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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Caravan Suggestions: Simple Changes with Big impact
MetalDad
Member, Alpha Two
Generally people agree current system is High Risk/High reward for defenders, but No Risk/High Reward for Attackers.
Running a caravan, you can turn 1.5 Gold glint into about 10-20g for hopping 3-5 nodes with the upgraded willow Caravan ( 1 Epic cargo, 1 Rare cargo ). Winstead to Azmaran netted about 15g. So that is a pretty good reward for 1.5 gold glint. A 10X bump for rough estimating. For about 2 hours worth of work, not bad. It's high risk too, but if you make it high reward.
Attacking a caravan? No risk. No exp debt… some item loss that you can prepare for before hand. The reasons for not attacking have nothing to do with the mechanic itself. If you dont know them, or do know them and are not allied, and you have time and the numbers to kill it.. then you kill it. Kill it? Summon a caravan, load it up and take it to the nearest node and get whatever the delta was. The caravan ran from winstead and you destroyed outside azmaran…. 15g for you to split with your team. No risk. it's a PvP event, so no debt. Regular item loss that can be mitigated by banking before hand. some basic preparation and really there is no down side other than social. Most people are doing it because it's easy, likely bored and there is no downside.
Here are some suggestions to improve with some simple changes:
1) Limit the number of attackers:
Calculate the number of attackers off the number of slots in a caravan or calculated off caravan HP. The basic caravan is a 1x3 slot caravan. Only 3 people can attack it. A willow caravan is 2x6… so 12 attackers. You can already tell upgraded caravans based on skins and HP's anyway so its not like a ton of intelligence. Another option would be to limit based on caravan HP. Basic Caravans have around 250K hps. Say each attacker has to do 75K damage… that would be about 3 attackers. The upgraded one would allow more people to join… but still have a meaningful amount of damage per person that would need to be done. This would help deter the 40 man Zerg teams that run around searching for caravans to kill.
2) Bonus for “linking” caravans
Defensive bonus for traveling together in caravan groups. People are already doing this, but incentivize people with real bonuses.
2a) Say 10% bonus HP per caravan, soft cap of 30% and with a hard cap of 50% HP. Maybe all caravans get bumped to the same HP’s too ( or at least show the same )… so attackers cant target the highest ( and therefore most lucrative ) wagons.
2b) linked caravans can pickup some amount of dropped cargo from a linked destroyed caravan, with some speed penalty if “ overloaded “ That would have people think about traveling in a group but with some extra space in case someone gets dropped. They can grab cargo immediately or on a much shorter timer than a summoned attacker caravan. People may end up traveling with one empty caravan, just in case.
3) Defender Escrow Account:
Put money into an “escrow” account for defenders and pay them for a successful defense and based on how long they traveled within range of the caravan or the number of people they killed in defense of the caravan. The money can be put in before hand or paid directly from proceeds. Do it as a direct percentage that the caravan owner can adjust. 10-20% is the “etiquette” now.. I would just formalize that. 10-20% of the proceeds from the cargo sale gets distributed to all defenders based on how far they traveled if it was no attackers, or based on attackers killed. Do that for a group of 5 caravans… and you can get 5-15 people to join pretty easily. 5 caravans @15g a pop is 75g... 20% is 15g... 1-3g per defender. PUG's would form for that kind of payout.
4) Bonus drops for attackers
Have the system treat attackers as mobs on top of their normal loot drop in caravans. Have them drop glint for defenders, or other stuff like treasure maps or mats. Attackers generally clear their inventory before PvP… so there is no drops. If they randomly dropped some glint or mats similar to similar level mobs… then there would be some incentive to defend. Have them drop copper if you really want to get people defending
5) Exp debt or item durability loss for attackers
Turn on exp debt and bump durability loss for attackers. Experience debt will slow them down a bit… just a tad I know.. most lvl25 people dont care about debt… but still it adds up. Item durability loss does matter. Bump it up for caravan attacks so that 5 deaths breaks equipment ( 20% loss per death ). That would quickly add up and deter people from attacking. Most Lvl 25 people do care a bit about gold still.
6) Item drops for Attackers after a certain number of deaths…
This one may be controversial, but after an attacker dies a certain number of times ( say 7 times ) have them drop a piece of random gear. Gear matters in this game… so people will have the option to put on losable equipment or lose good gear, or back off. Either way it changes the math for attackers.
7) Attacker Caravans show up on global map
If the attack is successful, and the attackers load up a summoned caravan with the goods… have it show up on the global map, just like corrupted players do. Have different limits for those ( say 2 attackers per slot ) and allow the originally defenders who’s loot is on that caravan to put an “escrow” bounty on that caravan for the attackers.
Just some thoughts on how to help balance the risk reward for caravans. Right now, between the bug frequency that results in either a total loss or huge loss in time ( Carphin teleport bug ) and the attacker Zergs... I dont even run my own caravans anymore. It's not worth it.
Love the idea of caravans though.. love defending... love attacking.. just looking to make it better
Running a caravan, you can turn 1.5 Gold glint into about 10-20g for hopping 3-5 nodes with the upgraded willow Caravan ( 1 Epic cargo, 1 Rare cargo ). Winstead to Azmaran netted about 15g. So that is a pretty good reward for 1.5 gold glint. A 10X bump for rough estimating. For about 2 hours worth of work, not bad. It's high risk too, but if you make it high reward.
Attacking a caravan? No risk. No exp debt… some item loss that you can prepare for before hand. The reasons for not attacking have nothing to do with the mechanic itself. If you dont know them, or do know them and are not allied, and you have time and the numbers to kill it.. then you kill it. Kill it? Summon a caravan, load it up and take it to the nearest node and get whatever the delta was. The caravan ran from winstead and you destroyed outside azmaran…. 15g for you to split with your team. No risk. it's a PvP event, so no debt. Regular item loss that can be mitigated by banking before hand. some basic preparation and really there is no down side other than social. Most people are doing it because it's easy, likely bored and there is no downside.
Here are some suggestions to improve with some simple changes:
1) Limit the number of attackers:
Calculate the number of attackers off the number of slots in a caravan or calculated off caravan HP. The basic caravan is a 1x3 slot caravan. Only 3 people can attack it. A willow caravan is 2x6… so 12 attackers. You can already tell upgraded caravans based on skins and HP's anyway so its not like a ton of intelligence. Another option would be to limit based on caravan HP. Basic Caravans have around 250K hps. Say each attacker has to do 75K damage… that would be about 3 attackers. The upgraded one would allow more people to join… but still have a meaningful amount of damage per person that would need to be done. This would help deter the 40 man Zerg teams that run around searching for caravans to kill.
2) Bonus for “linking” caravans
Defensive bonus for traveling together in caravan groups. People are already doing this, but incentivize people with real bonuses.
2a) Say 10% bonus HP per caravan, soft cap of 30% and with a hard cap of 50% HP. Maybe all caravans get bumped to the same HP’s too ( or at least show the same )… so attackers cant target the highest ( and therefore most lucrative ) wagons.
2b) linked caravans can pickup some amount of dropped cargo from a linked destroyed caravan, with some speed penalty if “ overloaded “ That would have people think about traveling in a group but with some extra space in case someone gets dropped. They can grab cargo immediately or on a much shorter timer than a summoned attacker caravan. People may end up traveling with one empty caravan, just in case.
3) Defender Escrow Account:
Put money into an “escrow” account for defenders and pay them for a successful defense and based on how long they traveled within range of the caravan or the number of people they killed in defense of the caravan. The money can be put in before hand or paid directly from proceeds. Do it as a direct percentage that the caravan owner can adjust. 10-20% is the “etiquette” now.. I would just formalize that. 10-20% of the proceeds from the cargo sale gets distributed to all defenders based on how far they traveled if it was no attackers, or based on attackers killed. Do that for a group of 5 caravans… and you can get 5-15 people to join pretty easily. 5 caravans @15g a pop is 75g... 20% is 15g... 1-3g per defender. PUG's would form for that kind of payout.
4) Bonus drops for attackers
Have the system treat attackers as mobs on top of their normal loot drop in caravans. Have them drop glint for defenders, or other stuff like treasure maps or mats. Attackers generally clear their inventory before PvP… so there is no drops. If they randomly dropped some glint or mats similar to similar level mobs… then there would be some incentive to defend. Have them drop copper if you really want to get people defending
5) Exp debt or item durability loss for attackers
Turn on exp debt and bump durability loss for attackers. Experience debt will slow them down a bit… just a tad I know.. most lvl25 people dont care about debt… but still it adds up. Item durability loss does matter. Bump it up for caravan attacks so that 5 deaths breaks equipment ( 20% loss per death ). That would quickly add up and deter people from attacking. Most Lvl 25 people do care a bit about gold still.
6) Item drops for Attackers after a certain number of deaths…
This one may be controversial, but after an attacker dies a certain number of times ( say 7 times ) have them drop a piece of random gear. Gear matters in this game… so people will have the option to put on losable equipment or lose good gear, or back off. Either way it changes the math for attackers.
7) Attacker Caravans show up on global map
If the attack is successful, and the attackers load up a summoned caravan with the goods… have it show up on the global map, just like corrupted players do. Have different limits for those ( say 2 attackers per slot ) and allow the originally defenders who’s loot is on that caravan to put an “escrow” bounty on that caravan for the attackers.
Just some thoughts on how to help balance the risk reward for caravans. Right now, between the bug frequency that results in either a total loss or huge loss in time ( Carphin teleport bug ) and the attacker Zergs... I dont even run my own caravans anymore. It's not worth it.
Love the idea of caravans though.. love defending... love attacking
.. just looking to make it better1
Comments
This isn't true. It is high risk for some people , namely smaller guilds and groups. It's no risk high reward for large guilds that can provide large numbers of players to guard the caravans.
Given how concerned Steven is with Large guilds being catered to in every way possible the Caravan system will probably not change much from what it is now.
He did say there will be progressive paths based on attacking and defending
Otherwise even a 12 year olds who happen to play Ashes will have a better understanding of basic economy principles, like I don't inflation, than our politicians. Yes, I know its a low bar.
Blown past falling sands…
In my opinion the game, currently, offers no incentive for random people to flag as defender for a caravan. i think that this should change.
my idea is that players can list themself as defenders but the caravan owner needs to accept them. the reason for this is, that i suggest when applying for defense you can choose to ask for 5 or 10% of the turn in that the caravan owner gets. this way the owner can choose if they need more defenders but less income or not. the cap for the reward would be 50% of the commodity turn in. this way the owner still makes some gold while up to 10 defenders can get gold as a reward.
to counter leeching defenders need to stay "close" to the caravan and when they die they have a timer to reenter this area to still get the reward.
on top of that nycegaming mentioned an idea to have some currency beeing rewarded for defending a caravan. my thought on that is, that there could be a pvp currency with a pvp vendor. this currency would be rewarded on sanctioned pvp events such as caravans, node wars/siege, guild wars etc.
this way caravans with more than 10 defenders would still get some reward structure.
steven mentioned something on the interview with pirategaming about progression paths for caravans split into attack and defend. in my opinion the currency idea fits this plan well.
now to the attackers:
i think attackers have a low risk at the moment. my idea here was that if attackers successfully destroyed a caravan and crowbar the loot they should stay combatant for a longer period of time. this way defenders could get some of their losses back, as well as others can choose to attack those combatants.
im not sure how long they should stay combatant but at least 10min to maybe 25min seem reasonable for me. the second effect is that the attackers cant enter nodes until they are non combatants again.
defenders who attack the attackers turn into combatants ofc.
caravan driver buffs:
on phase 1 caravan drivers where really tanky. on phase 2 they are pretty squishy. im not sure if thats intended or not. my idea to make early crafting also viable was to give those items passive buffs that help the caravan drivers survivabilty. as example a carriage could give some hp regeneration buff while a chassis gives some mitigation. this way early crafting for caravans would have some use while caravan drivers get a little more tankiness if they so choose. risk/reward
sorry for this paragraph and thx for reading
thx for all your effort
Birqa