Stevens reply on family summoning at Ashes Pathfinders #84

Sounds great how he explained its "anti-cheat" mechanic. 30sec-1min cast time for the summon and a 30min CD on the ability. But, anyone else concerned how easy its to chain it? For 10 people it still means 5 people needs to travel, but if everyone has chained their summon to 1 more player, its still only 5 needing traveling. Boosting your raid/gank/war party from 5 to 10 in 1min, they can then summon 5 more people and so on. Adding a 30min CD on the ability for the person being summoned aswell, would solve this no? Or add a reagent cost to the summon. Or some kind of PvP debuff on whoever is summoned. Just abit worried about shock PvP partys with this mechanic.

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Noaani

Irohnic wrote: »

Yes I am, as stated, within the context of the family summon system because the ability to do those things is already extremely limited with only 8 people per farmily, and would be even more limited by some of the proposed additions such as longer cooldowns and level requirements.

These things are not limitations.

I've already pointed out that the level restriction you suggest isn't an issue, but neither is the 8 players per family. Thing is, I can have characters on my account that belong to more than one family, and my friends can all have characters in those families as well.

Now, you may want to say that families should then only be account wide, not character. This would be a natural reaction to this notion that I can have multiple families that I am able to abuse. The thing is, Ashes is a game that intends to have espionage and intrigue - and these things can not really be done if characters on an account are tied to others in this way. Requiring one family per account would be a massive detriment to this aspect of the game.

On top of that, if it is account wide, then the 8 character limit would obviousy need to be dropped for an 8 account system. This would obviously open up more potential summons locations, making the whole system even more useful to me.

As to the suggestion that this system wouldn't be widely abused if implemented - I challenge you to name one system in one MMO that provides players with financial and progression benefits that is not abused to it's fullest. Sure, abuses of systems that are just kind of funny (as per your post) don't happen all that often, and are perhaps not always worth working to prevent.

Systems that allow players access to five markets instead of one market though? That will be widely abused. If the only way to get a top end PvE kill is to beat other guilds that are abusing this system, you had better bet every guild wanting to kill such encounters will be abusing this. If you are on the lookout for somewhat rare resource spawns, you will abuse this.

Unlike WoW, Ashes is a game where if you are not the first there, you miss out most of the time. If someone harvests a resource before you, you can be assured that it will respawn indefinately in that same general location. In Ashes, once the resources in a location are gone, you do not know where they will respawn. In WoW, you have all of your boss encounters in an instance that is specific and unique to you, your group or your raid. No one can take those kills from you. In Ashes, the encounters spawn, and the first guild to get the kill, gets the kill (DPS checks and all notwithstanding).

Basically, WoW is not an openly competitive environment, Ashes is. This means people in Ashes have far more reason to abuse any system they can, as long as the abuse of that system won't result in action taken on their account.

What I am saying is - in a game like Ashes, you have to assume that all players will take what ever steps they can to be as competitive as they can, and so abuses to systems like this will be frequent.

I have confidence in what I've seen from Intrepid so far that they will do a good job of being vigilant of such behavior, putting in the proper limitations to prevent it from causing widespread negative impacts on the game, and if it really comes down to it, removing systems such as family summons all together if such prevention is not possible in any other way.

See, I agree completely.

What I am trying to tell you, that again, seems to have missed the mark, is that the family summons is a system that will need to be removed for exactly these reasons.

I am not trying to say Intrepid don't know what they are doing (Steven doesn't, but his team do, and he is learning). I am saying Intrepid know what they are doing, will see the obvious abuses this system will open up, and will not let it go live.

I am trying to explain to you the reasoning behind this thing that you already know.

FuryBladeborne

Noaani wrote: »

Irohnic wrote: »

Yes I am, as stated, within the context of the family summon system because the ability to do those things is already extremely limited with only 8 people per farmily, and would be even more limited by some of the proposed additions such as longer cooldowns and level requirements.

These things are not limitations.

I can't resist being a pain in the arse here. Limitations are restrictions and those are restrictions regardless of whether they can be worked around with extra effort.

Noaani wrote: »

I've already pointed out that the level restriction you suggest isn't an issue, but neither is the 8 players per family...
Now, you may want to say that families should then only be account wide, not character.... This would obviously open up more potential summons locations...

I'm pretty sure that restricting family summon to once per day per account per server would block any abuses that you are referring to.

Noaani wrote: »

Systems that allow players access to five markets instead of one market though?

It appears that players will be able to create a new character, join to the family of the main, travel to one of the 5 markets (probably metropolis?), sit there and summon family in as needed. However, if you have a character there do you really need to summon? In fact, do you even need to use the family system?

There will be a "comfortable" number of character slots on launch.[3]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Alts#Character_slots

It's hard to tell if it will be easy to spare 5 character slots, but it seems like we have a good chance.

Noaani wrote: »

That will be widely abused. If the only way to get a top end PvE kill is to beat other guilds that are abusing this system, you had better bet every guild wanting to kill such encounters will be abusing this.

I am not sure about the actual impact on the game. If these are something like regularly scheduled regional bosses or open world dungeons for large groups to justify full guild participation, it seems like something that a guild could walk to. I mean, if its a scheduled event then planning is effective without summoning being required.

I think the problem with your argument is the statement that "the only way to get a top end PvE kill is to beat other guilds that are abusing this system". I think that you are referring to a required race to the top end PvE kill. However, we haven't been told if these encounters will be on timers or not yet. It is common for such bosses to be on timers in other games. Of course, with the various event systems involving monsters attacking cities and such, we currently don't even know if bosses will spawn at a specific location so that we can park an alt there for summoning. Event locations may be much more random than we have seen in other games.

Noaani wrote: »

If you are on the lookout for somewhat rare resource spawns, you will abuse this.

Ok. I am also not sure if it is a problem. Group content will tend to yield more valuable rewards (possibly similar or equal to rare resource spawns). The summoning system is intended to bring players together for group content and thus, larger rewards. The difference in the value of what is obtained by the apparent abuse that you suggested may really be any different than rewards intended by use of the summoning system.

I am not saying your points are necessarily wrong, I just not certain that they turn into that much of a gameplay advantage or have much of an impact on the economy provided that the summons are limited enough such as once per day. The currently intended system to be tested is a 30 minute cooldown that is far to often as a character could potentially be summoned over 40 times per day by hardcore players.

Noaani

FuryBladeborne wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that restricting family summon to once per day per account per server would block any abuses that you are referring to.

Not really.

The need to fast travel to get to a top end PvE encounter won't happen more than once a day, so the people using it for this will never be limited by that.

As to the type of raid spawn mechanics, there are likely to be a number of different systems employed, for different purposes. Encounters designed for all to participate will likely be the kind of thing that spawns in the open - so that all can participate easily. Raid encounters that spawn in dungeons (which we know will be a thing) are more for individual guild participation (and guild competition). Obviously, it is the latter ones here that I am referring to.

This is also why abusing a summons (if it were in game) would be the only way to kill this content. My expectation of these encounters is that Intrepid will have them spawn at specific and set times during each servers prime time. There is also likely to be a server announcement when they spawn.

However, even if they are based on a spawn window (the mechanic that has the most variation) with no notification, top end guilds will figure out their window, and have a spotter. I have yet to play a game with contested encounters that are actually worth fighting over where top end guilds haven't always known they were up with 2 minutes of them spawning - so this aspect of it is already established.

From there, it is simply a matter of who gets there in force first. Obviously, the way to do that is to use the summons, if it is in the game.

As to the market aspect, the reason the family summons is useful is that it will allow you to transport finished items and coin in either direction, without the requisite time investment in traveling. It is the ability to avoid having to transport products from one market to the other that is the abuse here. The very least this does is give players access to markets that should require a significant time investment and risk (via PvP) to be able to access.

If a player wanted access to all five metropolis markets, that would likely take a major portion of their play time to accomplish without the summons (the idea of seperate markets would suggest that they don't expect players to sell in all markets). With a summons, it is something they can dedicate the last 10 minutes of their play time to.

With this one, there is also the likely need for citizenship in the node you want to sell in - which means this exploit is likely to be a collaberation between multiple players with different products to sell. This also totally negates all potential restrictions like character level, family size, cooldowns etc.

Thing is, Ashes is designed around the notion of space and location being important. As long as players are able to negate distance, there will be ways to abuse it that go against the idea and spirit of the game.

Sathrago

limiting the summon to once a day would make abuse rare but it would still work well enough for guilds looking to snipe resources/dungeons. The only thing I can think of to stop this is to ban the organized use of family summoning as a written rule considering it an exploit... And good luck enforcing that.

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

The only thing I can think of to stop this is to ban the organized use of family summoning as a written rule considering it an exploit... And good luck enforcing that.

But wouldn't that include if you have planned to summon your friend when he gets home from work?

I mean, that is organization, of sorts.

daveywavey

Do we know yet if we can decline the Family Summon? If they're doing a dungeon and I don't want to, and they Summon us all, do I have to get summoned, too?

Noaani

daveywavey wrote: »

Do we know yet if we can decline the Family Summon? If they're doing a dungeon and I don't want to, and they Summon us all, do I have to get summoned, too?

Other than assuming that this won't make it to the game, I would have to assume you would have the choice - or perhaps you even summon yourself to your family members (would make more sense to do it that way - not that it makes any sense at all).

Sathrago

Noaani wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

The only thing I can think of to stop this is to ban the organized use of family summoning as a written rule considering it an exploit... And good luck enforcing that.

But wouldn't that include if you have planned to summon your friend when he gets home from work?

I mean, that is organization, of sorts.

What I mean is the intent and use in a guild setting for the purposes of fast traveling your entire guild or large parts of it to a single point.

The rule is more of a joke than a suggestion this would make things needlessly difficult for the moderation team.

daveywavey

Noaani wrote: »

or perhaps you even summon yourself to your family members (would make more sense to do it that way - not that it makes any sense at all).

Yeah, that's the way we did it in ESO. Meant you could just port to a guildie to help them out. Also meant that you could unlock all the high-end zones on a brand new character just by picking someone that happened to be there at the time. ESO wasn't so bothered about the whole "distances" thing.

Noaani

daveywavey wrote: »

ESO wasn't so bothered about the whole "distances" thing.

Indeed.

And in a game like that, it makes perfect sense to have a summons like that.

My suggestion to people that need a feature like this in a game is to play a game where a feature like this makes sense - which is clearly not Ashes.

This is no different to suggesting to people that refuse PvP in all forms that maybe Ashes isn't the game for them.

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

The only thing I can think of to stop this is to ban the organized use of family summoning as a written rule considering it an exploit... And good luck enforcing that.

But wouldn't that include if you have planned to summon your friend when he gets home from work?

I mean, that is organization, of sorts.

What I mean is the intent and use in a guild setting for the purposes of fast traveling your entire guild or large parts of it to a single point.

The rule is more of a joke than a suggestion this would make things needlessly difficult for the moderation team.

Yeah, I gathered that it was a joke.

Since some people will take it seriously though, my main objection to a suggestion like that is that it is poor development to have a game where players can do a thing, know before release that the thing is possible, but simply tell players they can't do the thing.

If you don't want players doing a thing, as soon as you realize that players could do it, you need to make it so they can't.

The only exception to this in any game that I have seen is when Trion said blocking other characters was not allowed - and they only did this because they have literally zero control over the actual development of the game, and so enforcing it as a rule was the only path available to them.

I would expect better of a company that is developing their own game.

Tyrantor

Noaani wrote: »

My suggestion to people that need a feature like this in a game is to play a game where a feature like this makes sense - which is clearly not Ashes.

I'm curious how you already know Ashes doesn't need a feature like this? As far as I know it hasn't even made it into the game build(s) to be tested, the game is a far way from launch I think your own prediction put that in 2023 or 24? lol

I'll ask you again can you not wait to see how it works before explaining to the rest of us why it's not needed?

FuryBladeborne

Noaani wrote: »

FuryBladeborne wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that restricting family summon to once per day per account per server would block any abuses that you are referring to.

Not really.

The need to fast travel to get to a top end PvE encounter won't happen more than once a day, so the people using it for this will never be limited by that.

Obviously on a developed server there will be multiple major bosses and dungeons available within a given 24 hour period. Having more teleports per account or character available would make it possible to do more of these fights. Restricting the number of teleports such as a reduction to 1 per day per account on a server would reduce the potential total benefit of the family summoning. Restricting total summons does limit potential abuse.

I think you might be trying to say: will not stop 100% of abuse rather than will never be limited.

Noaani wrote: »

As to the type of raid spawn mechanics, there are likely to be a number of different systems employed, for different purposes. Encounters designed for all to participate will likely be the kind of thing that spawns in the open - so that all can participate easily. Raid encounters that spawn in dungeons (which we know will be a thing) are more for individual guild participation (and guild competition). Obviously, it is the latter ones here that I am referring to.

This is also why abusing a summons (if it were in game) would be the only way to kill this content. My expectation of these encounters is that Intrepid will have them spawn at specific and set times during each servers prime time. There is also likely to be a server announcement when they spawn.

However, even if they are based on a spawn window (the mechanic that has the most variation) with no notification, top end guilds will figure out their window, and have a spotter. I have yet to play a game with contested encounters that are actually worth fighting over where top end guilds haven't always known they were up with 2 minutes of them spawning - so this aspect of it is already established.

From there, it is simply a matter of who gets there in force first. Obviously, the way to do that is to use the summons, if it is in the game.

That was several assumptions on systems. A race is not required to be designed into such fights. For example, in Guild Wars 2, world bosses spawned on a regular timer at specific locations daily. We don't know if that will happen here. What we have been told is,

There will be global (server-wide) announcements/notifications of important events.[20]

Castle sieges.[20]
Node sieges.[20]
Legendary world boss spawns.[20]
Monster coin events.[21]
Dungeon opportunities.[21]

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Bosses#Regional_bosses

Such content may be based around a race to the static objective or one that was randomly chosen from a few known locations (either of which would turn family summoning into a ridiculously abused system); or, it may not include a race to the objective at all.

Noaani wrote: »

As to the market aspect, the reason the family summons is useful is that it will allow you to transport finished items and coin in either direction, without the requisite time investment in traveling. It is the ability to avoid having to transport products from one market to the other that is the abuse here. The very least this does is give players access to markets that should require a significant time investment and risk (via PvP) to be able to access.

If a player wanted access to all five metropolis markets, that would likely take a major portion of their play time to accomplish without the summons (the idea of seperate markets would suggest that they don't expect players to sell in all markets). With a summons, it is something they can dedicate the last 10 minutes of their play time to.

With this one, there is also the likely need for citizenship in the node you want to sell in - which means this exploit is likely to be a collaberation between multiple players with different products to sell. This also totally negates all potential restrictions like character level, family size, cooldowns etc.

Need for citizenship to sell in a node seems unlikely since we are supposed to trade at long distances to increase the value of goods.

It appears that it will be possible to pickup purchased goods with an alt in a distant market and transport those goods via caravan once a server has become developed. Or, dependent upon server development and exactly where you need to travel, travel carrying goods may be accomplished on even a low level character using the other means of faster travel.

Faster travel in Ashes of Creation refers to.[4]

Player ridden mounts.[4]
Mounts will have varied speeds.[8]
Flight paths between nodes within a specific region.[3][1][4]
Airships between scientific metropolises.[9]
Teleportation between scientific metropolises and their vassal nodes.[9]

Summon abuse may not be getting much of an advantage at collecting purchases.

As you pointed out, selling items (finished goods only) looks abusable. This is a tough problem since players should be able to teleport with gear on.

A solution could be, summoning a character causes all equipped and carried gear to become temporarily bound for a period long enough to discourage such abuse with all but the most valuable items. Say, a temporary binding of 15-30 days during which the items could only be gotten rid of by selling as vendor trash to NPCs or destroyed.

Ventharien

Tyrantor wrote: »

I'll ask you again can you not wait to see how it works before explaining to the rest of us why it's not needed?

I'm pretty sure all he's done is bring up the point that this is a system rife for abuse, and literally against one of the stated pillars of the game, size is important. The lack of flying mounts, and (prior to this) heavily restricted fast travel has been a marketed selling point in the games favor since day 1.

And he has already brought up the obvious reason this is not one of the things that will be readily visible in testing environments. Groups do not act the same in testing environments as they do when the gates open launch day. My goals in testing is to get a balanced game. My goal day one is to WIN. And any group that is intending on making a mark in their server will use whatever advantage possibly offered to make their goals happen.

By the time people think oh this shouldn't have been in the release, the damage is already done, and can't be undone without severely harming the game. It is well within reason to think the stated benefits do not outweigh the concerns, and thus should not be implemented.

Tyrantor

Ventharien wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

I'll ask you again can you not wait to see how it works before explaining to the rest of us why it's not needed?

I'm pretty sure all he's done is bring up the point that this is a system rife for abuse, and literally against one of the stated pillars of the game, size is important.

Can you show me the "Pillar of the game" that states "Size is important"? You're both simply projecting your own dislike(s) on others and trying to mask it as "that's not the design" when in fact it is considering the developers are actively trying to design it as such.

daveywavey

Tyrantor wrote: »

Can you show me the "Pillar of the game" that states "Size is important"?

I'm a lot newer here than you are, and even I've heard them say this a number of times.

Sathrago

daveywavey wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

Can you show me the "Pillar of the game" that states "Size is important"?

I'm a lot newer here than you are, and even I've heard them say this a number of times.

Both are things the developers want to do. The family summons design is to allow players to reconnect with each other quickly that would otherwise have to spend a large amount of time to catch up to friends that went on playing without them. This is a design choice due to the pillar of the game you guys are referring to. They want the world to feel massive and travel to be meaningful.

These two ideas clash currently, now if they can come up with a better system that reduces or gets rid of this clash then I am all ears. The best thing I can come up with is a once a day limit.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

I'll ask you again can you not wait to see how it works before explaining to the rest of us why it's not needed?

The reverse is true.

It is easier to add in a QoL feature to an existing game that proves to need it than it is to remove a QoL feature from a game that proves to be a negative.

Once in the live game, it will not be taken out. Therefore, if a wait and see approach is to be taken, that approach should be from the perspective of "wait and see if it is needed, as then we could add it" rather than "add it anyway, and if it is a negative we are all screwed".

So sure, I totally agree with the premise of your statement that we should want to see if the game needs it - you are just coming at that from the wrong direction.

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

now if they can come up with a better system that reduces or gets rid of this clash then I am all ears. The best thing I can come up with is a once a day limit.

Indeed.

I am not against the idea of people being able to play together that want to, I am against the introduction of a system that will be abused in as many ways as a summons will.

If they can develop a system that won't be abused in such an easy and obvious manner - and is not restricted by cheesy, artificial and arbitrary mechanics - then I'm all for it.

Thing is, as I have said, the idea of the system is to get players to content faster, and the way it will be abused is by getting players to content faster. There is no real way to have the system usable without it being abused.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

I'll ask you again can you not wait to see how it works before explaining to the rest of us why it's not needed?

I'm pretty sure all he's done is bring up the point that this is a system rife for abuse, and literally against one of the stated pillars of the game, size is important.

Can you show me the "Pillar of the game" that states "Size is important"? You're both simply projecting your own dislike(s) on others and trying to mask it as "that's not the design" when in fact it is considering the developers are actively trying to design it as such.

What you need to do is pay more attention to the livestreams and interviews, not just what is posted on the wiki.

The wiki doesn't contain informaiton on what Intrepid intend for a specific system, it only contains information on how the system is expected to work.

Steven has said many, many times that they want travel and distance in Ashes to be meaningful. He has said that one of the aspects of caravans that is important to the game is the notion that players can't spot one on the move, and then gather players together to attack it. He has said that the lack of fast travel in Ashes is the biggest single deterrent they have designed to prevent zergs ruining the game.

These things are all incompatible with a family summons. They are not things that are listed in the wiki, because they do not detail how the system is planned to work. However, they are detailing what they want to get out of the systems - which is even more important for us players to know, because they can always change the way the system works in order for it to achieve the goal of said system.

I don't for a second believe you have spent any time listening to interviews or livestreams if you are not fully aware that the intention of the game is for distance to mean something.

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