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Pylons as "Player-Driven Events"

LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
Resources should be respawning within their general regions (i.e. willows by the rivers, minerals closer to mountains, etc) with a 2+-1h timer (could be faster, if testing shows that's better). Their rarity should be completely randomized on each respawn.

We should have 3 types of pylons. One is a research pylon, the other is quality and the third is quantity.

Research pylon should have a fairly big radius, fairly cheap cost, some reusability (either limited uses or fix requirements) and tell you how many resources will spawn in that radius within the next 3h. Could potentially show their rarity, if the pylon was of a high-enough quality.

The other 2 pylons would become "artisan events". Once a player places one of them down, other players in the vicinity would see it as an artisan event circle on their map for the duration of the pylon.

The quality pylon should immediately make the respawn of the resources longer (so they'd be rolling the +1h rng window, up to the max of 3h from their initial respawn start time), but their quality would be a step above whatever they would've been normally (could be more steps, depending on the quality of the pylon).

The quantity pylon would give the -1h roll and would obviously increase the quantity of gatherables. If a respawn was about to happen in, say, 2 minutes and the rng roll for the -1h hit that respawn with 58+min - the resource should immediately respawn.

The pylon durations themselves should be determined by their own crafting materials and they should also be their own things, rather than linked to the player's character (cause I fucking hated that my pylon would go away on relog/crash).

I think this could be a good way to not only let players control their gameplay more, but would also create a caravan-like artisan-based guild/group event, where you can get a high return on investment as long as you can defend it or use it at an opportune moment. And the research pylons would allow solo players to try and hunt down a good gatherable respawn w/o activating the event.

Imo this would be a much better approach to creating pvp around gatherables, rather than letting bots relogin next to a staticly-spawning resource. And to just clarify, imo this should not be a pvp zone, cause otherwise you'd completely cut off any and all solo players and even small groups of gatherers.

The gameplay would go down smth like this
  1. a gatherer comes up to a mountain
  2. uses a research pylon
  3. sees that there's gonna be a few rare minerals respawning within the next 3h
  4. gatherer asks their guild/friends how soon they can come to that spot to defend it from competition
  5. if they are close and/or if the research showed that the spawns will have high rarity - the gatherer uses the quantity pylon
  6. otherwise they could use quality, to get the best return on investment or if they just have enough time to wait
  7. everyone in the vicinity now knows that there's a potentially juicy gathering spot nearby and can react to that in an according manner
  8. Ashes gameplay ensues
Pylons could be specialized (i.e. for trees, flowers, mining) and craftable either with items from a different specialization or from the same one, depending on how cross-profession Intrepid want this activity to be.

What do yall think about this kind of design for Pylons and gathering gameplay related to them?

Comments

  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    This is the obvious solution. I have issues with it, too, but it's the 'thing I'd expect my junior dev to bring to me as the first proposal of how to do this' as soon as the word 'Pylons' came down from the Sandal Lord.

    I'll detail my issues about it if you care about them, but note that it would get into 'offering solutions' territory.
    "I blame society."
    "For what...?"
    "Just about everything, really."
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Azherae wrote: »
    I'll detail my issues about it if you care about them, but note that it would get into 'offering solutions' territory.
    Oh, definitely do. My goal is to try and convince Steven that static bullshit is not a good proponent of pvp. Especially when players have 0 clue when/where/which kind of static bs they're supposed to fight over.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Ludullu wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    I'll detail my issues about it if you care about them, but note that it would get into 'offering solutions' territory.
    Oh, definitely do. My goal is to try and convince Steven that static bullshit is not a good proponent of pvp. Especially when players have 0 clue when/where/which kind of static bs they're supposed to fight over.

    Well then before I write another essay I'll ask the two basic design questions I would ask.

    1. What happens when two different groups deploy two different pylons?
    2. How I mine for fish?
    "I blame society."
    "For what...?"
    "Just about everything, really."
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    edited March 5
    Azherae wrote: »
    1. What happens when two different groups deploy two different pylons?
    2. How I mine for fish?
    First depends on how they design regions for gatherables. I'd personally prefer if you can't place another pylon in the same place if one is already active.

    And the same applies to the second point as well. You have waters in which you can fish. You setup a pylon in that area and within its radius you get the effect from the pylon.

    The core mechanic would be pretty much exactly like the current events work. Whatever happens in the circle counts towards the event. Pylon creates that circle.

    Ideaaaaally the "circle" would be able to adjust to the surroundings, so it'd be more about the sq area values rather than just a circle. For example, you come up to a mountain range and instead of getting a circle you'd get an area that hugs around the mountaint (smth like Red in this picture around a Grey mountain)
    b03v17qdpmbk.png

    I'm not sure how easy it would be to code that and how well would it fit the respawn algorithms for minerals around rocky terrain. Maaaybe you could base it on the terrain type, so if you have "rock" that spawns minerals right under it (as it kinda does in A2 already) - the pylon would hug that rock until it runs out of area, where area could be determined by the quality of the pylon.

    Same could apply to rivers/lakes/sea/forests, where pylons react to your surroundings, with water-based ones either adjusting to the shores or becoming a circle if they were used from a ship or water mount inside a big lake/sea (if we can fish from a mount). And forest/plants pylons would avoid "rock" and "water" terrain.

    If that's doable - it'd be awesome!

    Also, coming back to the first point, you'd be able to put another pylon if you used it on the other side of the mountain in the picture, as long as the area of the pylon isn't big enough to overlap the first pylon by going aroudn the entire mountain body.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    In light of the 'revelation' in your other thread, I might not actually spend too much time on expanding on this one, actually...

    Everything I'd have said depends entirely on an interpretation of Ashes' intended flows and PvP 'penalties' that we're no longer sure of, maybe.

    And if you think it's fine that Pylons can't overlap, and that the playerbase will just have to deal with whatever exploits/frustrations that brings, then there's no 'issue' there either, it would just be a design thing I would 'disagree with', but wouldn't say 'this is a problem'.

    Always a hard case when talking about game design stuff, knowing when 'I don't like this' isn't the same as 'this is bad', but I think in this case, 'non-overlapping Pylons' is 'I don't like this'.
    "I blame society."
    "For what...?"
    "Just about everything, really."
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    @Azherae btw, could you tell me why you think overlap is better? I feel like there'd be more potential exploits related to combining quality and quantity pylons on top of each other.

    Or do you mean pylon type stacking? Cause I could definitely agree with that, considering that plants and trees usually have the same terrain spawn locations.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    I don't think overlap is better. I just also don't think players will want to deal with 'being locked out of their own pylon placements by big guilds controlling an area.

    I'd say overlap was better if Ashes' systems for contesting areas were more... stable? I want to just say better, honestly. But then you'd have to solve 'what exactly happens with the respawn reduction', too.

    The biggest problem I see with the non-overlapping Pylon is if you can benefit from placing it when you see others gathering up and then not actually contest the spot (for example, waiting for others to do the work of gathering and then attack them, in some way).

    Which is exactly what I'd expect in Ashes specifically, if it was added. Before, I'd have said 'well too bad for them, this is a PvP event now, you have to get in there and grab the stuff or kill them to prevent them from grabbing it because you can't get drops off them.

    And now...
    "I blame society."
    "For what...?"
    "Just about everything, really."
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Azherae wrote: »
    Before, I'd have said 'well too bad for them, this is a PvP event now, you have to get in there and grab the stuff or kill them to prevent them from grabbing it because you can't get drops off them.
    I think I should've made my clarification in the OP clearer. I explicitly DO NOT want it to be a pvp area.

    Let players contest it how they can w/o forced pvp. Of course pvp can still be the method of contest, but it's not the only/main one.

    Think current mob farming events, but player-controlled and more competitive than purely cooperational.

    This obviously still leaves the player looting side of things (as it fucking always does...), but that'd be a corruption balancing thing.
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