with similar systems that we had before,
There is no extra risk needed for attackers in AoC, the risk vs reward doesn't come in the form of everything being 50/50, with the caravan system the reward is delivering the caravans, and the risk is getting attacked by people, and the game needs those attackers, people can't be safely running caravans all day long this would be extremely negative for the economy, there are sinks associated with caravan parts being destroyed and loot is sunk when players open crates, all this adds to the economy,
now, if we want to talk about playing with respawn timers, impacting caravan attacker/defender progress tree by losing XP in that horizontal progression when failing events that's great, and should be tested in A2, but introducing corruption to caravans or introducing even more new systems like a "bandit" status things like that with developers getting their fingers on systems that are supposed to be player-driven, that is completely unnecessary,
but again, by looking at some of the feedback most players who have these concerns about the system not working, seem to be players who haven't experienced similar systems before, and that's understandable, its OK to not have experienced on every single aspect about MMOs, the thing is... especially when you are a content creator, sharing baseless input on things like that with dramatic thumbnails and titles will often just result in followers echoing those and creating unnecessary concerns,
now ofc, most CCs do it because it gets people commenting and gets them views, but If you get caught in these discussions, before pressing the panic button I'd recommend just relax, wait for A2, test things out and see for yourself,
