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Community Concerns Thread

Hi! ♥

I would like to start this thread to voice concerns about certain design paths this game is going so we can think of ways to head off problems before they occur. I'll start with one of my own but feel free to voice yours too!

On the idea of Caravans I feel it's important to mention that small guilds might really struggle to get off the ground with this aspect of gameplay. Say a large guild has taken over the server, they or other larger guilds would pick on the smaller ones by camping the node caravan sites and preventing any new guilds from getting off the ground even if said guilds could claim and hold a node.

I suggest solution to this problem like guild types with the ability to potentially change them with a quest. This way a smaller Imperialist guild (that can control more nodes and get bonuses like node guards etc) would hire a mercenary guild (that gets bonuses to defending caravans on top of the other guild's tips) to defend against larger Imperialist guilds or Pirate guilds (who get bonuses from murdering and pillaging). At the same time no one is locked into a guild type so they can change it if they feel like they've moved on to becoming something else.

*crosses fingers for sticky*

Comments

  • This wuestion has been answered in <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/14luppZ3Ub8jmcw_aK65QWxYY4xa8qAo9zRfpYWBxOXE/edit" target="_blank">THIS</a> google doc.

    There is a section under PVP called caravans and this is the first question. I hope it answers what you are looking for!!!

    Jamin
  • Thanks Jaminnio!

    After reading that I found another set of concerns, what if someone pays someone to fail at raiding their nodes to protect them for a long time? Will servers have times where nodes are un-raidable because everyone is at work or sleeping? Region time-locks basically?

    What's to protect solo players from guilds? It seems like a guild could protect their corrupted members after murdering gatherers and their mules for their stuff.

    What about players who do like to dress sexy? I see a lot of hate for skimpy clothing!! I don't see why an artisan has to be in full plate all the time anyways! >:(

    Will we be able to find high level crafting stations in ruins or dungeons to give smaller node players a chance to advance themselves and catch up to developed nodes?

    Will there be smuggling? I would like to see people try to escape node taxation and such with illegal Caravans.
  • [quote quote=8259]Thanks Jaminnio!

    After reading that I found another set of concerns, what if someone pays someone to fail at raiding their nodes to protect them for a long time? Will servers have times where nodes are un-raidable because everyone is at work or sleeping? Region time-locks basically?

    What’s to protect solo players from guilds? It seems like a guild could protect their corrupted members after murdering gatherers and their mules for their stuff.

    What about players who do like to dress sexy? I see a lot of hate for skimpy clothing!! I don’t see why an artisan has to be in full plate all the time anyways! >:(

    Will we be able to find high level crafting stations in ruins or dungeons to give smaller node players a chance to advance themselves and catch up to developed nodes?

    Will there be smuggling? I would like to see people try to escape node taxation and such with illegal Caravans.

    [/quote]

    At the end of the day, there needs to be a balance between giving the players free reign (this is a sandbox mmo after all) and protecting innocent players from jerks. After all, if you make it too easy for players to evade caravan raids, the players who want to take part in that playstyle will complain. This is something that a lot of games such as Eve Online and Elite Dangerous have constantly struggled with, trying to balance the trader's ability to escape with the pirate's ability to be pirates.

    That said, it is my experience that if there was such a guild that was blatantly targetting solo players non-stop, the community would stand up and put a stop to it. This is the main purpose of world PvP and these types of events create the most memorable and enjoyable times for a game. Such conflict is why we choose open-world PvP in the first place.
  • First of all, you can't just decide "now I am going to raid this node" That was answered in the blogpost in interviews several times and mentioned a 100times more.
    You as a guild declare a war on a node, there is a decleration period of several to many days depending on the level of the node so defenders as well as attackers can prepare for it.

    He who murdered has gone red and has a trippled death penalty + reduced combat effectiveness. Noone can protect him from that, it will catch up with his next death. If the whole guild is bound to pking then that's how it is.
    There are incentives for people to become (name not fixed yet) bounty hunters, so you might as well see a whole guild of people hunting red players for rewards.


    I have no answers to the other stuff, some interesting ideas tho, not really concerns I guess.
  • The thing with Caravans is that you as a person who wants to start a caravan can do it at any time. Also add in the fact that there will not be fast travel so players in larger guilds that are not near your node will have a very hard time organizing to attack your caravan. If you are allied with the guilds in the node you are going to you can always ask them to help you out. I suggest you watch a lot of the videos from DeathsProxy. He explains a lot as well as you might want to watch the QA video as well.

    Small guilds will be fine when it comes to caravans because it will be very hard for guilds to always look for caravans because they can happen at any time and take different routes to their destination. What you will get is smaller groups of players hitting these caravans because there is no way a guild can muster a guild so fast that is a long distance off. This is why no one wants fast travel in the game, it make it near impossible for large guilds to run a server. Yes they will have an impact on their server but they will not run it.
  • [quote quote=8532]First of all, you can’t just decide “now I am going to raid this node” That was answered in the blogpost in interviews several times and mentioned a 100times more.
    You as a guild declare a war on a node, there is a decleration period of several to many days depending on the level of the node so defenders as well as attackers can prepare for it.


    [/quote]

    But someone can still declare war on a node and intentionally lose to "protect" that node from attack for a time. They said you had to do a quest to get an item for the node, and two guilds can just intentionally lose sieges against each other to keep other people from sieging those nodes then get the quest item in the time their protected again. Since someone can't siege a node that's recently been attacked this gives that node immunity.
  • [quote quote=8650]<blockquote>
    <div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/community-concerns-thread/#post-8532" rel="nofollow">Grisu wrote:</a></div>
    First of all, you can’t just decide “now I am going to raid this node” That was answered in the blogpost in interviews several times and mentioned a 100times more.
    You as a guild declare a war on a node, there is a decleration period of several to many days depending on the level of the node so defenders as well as attackers can prepare for it.

    </blockquote>
    But someone can still declare war on a node and intentionally lose to “protect” that node from attack for a time. They said you had to do a quest to get an item for the node, and two guilds can just intentionally lose sieges against each other to keep other people from sieging those nodes then get the quest item in the time their protected again. Since someone can’t siege a node that’s recently been attacked this gives that node immunity.

    [/quote]

    I wouldnt worry too much because you can start a caravan at any time and take different routes. Having that ability there is no way a guild can sit and wait. Add to that Yes a guild and go to war with another guild but that will be consensual. The Core thing is to make friends with PVPers who will protect your caravan.
  • Attackers that lose on purpose will lose a huge amount of ressources, since declaring and building up for a siege will, per quote
    "take roughly as much ressources to to as it would to build up the node".
    I think that in itselfe will balance it out since it only buys you some time for a huge ressource dump until you can get attacked again. So yes, you could, but the price to be paid shouldn't be ignored. It's already there.

    And I do not believe only a single guild can take part in the siege of a node since it's a matter of the whole server. It concernes more people what kind of content is locked away and which one is accessible. So that means even if they cockblock the use of the machinery (if that is even possible), you might still do enough dmg to delevel a node with everyone else partaking in the siege.
  • The only thing i am worried about is endgame Grind like in BDO with an open level cap and gear grind. I am ok with a gap between players who play a lot and players who cant. But as soon as the gap turns into a canyon i would get worried.
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