Caravan System - No System Survives Contact With the Player

I was watching one of Accolon's videos, and he made an interesting point about the systems in AoC.

In particular he posits that the Caravan system in itself may be fun, but what happens when the players say fuck it? What happens when the players realize it's easier and safer to just form a guild of 50 people, and all carry the goods in their backpacks. Now they're not flagged as fair game for PvP, can probably carry as much as a caravan in total, and can probably use faster mounts too.

What would Intrepid do then? Should they implement negative game design (e.g. adding weight to items so that they're too heavy to carry in a backpack) to force the players to play the game the way they want you them to play?

What other systems could be worked around by players getting fed up with certain systems and finding alternatives, which completely negate the existence of a core mechanic?

What should Intrepid do to prevent this? Should they even do anything to prevent it, if it limits player agency?

Video for reference:

https://youtu.be/VTuf6sRhVs4?t=2859s

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Comments

Kargone

There is no doubt that some players will look for alternatives to transport goods instead of using a caravan, but I don't think it's a solution to try to control everything so that the game plays the way the developers want it to. .

If there are other ways, the most important thing is to not distort the game too much.

And finding an alternative to perform is a freedom that every gamer should have the right to do.

Ludullu

I mean, they already have mules in the game so they're obviously fine with you transferring your stuff w/o the pvp potential (though obviously still a PK one).

When you're transferring your own goods (or your guild's goods), you're free to do whatever. You can take way more time to transfer them if you're scared of losing them in a caravan. But when it's a node-based quest caravan or a mayoral caravan, and you want to do that quest or progress/support the node - you're made to do that, because there's no other way. I'd assume these will be the main caravans that run around - not the personal ones.

But on the topic of guild caravans. If you, as a guild, decide to transfer a ton of resources from one place to the other just with your mules, I'd assume you have a huuuuge value in those resources. I'd assume any rivaling guild would know about that kind of value. So that rivaling guild is now free to declare a war on you or, if they have a mayor in a different node block, they can declare a war on your node and have you as enemies. Now you're literally the same as the caravan, except you have less hp (caravans are super thicc bois), you have less resources per run so your overall speed of transfer is pretty much non-existent due to constant attacks, and if you did use mules - you are now losing a ton of resources per each death (even if flagged death penalty is only 10% of your stuff).

In other words, it is way easier to defend a single caravan with your 50 people than try to run several mules that will get killed way faster.

Now obviously that's just how I see it going down. We'll need to see how it plays on in practice in alpha2.

Warth

@Asgerr if you have 50 people disposable to you, then you might as well run the caravan. Getting your caravan destroyed with 30-50 isn't exactly a significant threat in the first place.

You could even use those people to chain caravans and do 5-50 at once essentially transporting 10-100 times the goods you could do with everybody on their mounts.

Also, i'd hope that regular mounts would lose movement speed when nearing full inventory weight. I think that would solve a lot of issues.

Volgaris

I assume something similar to AA trade packs. I mean getting 50 guildies to transfer items is an feat. or you can transfer all those items without guildies, just randos that want to defend the caravan. but players will find the most efficient way to progress, and if hoofing the goods is better then the caravan system won't be used. I highly doubt intrepid will allow that seeing there's been a bunch of work already put into these systems.

Asgerr

Warth wrote: »

@Asgerr if you have 50 people disposable to you, then you might as well run the caravan. Getting your caravan destroyed with 30-50 isn't exactly a significant threat in the first place.

You could even use those people to chain caravans and do 5-50 at once essentially transporting 10-100 times the goods you could do with everybody on their mounts.

Also, i'd hope that regular mounts would lose movement speed when nearing full inventory weight. I think that would solve a lot of issues.

Well what I can see being an issue is that if a rival guild attacks your caravan with their own 50 players, then you're fair game, and could potentially lose the defense. That means losing all the contents of the caravan, plus having it looted by enemies, who will also loot the defender's body

If they go out in the world as 50 guild members, on mounts or mules (faster than a caravan) with the items in their packs, enemies will have a harder time catching them as there won't be a notification of a caravan being nearby. They also lose fewer contents upon death, and give the rival guild corruption if they don't fight back.

The barrier to that happening is having the numbers and the coordination.

Asgerr

Volgaris wrote: »

I assume something similar to AA trade packs. I mean getting 50 guildies to transfer items is an feat. or you can transfer all those items without guildies, just randos that want to defend the caravan. but players will find the most efficient way to progress, and if hoofing the goods is better then the caravan system won't be used. I highly doubt intrepid will allow that seeing there's been a bunch of work already put into these systems.

Right, that's what has me scratching my head. Because to avoid players running this strategy and forgoing caravans, they would have to implement a number of restrictions which might feel bad to a player. You basically get game design limiting your agency to force you to use their system.... In a game which hopes to allow for player freedom etc.

Morg7x7

1 full caravan = 100 backpacks so 50 players will need to do 2 runs. If you're only going to the node next door then fine, yolo it on foot. If you need to go cross country through populated or mob dense areas a caravan will probably be best.

Also a group of 50 chads could earn extra gold selling empty space on caravan runs.

This is one of the systems i'm most looking forwards to so I really hope it's well implemented.

Warth

Morg7x7 wrote: »

1 full caravan = 100 backpacks so 50 players will need to do 2 runs. If you're only going to the node next door then fine, yolo it on foot. If you need to go cross country through populated or mob dense areas a caravan will probably be best.

Also a group of 50 chads could earn extra gold selling empty space on caravan runs.

This is one of the systems i'm most looking forwards to so I really hope it's well implemented.

@Morg7x7 you can also chain caravans. (One Caravan run, 5+ caravans (500+ Times the capacity of an inventory)), which would mean that with one transport you could easily transport 10+ times the amount that 50 people could do on the mount.

With 50 people participating, filling up more than 1 caravan shouldn't be exactly a hard thing to do.

Ludullu

Asgerr wrote: »

They also lose fewer contents upon death, and give the rival guild corruption if they don't fight back.

Only if you're not in a guild that can be hit with a war declaration. And if you have a "rival" guild then most likely they'll try to dec you to prevent you from progressing in whatever you want to progress in. And unless you're doing your runs during off hours of your rival guild, they would probably see/know that you're doing a huge resource run and would come between you and your destination.

Underdelve

It’s an interesting question @asgerr I believe that, currently, the only draw back would be that a guild that does not engage with the caravan system won't be able to gain skins, abilities, etc. associated with engaging with the caravan system.

I'll echo some of the points already brought up by @NiKr There will likely still be a need for caravans - they are used, as far as I know, to help level nodes, deliver taxes/supplies to castles, and to establish trading routes between nodes. But absent that, if a guild simply wants to move goods outside of that system, I don't know that there are currently any mechanics, yet revealed, that would discourage a guild from running supplies using mounts and numbers to mimic what a personal caravan does.

Ultimately, I think Intrepid would have to severely restrict the amount of goods that can be carried via a mount. But, I believe that through the animal husbandry system, mounts can be bred to have a larger carrying capacity. Perhaps they'll remove the expansion of carry capacity, for mounts? For players?

Perhaps Intrepid could add "mount ware" if you are constantly loading up your mount? Yes, we can move goods via mounts/mules, in mass, but at some point, we may have to replace all the mounts/mules. I don't think players would take kindly to this type of mechanic, but it would certainly cause guilds/individuals to consider whether using the caravan system would be more advantageous and less punitive that having to constantly replace mounts/mules.

Wiki link for reference: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans

I think speed will be the likely benefit of using the caravan system. Caravans on roads could be much faster than mounts, but it would need to still allow time for the caravan to be attacked.

Volgaris

[/quote]Right, that's what has me scratching my head. Because to avoid players running this strategy and forgoing caravans, they would have to implement a number of restrictions which might feel bad to a player. You basically get game design limiting your agency to force you to use their system.... In a game which hopes to allow for player freedom etc.[/quote]

well freedom within limit right. if i can stack oak planks up to 100 in my backpack, then theres no reason for caravans. the point of a caravan is to carry tonnage which players couldn't carry. kind of like the your friend with the truck when you have to move. carrying metals, stones, woods around is heavy. but something is saffron is super light. so a truck full of saffron would be worth more than a truck load of lumber. so there has to be a balance between the real life weight vs fun. If i got 50 guildies I'd run 2 or 3 caravans to transfer my goods. Because pvp is open anyways. the green, purple, red system so they can still lose part of it. plus with a caravan you can get randoms joining to in the defense of it. ie the moving pvp zone. this is just speculation base off the little info we all have. in the end, i'm okay with weighted items preventing or slowing down movement, prompting need/want for a caravan.

Artharion

I think there is an easy way to solve this. Just make that some resources can only be transported through caravans.

BaSkA_9x2

In my opinion, if a group of people has enough numbers to bypass the need of a Caravan, kudos to them.

However, I would bet that most of the players will not have this ability, so the Caravan system will still exist for them.

I don't think there's the need to buff or nerf something so that people are dependent on Caravans, at least not yet. If Caravans are rendered useless, they can be buffed somehow. Maybe making Caravans faster than Mules, for instance.

mcstackerson

There are goods that have to be carried in caravans. I believe it's been mentioned that processed goods can't be carried by players but can't find the quote.

Ludullu

mcstackerson wrote: »

There are goods that have to be carried in caravans. I believe it's been mentioned that processed goods can't be carried by players but can't find the quote.

Maybe soooome? But death penalties explicitly say "gatherables and processed goods", so you obviously can carry them if you can drop them.

Asgerr

Artharion wrote: »

I think there is an easy way to solve this. Just make that some resources can only be transported through caravans.

How would you harvest/farm them then?

Underdelve

Asgerr wrote: »

Artharion wrote: »

I think there is an easy way to solve this. Just make that some resources can only be transported through caravans.

How would you harvest/farm them then?

Yeah, that would certainly be an issue. You would have to create a caravan to just gather/harvest, if I'm understanding @Artharion 's response.

It's likely that backpack space will be so limited that, in order to efficiently gather/harvest, gatherers/harvesters will need mules, which I think is intended.

mcstackerson

Asgerr wrote: »

Artharion wrote: »

I think there is an easy way to solve this. Just make that some resources can only be transported through caravans.

How would you harvest/farm them then?

My understanding is you would be able to carry them raw but would need a caravan after they have been processed. You will be able to go out, farm them, and bring them back

Underdelve

mcstackerson wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

Artharion wrote: »

I think there is an easy way to solve this. Just make that some resources can only be transported through caravans.

How would you harvest/farm them then?

My understanding is you would be able to carry them raw but would need a caravan after they have been processed. You will be able to go out, farm them, and bring them back

As @NiKr has pointed out, I believe that players will be able to carry both gatherables and processed goods as both can be dropped on player death.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP

When a player dies they...Drop...a percentage of carried gatherables and processed goods.[159][139]

mcstackerson

Torc wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

Artharion wrote: »

I think there is an easy way to solve this. Just make that some resources can only be transported through caravans.

How would you harvest/farm them then?

My understanding is you would be able to carry them raw but would need a caravan after they have been processed. You will be able to go out, farm them, and bring them back

As @NiKr has pointed out, I believe that players will be able to carry both gatherables and processed goods as both can be dropped on player death.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP
Dropping a percentage of carried gatherables and processed goods.[159][139]

As they also pointed out, there could be some processed goods that don't need to be transported or it might be the case you can transport them but it might slow you down, similar to a trade pack in archeage.

It's one of those things that is still being developed so i don't think it's worth sweating the details.

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