Adding on to my earlier feedback. This specifically about the acquisition method.
I have seen others hinting at something similar, and I cant quite get the idea out of my head. So, I'll dump it here.
If instead of gold, the core resource needed to acquire a freehold was based on node contribution AND was lost when a specific node is reset, you would get a system that:
- Will remain competitive between newer and older players, even years into a servers life.
- Will force guilds or other groups that want Freeholds to somewhat commit to a specific node or area, not just throwing gold at everything and see what sticks. Ensuring that the duality of Node loyalty and Guild-loyalty remains interesting.
- Will help encourage Node-sieges, since it not only wipes the current freeholds, it will also reset the competition for Freeholds in that node.
And if this makes it "too easy" from an individual level, you could probably add more quests or tasks onto it, or further increase the material needed to actually build it after acquiring it, to ensure it remains a monumental achievement.
I can also see that having an earned resource needed for Freeholds that is lost when the node is reset, might counteract the incentive to stand by and watch as your own node dies to get a new chance at Freehold ownership. It's something else you lose, that if you didn't lose it, you are just one inactive player from being able to use to get a freehold there. Probably not perfect, but it might affect it. An effect gold wont really have.
Still watching the update stream (coz it's long), would try to comment on the freehold & artisan profession (yay finally some info) topics later, but first a few notes on the presentation part:
- Fonts on the powerpoint slides are too tiny and did not have enough contrast with the background, making them hard to read. (which is bad. slides should assist a presentation, not distract ppl from it.)
- A rehersed, FLUENT presentation would likely work better than a live Q&A-ish (steven asks, developer answers) style in this case, as it's harder to hold ppl's focus in a ppt presentation than in a play-demo, and any thinking time pauses ("uhhh" etc.) risks losing viewer's attention.
For reference, here's a channel with some of the best powerpoint presentations I've seen online so far:
(Although the topics have nothing to do with games) https://www.youtube.com/@PerunAU
For reference, here's a channel with some of the best powerpoint presentations I've seen online so far:
(Although the topics have nothing to do with games) https://www.youtube.com/@PerunAU
This is not Archeage and I get that. It seems Guilds and Families are highly encouraged if not mandatory for this game or at least end game. So, since some players will NOT have a freehold unless they are a part of a family, will this restrict them from certain professions like animal husbandry? Does this also mean animal husbandry is restricted to max level characters since a freehold is obtained max level? Can you do animal husbandry somewhere else?
Really enjoyed the update. There were a few things that came to mind whilst watching it.
1. Will weather impact freehold crop production? Reduced yields in winter, increased yields in summer, etc
2. In regards to the inventory, it looks fine so far, however what I was left wondering is how easily/quickly can the first one or two additional inventory bags be acquired? As the space seemed quite limited, it would be important for players to at least be able to either buy or craft their first couple of bags fairly early.
3. What kind of system is in place to prevent a situation where you have several freeholds in one area, and most/all of them are trying to run a tavern/competing shop?
I've always liked the size-and shape inventory systems, as long as it's somehow designed not to be tedious to move things around.
I really like the farming stuff shown, except where he cut down his tomato vine! Tomatoes aren't a grow-and-harvent-once crop, once they're big enough to produce tomatoes they keep producing until the end of the summer. I also hope that we'll be able to grow different crops during different seasons.
Raising livestock to harvest resources from them is exactly what livestock is for.
Definitely some customization on the freehold would be nice. Will we be able to place decorative trees and bushes? That kind of thing would be nice.
Having a freehold is a really cool location like the one in the livestream would be really cool. My main concern is having enough time to play to actually get a freehold lmao
As far as anything else, I guess with the crops and animals I hope we don't have to worry about menial things like crop rotations or weeding, but having to plan out when to plant different plants at different times of each season would be cool.
leaving the whole freehold limit and acquisition thing aside I'd like to give extra feedback on what was shown in the live stream.
- Really enjoyed the overall aesthetics, visuals, feeling, I think it's obvious by how many people are happy and mad about the freehold changes that intrepid did an AMAZING job at making them desirable. Well done.
- I loved the inventory changes with the Tetris system, it is definitely an interesting and refreshing change from what we are used to with weight and slot systems, keep it. I also really enjoyed the UI showing how many slots the item will take while you are dragging it, good job.
- Gathering is looking great, keep it up. I also like that we no longer have rubber trees, I don't know about that idea, not necessary. I'd like for audio to be a little higher, gathering audio if boosted a little bit I believe it would be more satisfying, but the audio itself is great, making it echo across the zone would be extremely nice.
- Mounts are looking Amazing, as always.
- I absolutely love the realistic medieval aesthetics of armor and buildings shown even tho AoC is high fantasy, this realistic approach is my preferred aesthetics, I really hope most players and npcs across the world have a more grounded approach, although some of the cosmetics makes me think otherwise.
- I'd suggest a small camera/vfx effect when you gather/collect an item a small maybe translucid effect going from the item to the right corner of the screen indicating the UI with the item name and quantity, that would be really nice - also having a unique effect and sound when you collect an item/harvestable that is rare
- Amazing job with all the ideas about the farm animals, loved everything about it.
- Keep the pig killing animation. I and most in my community are all in for a more mature game, we have enough goofy/cartoon family friendly MMOs in the market, small things like this, having blood splatters both in combat and lifeskill is a very good addition.
- I really, really hope you please, let us upload our own images/logos to paintings, banners, capes, tabards, flags, armor, and everything possible - as a guild and community leader this is Very important for our visual identity, it would be so disheartening if you only have a logo creator and don't allow us to upload our own images to these assets. Also, color palette is very important for customization, for buildings as well, and even while in siege mode with default player appearance on due to performance, the raid leaders or GM should be able to pick 2 colors for our guild members default player appearance.
- Performance is a concern in a world with so many freeholds and custom assets, I hope DLSS 3 with Frame Generation is available, even for the start of Alpha 2. First impressions for performance matters. Make sure you don't "cap" the graphics at lower settings for alpha testing give us the max possible settings but also lower settings for lower end hardware.
- I love the bags idea, different bags with perks for professions is awesome.
- Not sure about having multiple skill trees for each individual building. Sounds unnecessary and too much scope for this game. Scope creep is something I really worry about, I'd be happy with a single skill path and leave the others for future expansions.
Still watching the update stream (coz it's long), would try to comment on the freehold & artisan profession (yay finally some info) topics later, but first a few notes on the presentation part:
- Fonts on the powerpoint slides are too tiny and did not have enough contrast with the background, making them hard to read. (which is bad. slides should assist a presentation, not distract ppl from it.)
- A rehersed, FLUENT presentation would likely work better than a live Q&A-ish (steven asks, developer answers) style in this case, as it's harder to hold ppl's focus in a ppt presentation than in a play-demo, and any thinking time pauses ("uhhh" etc.) risks losing viewer's attention.
For reference, here's a channel with some of the best powerpoint presentations I've seen online so far:
(Although the topics have nothing to do with games) https://www.youtube.com/@PerunAU
Are you literally suggesting people can't ask questions and get live responses, if so i don't agree lol.
I think he is referring to the semi-scripted conversation between Steven and the devs while looking at the slides, and how that format works much better during actual game-play videos than during a more formal presentation.
I think he is referring to the semi-scripted conversation between Steven and the devs while looking at the slides, and how that format works much better during actual game-play videos than during a more formal presentation.
Still opens conversation for more information to be talked about, the only thing you could say is rewording it in a way and having the lead respond (or senior designer in this case). This kind of thing isn't really new to ask questions, though at times it can be fake cause there is an expectation what the response will be. though if things are more freeform it won't be as set in stone since it should feel like a more natural conversation. But also cover bases if something was missed.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
I like it. System Shock 2 was the first game I experienced this type of inventory system. I prefer it over a simple weight system. Its more of a visual management vs sorting by weight/value.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Acquiring seeds is a concern. Mature wheat IS the seed. The idea that you have a bushel of 'Wheat' but need to go find/buy wheat seeds is silly. Once you acquire the seeds (and a crop does not fail) you should never have to find new seed.
Other crops like Green Beans (if such a thing) aren't picked at full maturity, so the best product here won't give seed. In this case the crop should need to be fully matured for it to give seed. (I grew up on a farm.)
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
The slit animation was good, but I feel that a Butcher building would be best to harvest the best and most quantity from an animal. You don't dress a pig in the slop pen.
Chickens don't lay eggs in the open, they choose concealed areas if available, like under a bush. Three foot log fences are worthless: they need a fully enclosed area to protect them from predators during the night.
The pens are too wet looking. Wet feet lead to diseases.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The very limited nature.
Sure, a 'Family' can share one, but one person is the owner. You could all pitch in and the Head could kick you out. Thanks for the gold, bye.
Maybe have more of a group ownership, as opposed to one owner. Why is a group effort invested in one person? Doesn't make sense.
The fact that Animal Husbandry and Farming is wrapped into the exclusivity of top tier Processing. A lot were very excited about Animal Husbandry or Farming and now they are put in competition for space with 'end game' artisans.
The Merchant Guild is going to win over McDonald's Farm, hands down.
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FantmxMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Freehold Preview shown during the June 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about Ashes of Creation’s Freehold Preview shown during the June Development Update
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, July 14 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
1. I like the idea of different bags catering to different gatherables based on size rather than just get a different name like bag of wood gathering or bag of ore gathering. I also like that this will allow different bonuses and stats to take place like reduced item drop or lengthened time to recover items. As for the actual tetris like feel, we will see what testing is like. I generally do not enjoy that style.
2. Love it so far. I do want to know more about the experience side of things, do we get exp for only harvesting but also planting and taking care of the crops etc. Also how much freedom do we get on the shape and size of the fields and how they orient to each other? That is a big remaining question. I will need to maximize the use of my freehold of course.
3. Livestock also look good. Same question as above though in regards to their pens. Can we contol the size and shape of these? Also can we gather livestock in the wild, bring them back and them breed them.
4. I would like a lot of flexibility in how we place things. The preview seemed to have a lot of open wasted space and I am not a fan of this especially with how valuable a freehold will be,
5. The general size and how the freehold fit into the world was really nice to see. I also like the customization that we have been shown so far.
6. I do not like the change in how we obtain them. I get that it is a difficult thing to solve and that nobody wants the land grab launch that AA had but I am not sure this is the answer. Testing will tell.
I posted this in another thread and figure it is worth posting here. With the current arrangements I think we will see that it is not worth our time to defend nodes or freeholds if we belong to large trade guilds. Here is my reasoning:
Let me try to better explain my thought process.
As a owner/operator of a freehold guild what is your primary goal? Maximizing production and profits. From what we currently know the best path to that goal is not through defending nodes.
Freeholds will have limited capacity for crafting and processing stations even at the highest tier permit. So if you want to be a leader in the economy you will need multiple freeholds. You are also going to want these freeholds to be in different nodes so you have easier access to multiple, different types of resources. Lets stay with 12 as your target freehold number since that is what I used before.
You have 12 freeholds going and one of their nodes comes under siege. Now you have a choice, do you defend the node or not? Since you will keep the freehold if the siege defense is successful and you will still be able to defend your freehold if the siege dense fails, your best bet is to wait it out and see what happens. You either get to keep your freehold for nothing or you spend less resources defending your freehold instead of the whole node (smaller area and with the help of NPCs) AND against a depleted invading army that only gets two short hours to destroy your freehold in world that lacks fast travel. Your odds will be much better.
Now, by defending a node or freehold you will still be expending money, resources and most importantly your guild members time, time that you really want them spending on securing resources and crafting items for the economy. So is there another way?
There of course is a third path. You do not defend the node or your freehold. You could still keep your freehold if the node defense is successful and you could still keep your freehold if nobody bothers to try and destroy it, and either way without spending anything.
Once a siege is declared that could adversely effect you, you would begin transporting items that you could away from the freehold to another freehold you run that is not under a siege. That helps you keep most of your resources and likely if a guild is preparing for a siege they will be less involved in caravan runs.
And even better, if you don't register as a defender of the node and your node is ultimately destroyed by players or node stage reduction, you and your guild members can still loot the remains of the freehold that you had previously not been able to transport away. This further reduces your material loss.
Your guild's primary combat focus becomes following the heels of successful sieges trying to open up freehold space that you can then bid on later. And remember you do not need to be a citizen of that node to bid, you just need a guild member to have completed the required quest to bid.
I am also assuming that bids will not just be gold but also resources. The more freeholds you have the more experience you have bidding so at some point you would as guild leader get very good at not overbidding or underbidding. You just try to keep your target freehold number active, in this case 12, within a certain margin of productivity.
Do I care if they are close to a metropolis or out in a stage 3 node? No, not really. What I care about are local resources and trading routes and more likely you will find resources more abundant and less pillaged outside of the top stage node. Also the freehold starting bids will be proportional to citizens in the node so it will likely not be cost effective to own a freehold in the largest stage node as it will have the largest population of citizens, unless there is a must have resource there not available anywhere else. You would want to account for the likelihood that a stage three node would de-level in the event it's parent node was sieged but again over time this would likely not be hard to predict.
Owning a freehold makes you a citizen of the accompanying node. You can bid on plots without being a citizen though.
I do not see this explicitly stated in the wiki. The wiki says: Player housing grants the ability to claim citizenship of a Village (stage 3) node or higher.[2][3]
So in the end, if you plan to run a freehold guild, you would not defend your node and you would likely not defend your freehold.
Iam also the oppinion that it will not work in nodes, but different topic.
I think with nodes, the reason it can work is because it only applies to economic nodes, which means you have 3/4 other ways to actually work your way to being a mayor. As it currently stands, bidding is the only option for Freeholds and that's where I think the problem lies. My hope is that they end up deciding on adapting the leadership system of nodes to freeholds as well.
Video feedback:
It was the most exciting video up to date! Combat, skills and mounts are nice, but these are in all mmos and considered "generic" features, so we're waiting for "what we're doing different" parts like classes etc. on that front. Freeholds and economy though, this is the exciting part after the latest mmo that claimed to be big on economy underderlivered. What was missing in the video is interactions with the mechanics like:
- how do I start a freehold mechanically?
- how does an empty plot/area look like?
- what does the smithing station mean? Does it unlock stuff while I'm in the freehold or do I interact with it directly?
Questions:
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
Really hard to tell, It's defineatly better idea than weight system as it would encourage griefing and just farming PvE'ers.
- I'd like to see bigger bags being limited by other stuff than just gold so not everyone can get all containers
- I'd like to see specialised containers (like radio-active containers, fluid containers, magick stuff containers) that let you specialise in what you can gather (something like You did with the crops vs other bags), which would also be locked behind other stuff than gold, probably gathering skills, so for example: we're going to kill a dragon, there's only one of us that can gather a dragon heart and that heart neeeds a special container(backpack) to be carried. I can pass the container to someone, but I'm the only one that can gather the heart and get it in the container in the first place because of my mastery in gathering. The person that is to carry it back also has to invest in some skill, but not as heavily as I do(for example "knowledge of handling magical containers"). All this obiously not too overboard so for example if you can loot "a vial of blood" off of a generic creature in the woods, let anyone do it, just let us specialise in high end gathering.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this? How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
My concern is how significant of a role will it play in the economy. If we can get milk off cows/goats, can we also get it from animals in the wilderness? If not, is milk part of high end recipes or is it only for one low level "milk and cookies" recipe used for grinding craft xp? Does it make sense to plant corn or is it easier to farm gold and get it off the general merchant? Does going into farming provide enough of interesting resources that makes it worth it competing with alchemy/blacksmithing?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
- enabling/disabling public access to stuff
- taxes for using stations/services
- one view to see stuff in all containers on the freehold
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- ability to find my own land
- >>>>>!!!!!!! chance for the freehold to get destroyed/damaged !!!!!<<<<<<<<<< gameplay loops are great! especially for economy!!!!!! one thing You have to do right is how expesinve is it to build/destroy a freehold/node and what happens with the resources on it? What happens to your deed for that land?
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- pieces of land split into parcels being too big/small, creating ugly sim-cities, empty wastelands or locations where there's no "life"
- auctions causing freeholds to be unobtainable for casuals, non-RMT'ers, small groups, enabling large guilds/gold farmers/RMT-ers to take over cities.
I'm more of a Reddit guy, but I've seen so much shit being posted here by entitled randos that I felt the need to comment.
The changes on the way we obtain freehold are GOOD. There's a loud small crowd screaming that they want free shit as a solo player and this is just embracing. This is not a singlefuckingplayer game.
I would actually be hating the game if they gave everyone all the housing including the land. Outside reddit and forums, reception has been positive, seen most content creators like the changes (except that one guy lol)
In my clan people are actually very excited about it, but they can't be bothered about commenting such an obvious thing.
This thread is a great example of why developers should try their best not to market the game to FF14 or WoW communities.
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
1) The good. In the sense of needing to be sure what items you have to have when traveling from place to place. It means when I pick up a piece of ore that is a larger picture then a smaller piece of ore it should be worth more then that smaller piece cuz it takes up more inventory space. Things like a chest piece taking up 4 slots makes more sense then a leg piece taking up 4 because its bigger and gives more defense/stats. It means we don't have to worry about weight limits slowing are character to a painful crawl just to walk back to a city and hope you don't get ganked. Specific bags for specific uses like herb items are 2 slots, farm items are 1 slots ect will organise bags for you so you can grab and go and know exactly whats going where.
The bad thing is that intrepid devs will need to balance the importance of items size to economic value.
Example: If it makes more sense to carry 500 tomatoes cuz they are worth x more then turning 500 tomatoes into soup, cuz soup is a larger picture, why should I make/carry soup? You can do more with a tomato besides soup recipes so it makes sense that 5 tomatoes should be < soup monetary wise if the recipe for soup is 5 tomatoes. Size of an object needs to be considered in terms of use and importance. When I pick up a big or strange shaped invetory object it should tell me it's important by size and item box color.
Organizing your inventory with this kind of bags space not only means making important choices, but if each item doesn't have a real use/ or worth and is just inventory filler intrepid will find itself slowly adding too much junk over time and it will need to be pruned down. Item bloat in games is a serious issue. For all my love of GW2 and WOW both games have serious item bloat and I have to scroll over everything and read tooltips hell to make sure I don't accidentally toss anything important. This system would require an instant optimize organize button for quality of life.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
2) The good. I like that a freehold can be organized in a way that is important to the individuals needs. If that was the smallest (default skin) house size then its a good amount of land and it doesn't clash with the aesthetic of the surrounding area. I liked that the plants didnt have to be next to each other and it looks like they could be individually gathered so they don't look copy pasted over and over.
The bad. The speed of gathering (as a skill) should increase based on profession I hope otherwise if we had to watch Steven gather all that wheat at once it would take him a long time for that 1 field alone. 1 wheat took up 2 slots in his inventory so is wheat more valuable then milk(1 slot) or does taking care of a cow cost less then planting a wheat? I assume you can do more with wheat over milk with this current bag system. Can it be possible to bundle items at the cost of bag slots? It would have been nice to see the grid of the freehold from the players perspective so we could see layouts, but maybe it wasnt ready yet.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
3) The good. The animation for the milking was excellent I was happy to see you pull out a stool. The speed was also nice to see because 50+ cows would take a long time solo to milk until you could get a hired hand to help. I liked that you pet the pig before killing it. I loved that you could move and still keeping doing the chicken animation. I assume when you walked past the pigglets that you could also kill them and if its an emergency for the player that could be a important choice to make later on.
The bad. The animals didn't move very much in their pens and while I get not wanting them to escape the pens do to wonky ai pathing they seemed way to stiff. When the pig fell over after death instead of it just 'vanishing' why not make it turn to ash in the wind like when a player dies? That way if an item needs to be dropped it can leave a small bag behind instead of the larger pig model.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
4) The more important the crafting/gathering the more space it should take up on your freehold, but even the smallest freehold should allow 2 of the highest level crafting/gathering/processing 'benches' with a little space leftover for creative aethetic things like hay bails/piles of bricks/potion kegs/ ect. Being able to color the roof and paint the walls of the house would be nice incase you were feeling blue instead of red. Hopefully types of wood plays a role on the aethetic of the houses interior and possible farm buildings. Not sure yet if trees/plant/frogs(?) farms are going to be a vialble type of farm options, but would be nice for herbalist or potion masters.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
5) I was happy to see all the diffrent items and customizations the interior of the house had and the fan picture on the wall I hope is an option for someone like me who could make and sell cool creation concepts to players to display ingame (within reason of course). Even if I can't own a home myself being able to decorate an apartment with cool pictures and little statues would make me happy with small crafting benches. Kinda like playing animal crossing but in ashes of creation .
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
6) I understand availability for players will be limited across the map for freeholds and thats fine because thats what the node war system is for to shake those players out of said homes if they don't participate in said fights. However, high level crafting systems should have locations outside of the freehold system so there are multiple avenues for a player to explore if they find getting their hands on a freehold to be harder then expected. Up to level 3 crafting as a cititzen seems fine especially for the start of the game. But with the limited knowledge that we currently have I hope intrepid has a way to prevent rich get richer power gets more power schemes. Ark Survival Evolved has a serious issue where one or 2 guilds would own the entire server and would crush and bully smaller guilds into comforming or quiting the game like choke pointing valuable resource nodes or killing new players in thatch huts on the beach. Monopolies need to be shaken up and new players need to feel welcomed and not forced to join a guild immediately or perish.
7) Summary: Overall I am pleased with the textured look of the bunny mount and can't wait to see what other cool designs other skins might have. I enjoyed the animals and means of gathering, but found them too static on the farm. I liked that you seem to be able to freely plant your choice of produce and hope to see what other goods for proffesions can be planted, but the gathering speed was a bit slow(hoping its tied to profession lvl ups). I thought the interior of the house looked great, very homey, and customizable, but I hope the freeholds are treated as a fun and helpful avenue of gameplay and not a bottleneck that leaves everyone feeling like they missed out if they can't obtain one.
I'm more of a Reddit guy, but I've seen so much shit being posted here by entitled randos that I felt the need to comment.
The changes on the way we obtain freehold are GOOD. There's a loud small crowd screaming that they want free shit as a solo player and this is just embracing. This is not a singlefuckingplayer game.
I would actually be hating the game if they gave everyone all the housing including the land. Outside reddit and forums, reception has been positive, seen most content creators like the changes (except that one guy lol)
In my clan people are actually very excited about it, but they can't be bothered about commenting such an obvious thing.
This thread is a great example of why developers should try their best not to market the game to FF14 or WoW communities.
I feel the exact same way. I don't want to play a single player mmorpg and be able to solo every little thing in the game. I have absolutely no problem if I don't have a flying mount, if I don't become a mayor, if I don't ever own a freehold and even if I don't ever get bis gear. I am just going to play the game and do what I am good at and be part of the node/guild community and do what is needed for our node to become the best one.
Please add some freehold parcels outside of the castles too. Would probably only need 10 to 20 Freeholds outside a castle. Would be good if these freeholds were inside the castle walls. There freeholds could be captured when the castle falls if not destroyed. The freeholds at the castle would be guild owned and the King/Queen can assign families to them. Built up like normal freeholds but can be modified and change by the owners.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Yes!
- Gating gameplay content behind player housing is ok.
- Making player housing hard-to-obtain and very expencive is ok.
- Making player housing destructible (as with sieges) is ok.
- Selling cosmetics for specific player housing structures at a premium is ok.
- Making player housing like Freeholds accessible only to a small percentage of the population is ok.
But combining all of them? And selling cosmetics to something without specifically stating that only a small fraction of the public would ever get a (real) chance to obtain one?
Did i understand correctly that solo players will not be able to own a Freehold so we're relegated to having only an Inn Room or something like that? So that basically means all the big guilds will throw hundreds of people at getting as many freeholds as they can. Maiking it so small guilds or solo players can't get them. Or the price gets so ridiculously high that no one but top guilds can afford them. I despise systems like that. Elitist crap is what it boils down to.
Presentation feedback:
- The presentation style is amazing, it gives so much information in a concise form. However, I would like to see who is talking, just a small window in a corner with whoever is talking is enough. Somehow it's easier to retain all the information if you are able to look at the person.
Freehold feedback
- If I understand correctly, Family members can have permission in a freehold. How much permission can they have? Are they able to build buildings and have all the permissions that the owner has or is it always less than the owner's permissions?
- To extend on this, can you buy a plot for a freehold together with friends/family and co-own them?
- Is it possible to place a freehold next to another freehold? Would my friends and I be able to have our freeholds adjacent and create our own little bubble?
- Based on the previous questions, if my friends and I have adjacent freeholds, can one of us build multiple houses for each of us to live in while the others focus on, for example, only having a farm or a particular artisan profession?
- I love the idea of owning a tavern, a place for friends to meet up, or having a stranger come along and create new friendships. So far it's been said that a tavern can give rested experience. Are there other major benefits to a tavern because rested experience won't be useful anymore once you have reached max level, making it less attractive to visit a random tavern of someone else.
- If you want all upgrades in an artisan building, do you need multiple of the same building? The Lumbermill for example was shown to have three branches of upgrades. If I want to become a pure skilling account that focuses on the processing of wood, do I need to build three different Lumbermills to get all the benefits?
- Killing livestock can be more impactful in my opinion. It could deepen the connection you can have with your animals because they are no longer something that you can get rid of as easily as before. People could even decide not to kill the animals because of the impact and become vegetarians instead. From a role-playing perspective that could be very interesting. For those that do kill their livestock, can you build a slaughterhouse or something, a place to get more and better quality meat?
- Is it possible to build a stable for your mount(s), or a place where travelers can park their mounts before entering the tavern?
- I would love to see different harvesting animations. Harvesting corn shouldn't look the same as harvesting wheat
- Will there be a sorting option on chests, making it look tidy with the click of a button or a button to place items from your inventory in already existing stacks of the same item in the chest?
- Is sleeping only intended for resting exp purposes?/
- You can only have and sell one freehold, but what if you create multiple accounts? Would you be able to buy and sell a freehold with each account?
- What happens to a freehold if a player doesn't play anymore, will it just stay there or will it disappear after a set amount of time (for example after a year of not playing)?
Extra feedback
- How much customizability is there to the UI? I would love to be able to walk around the world without seeing any UI on my screen and for it to only be visible whenever I'm in combat, or to be able to scale down the UI as much as possible. Having a minimal UI setup improves the immersion of the game tremendously, and Ashes with its amazing graphics would be perfect for total immersion
- Would it be possible to share youtube videos of purely the audio or music in the game? Music is also something that could totally change how you look at a scene. For example, the coastal vivarium from Hogwarts Legacy not only has stunning views but the music that accompanied it made it breathtaking and made me stop for a while to just enjoy the music and scenery
Thank you very much for reading, sorry for being so lengthy
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about Ashes of Creation’s Freehold Preview shown during the June Development Update
After reading posts on the forum, I have a suggestion.
Given that small scale open world PvP has a corruption system which taps more or less into Gods related lore... make it so that these Gods would also be upset if their worshipers get defeated in the large scale PvP battles over and over.
There should be divine consequences.
My suggestion to the limited space of freehold is to pack many freeholds tightly into family and guild sized freehold villages called hamlets.
How do they work?
Hamlets are three by three, five by five, and seven by seven acres of land where members of a family or guild can place their freeholds close together. This not only saves space in the overworld by packing freeholds so tightly but also allows tenants to defend each others freeholds in case the parent node is successfully sieged.
Hamlet Mechanics
Unlike individual freeholds, which still exist in the world, hamlets can only be built on predetermined patches of land. They work like tetris puzzles with each freehold built on the freehold a tetris piece. Those who build hamlets will have to decide whose freehold goes where, and which way it faces. One caveat is that hamlet freeholds are only one acre large but with a twist.
To make up for smaller freeholds, all processing benches in a hamlet are shared, meaning that not everyone has to build a processing station and can instead specialize in having a large house filled with furniture buffs, or just do farming for the guild.
Group Defense
A great benefit to hamlets is the close knit community that can help neighbors fight off raiders, but in addition, everyone in the community can choose to invest in pallisades which surround the entire property and must be breached before any individual freehold can be plundered. In essence, you are building a close knit micro community who help each other in times of chaos.
How does this help solo players?
Hamlets mean there is more space for individual freeholds in the world, which retain their 1.5 acre size.
Attainment
Hamlet plots can only be attained through a deed provided by the mayor of the local node, and only if the local node has a mayor. This promotes a give and take balance between node and hamlet where each help each other. A king and vassal relationship. The mayor may also evict tenants with a one week warning period, effectively clearing the plot for another hamlet.
Sizes
Hamlet sizes are determined by the plot, and each plot has an upkeep that must be paid to a local mayor. Common sizes include 3*3, 5*5, and 7*7 acres, allowing for up to fifty members.
Larger hamlets also have stronger pallisade walls that can further be upgraded to stone and concrete, with their base durability increasing with building material and the total size of the hamlet plot.
Guild Hamlets
While most hamlets are awarded by mayors, a guild may earn a hamlet by conquering a castle or clearing a particularly difficult dungeon and getting a hamlet deed as a drop. He who owns the deed may only share them with his guild.
These hamlets can only be raided if another party conquers the same content from which they were attained and attains their own deed. After a week, the guild hamlet is cleared, and the new deed owner can start placing their own freeholds.
If the source content dissapears, for example the dungeon from which the deed to this hamlet was earned due to a change in world events, then the guild hamlet is lost as well until that piece of content. The main benefit of a guild hamlet is swift access to a piece of lucrative content with nearby inns and taverns.
Overall the Freeholds look awesome. Very good showing.
I agree that freeholds need to be limited, and not someone everyone has. However, the fact that processing is gated behind the freehold, and the fact that some people just want to create an identity via freehold, makes me think that WAY more than 10% of players should be able to get them. Maybe 25%. So many people have envisioned themselves as a Master Alchemist, or a Master Breeder, or whatever, and now need to come to terms with the fact that their playstyle (solo, semi-casual, whatever) won't allow them to get anywhere near a FH.
Separately, given people's passion about freeholds, it definitely seems like there need to be ways for all walks of players to have a path to FH ownership, even if it is still out of reach for the majority. I wonder if Intrepid could create several paths to freehold ownership.
- Some auctioned by the node, as planned.
- Some achievable through exploration.
- PVE drop
- Some achievable through a crafting path
- PVP path. Possibly via guild wars, a subset of castles perhaps. Maybe let the guild that owns a castle have 50 FHs to distribute to members. This would almost guarantee lively guild wars if FHs are properly limited.
- Some awarded through religion and/or reputation
- Etc
Overall the Freeholds look awesome. Very good showing.
I agree that freeholds need to be limited, and not someone everyone has. However, the fact that processing is gated behind the freehold, and the fact that some people just want to create an identity via freehold, makes me think that WAY more than 10% of players should be able to get them. Maybe 25%. So many people have envisioned themselves as a Master Alchemist, or a Master Breeder, or whatever, and now need to come to terms with the fact that their playstyle (solo, semi-casual, whatever) won't allow them to get anywhere near a FH.
Separately, given people's passion about freeholds, it definitely seems like there need to be ways for all walks of players to have a path to FH ownership, even if it is still out of reach for the majority. I wonder if Intrepid could create several paths to freehold ownership.
- Some auctioned by the node, as planned.
- Some achievable through exploration.
- PVE drop
- Some achievable through a crafting path
- PVP path. Possibly via guild wars, a subset of castles perhaps. Maybe let the guild that owns a castle have 50 FHs to distribute to members. This would almost guarantee lively guild wars if FHs are properly limited.
- Some awarded through religion and/or reputation
- Etc
I agree about the castle freeholds but not the number. 20 is more than enough if families are involved. We don't want castles to be 75 hectares deep in any direction which is what 50 freeholds would equate to.
100 extra freeholds from 5 castles should appease a lot of guilds.
Comments
I have seen others hinting at something similar, and I cant quite get the idea out of my head. So, I'll dump it here.
If instead of gold, the core resource needed to acquire a freehold was based on node contribution AND was lost when a specific node is reset, you would get a system that:
- Will remain competitive between newer and older players, even years into a servers life.
- Will force guilds or other groups that want Freeholds to somewhat commit to a specific node or area, not just throwing gold at everything and see what sticks. Ensuring that the duality of Node loyalty and Guild-loyalty remains interesting.
- Will help encourage Node-sieges, since it not only wipes the current freeholds, it will also reset the competition for Freeholds in that node.
And if this makes it "too easy" from an individual level, you could probably add more quests or tasks onto it, or further increase the material needed to actually build it after acquiring it, to ensure it remains a monumental achievement.
I can also see that having an earned resource needed for Freeholds that is lost when the node is reset, might counteract the incentive to stand by and watch as your own node dies to get a new chance at Freehold ownership. It's something else you lose, that if you didn't lose it, you are just one inactive player from being able to use to get a freehold there. Probably not perfect, but it might affect it. An effect gold wont really have.
- Fonts on the powerpoint slides are too tiny and did not have enough contrast with the background, making them hard to read. (which is bad. slides should assist a presentation, not distract ppl from it.)
- A rehersed, FLUENT presentation would likely work better than a live Q&A-ish (steven asks, developer answers) style in this case, as it's harder to hold ppl's focus in a ppt presentation than in a play-demo, and any thinking time pauses ("uhhh" etc.) risks losing viewer's attention.
For reference, here's a channel with some of the best powerpoint presentations I've seen online so far:
(Although the topics have nothing to do with games)
https://www.youtube.com/@PerunAU
Perun #1 online powerpoint videos
1. Will weather impact freehold crop production? Reduced yields in winter, increased yields in summer, etc
2. In regards to the inventory, it looks fine so far, however what I was left wondering is how easily/quickly can the first one or two additional inventory bags be acquired? As the space seemed quite limited, it would be important for players to at least be able to either buy or craft their first couple of bags fairly early.
3. What kind of system is in place to prevent a situation where you have several freeholds in one area, and most/all of them are trying to run a tavern/competing shop?
I really like the farming stuff shown, except where he cut down his tomato vine! Tomatoes aren't a grow-and-harvent-once crop, once they're big enough to produce tomatoes they keep producing until the end of the summer. I also hope that we'll be able to grow different crops during different seasons.
Raising livestock to harvest resources from them is exactly what livestock is for.
Definitely some customization on the freehold would be nice. Will we be able to place decorative trees and bushes? That kind of thing would be nice.
Having a freehold is a really cool location like the one in the livestream would be really cool. My main concern is having enough time to play to actually get a freehold lmao
As far as anything else, I guess with the crops and animals I hope we don't have to worry about menial things like crop rotations or weeding, but having to plan out when to plant different plants at different times of each season would be cool.
- Really enjoyed the overall aesthetics, visuals, feeling, I think it's obvious by how many people are happy and mad about the freehold changes that intrepid did an AMAZING job at making them desirable. Well done.
- I loved the inventory changes with the Tetris system, it is definitely an interesting and refreshing change from what we are used to with weight and slot systems, keep it. I also really enjoyed the UI showing how many slots the item will take while you are dragging it, good job.
- Gathering is looking great, keep it up. I also like that we no longer have rubber trees, I don't know about that idea, not necessary. I'd like for audio to be a little higher, gathering audio if boosted a little bit I believe it would be more satisfying, but the audio itself is great, making it echo across the zone would be extremely nice.
- Mounts are looking Amazing, as always.
- I absolutely love the realistic medieval aesthetics of armor and buildings shown even tho AoC is high fantasy, this realistic approach is my preferred aesthetics, I really hope most players and npcs across the world have a more grounded approach, although some of the cosmetics makes me think otherwise.
- I'd suggest a small camera/vfx effect when you gather/collect an item a small maybe translucid effect going from the item to the right corner of the screen indicating the UI with the item name and quantity, that would be really nice - also having a unique effect and sound when you collect an item/harvestable that is rare
- Amazing job with all the ideas about the farm animals, loved everything about it.
- Keep the pig killing animation. I and most in my community are all in for a more mature game, we have enough goofy/cartoon family friendly MMOs in the market, small things like this, having blood splatters both in combat and lifeskill is a very good addition.
- I really, really hope you please, let us upload our own images/logos to paintings, banners, capes, tabards, flags, armor, and everything possible - as a guild and community leader this is Very important for our visual identity, it would be so disheartening if you only have a logo creator and don't allow us to upload our own images to these assets. Also, color palette is very important for customization, for buildings as well, and even while in siege mode with default player appearance on due to performance, the raid leaders or GM should be able to pick 2 colors for our guild members default player appearance.
- Performance is a concern in a world with so many freeholds and custom assets, I hope DLSS 3 with Frame Generation is available, even for the start of Alpha 2. First impressions for performance matters. Make sure you don't "cap" the graphics at lower settings for alpha testing give us the max possible settings but also lower settings for lower end hardware.
- I love the bags idea, different bags with perks for professions is awesome.
- Not sure about having multiple skill trees for each individual building. Sounds unnecessary and too much scope for this game. Scope creep is something I really worry about, I'd be happy with a single skill path and leave the others for future expansions.
Are you literally suggesting people can't ask questions and get live responses, if so i don't agree lol.
Still opens conversation for more information to be talked about, the only thing you could say is rewording it in a way and having the lead respond (or senior designer in this case). This kind of thing isn't really new to ask questions, though at times it can be fake cause there is an expectation what the response will be. though if things are more freeform it won't be as set in stone since it should feel like a more natural conversation. But also cover bases if something was missed.
I like it. System Shock 2 was the first game I experienced this type of inventory system. I prefer it over a simple weight system. Its more of a visual management vs sorting by weight/value.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Acquiring seeds is a concern. Mature wheat IS the seed. The idea that you have a bushel of 'Wheat' but need to go find/buy wheat seeds is silly. Once you acquire the seeds (and a crop does not fail) you should never have to find new seed.
Other crops like Green Beans (if such a thing) aren't picked at full maturity, so the best product here won't give seed. In this case the crop should need to be fully matured for it to give seed. (I grew up on a farm.)
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
The slit animation was good, but I feel that a Butcher building would be best to harvest the best and most quantity from an animal. You don't dress a pig in the slop pen.
Chickens don't lay eggs in the open, they choose concealed areas if available, like under a bush. Three foot log fences are worthless: they need a fully enclosed area to protect them from predators during the night.
The pens are too wet looking. Wet feet lead to diseases.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
The very limited nature.
Sure, a 'Family' can share one, but one person is the owner. You could all pitch in and the Head could kick you out. Thanks for the gold, bye.
Maybe have more of a group ownership, as opposed to one owner. Why is a group effort invested in one person? Doesn't make sense.
The fact that Animal Husbandry and Farming is wrapped into the exclusivity of top tier Processing. A lot were very excited about Animal Husbandry or Farming and now they are put in competition for space with 'end game' artisans.
The Merchant Guild is going to win over McDonald's Farm, hands down.
1. I like the idea of different bags catering to different gatherables based on size rather than just get a different name like bag of wood gathering or bag of ore gathering. I also like that this will allow different bonuses and stats to take place like reduced item drop or lengthened time to recover items. As for the actual tetris like feel, we will see what testing is like. I generally do not enjoy that style.
2. Love it so far. I do want to know more about the experience side of things, do we get exp for only harvesting but also planting and taking care of the crops etc. Also how much freedom do we get on the shape and size of the fields and how they orient to each other? That is a big remaining question. I will need to maximize the use of my freehold of course.
3. Livestock also look good. Same question as above though in regards to their pens. Can we contol the size and shape of these? Also can we gather livestock in the wild, bring them back and them breed them.
4. I would like a lot of flexibility in how we place things. The preview seemed to have a lot of open wasted space and I am not a fan of this especially with how valuable a freehold will be,
5. The general size and how the freehold fit into the world was really nice to see. I also like the customization that we have been shown so far.
6. I do not like the change in how we obtain them. I get that it is a difficult thing to solve and that nobody wants the land grab launch that AA had but I am not sure this is the answer. Testing will tell.
I posted this in another thread and figure it is worth posting here. With the current arrangements I think we will see that it is not worth our time to defend nodes or freeholds if we belong to large trade guilds. Here is my reasoning:
It was the most exciting video up to date! Combat, skills and mounts are nice, but these are in all mmos and considered "generic" features, so we're waiting for "what we're doing different" parts like classes etc. on that front. Freeholds and economy though, this is the exciting part after the latest mmo that claimed to be big on economy underderlivered. What was missing in the video is interactions with the mechanics like:
- how do I start a freehold mechanically?
- how does an empty plot/area look like?
- what does the smithing station mean? Does it unlock stuff while I'm in the freehold or do I interact with it directly?
Questions:
How do you feel about the size-and-shape inventory management system?
Really hard to tell, It's defineatly better idea than weight system as it would encourage griefing and just farming PvE'ers.
- I'd like to see bigger bags being limited by other stuff than just gold so not everyone can get all containers
- I'd like to see specialised containers (like radio-active containers, fluid containers, magick stuff containers) that let you specialise in what you can gather (something like You did with the crops vs other bags), which would also be locked behind other stuff than gold, probably gathering skills, so for example: we're going to kill a dragon, there's only one of us that can gather a dragon heart and that heart neeeds a special container(backpack) to be carried. I can pass the container to someone, but I'm the only one that can gather the heart and get it in the container in the first place because of my mastery in gathering. The person that is to carry it back also has to invest in some skill, but not as heavily as I do(for example "knowledge of handling magical containers"). All this obiously not too overboard so for example if you can loot "a vial of blood" off of a generic creature in the woods, let anyone do it, just let us specialise in high end gathering.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this? How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
My concern is how significant of a role will it play in the economy. If we can get milk off cows/goats, can we also get it from animals in the wilderness? If not, is milk part of high end recipes or is it only for one low level "milk and cookies" recipe used for grinding craft xp? Does it make sense to plant corn or is it easier to farm gold and get it off the general merchant? Does going into farming provide enough of interesting resources that makes it worth it competing with alchemy/blacksmithing?
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
- enabling/disabling public access to stuff
- taxes for using stations/services
- one view to see stuff in all containers on the freehold
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- ability to find my own land
- >>>>>!!!!!!! chance for the freehold to get destroyed/damaged !!!!!<<<<<<<<<< gameplay loops are great! especially for economy!!!!!! one thing You have to do right is how expesinve is it to build/destroy a freehold/node and what happens with the resources on it? What happens to your deed for that land?
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
- pieces of land split into parcels being too big/small, creating ugly sim-cities, empty wastelands or locations where there's no "life"
- auctions causing freeholds to be unobtainable for casuals, non-RMT'ers, small groups, enabling large guilds/gold farmers/RMT-ers to take over cities.
The changes on the way we obtain freehold are GOOD. There's a loud small crowd screaming that they want free shit as a solo player and this is just embracing. This is not a singlefuckingplayer game.
I would actually be hating the game if they gave everyone all the housing including the land. Outside reddit and forums, reception has been positive, seen most content creators like the changes (except that one guy lol)
In my clan people are actually very excited about it, but they can't be bothered about commenting such an obvious thing.
This thread is a great example of why developers should try their best not to market the game to FF14 or WoW communities.
1) The good. In the sense of needing to be sure what items you have to have when traveling from place to place. It means when I pick up a piece of ore that is a larger picture then a smaller piece of ore it should be worth more then that smaller piece cuz it takes up more inventory space. Things like a chest piece taking up 4 slots makes more sense then a leg piece taking up 4 because its bigger and gives more defense/stats. It means we don't have to worry about weight limits slowing are character to a painful crawl just to walk back to a city and hope you don't get ganked. Specific bags for specific uses like herb items are 2 slots, farm items are 1 slots ect will organise bags for you so you can grab and go and know exactly whats going where.
The bad thing is that intrepid devs will need to balance the importance of items size to economic value.
Example: If it makes more sense to carry 500 tomatoes cuz they are worth x more then turning 500 tomatoes into soup, cuz soup is a larger picture, why should I make/carry soup? You can do more with a tomato besides soup recipes so it makes sense that 5 tomatoes should be < soup monetary wise if the recipe for soup is 5 tomatoes. Size of an object needs to be considered in terms of use and importance. When I pick up a big or strange shaped invetory object it should tell me it's important by size and item box color.
Organizing your inventory with this kind of bags space not only means making important choices, but if each item doesn't have a real use/ or worth and is just inventory filler intrepid will find itself slowly adding too much junk over time and it will need to be pruned down. Item bloat in games is a serious issue. For all my love of GW2 and WOW both games have serious item bloat and I have to scroll over everything and read tooltips hell to make sure I don't accidentally toss anything important. This system would require an instant optimize organize button for quality of life.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
2) The good. I like that a freehold can be organized in a way that is important to the individuals needs. If that was the smallest (default skin) house size then its a good amount of land and it doesn't clash with the aesthetic of the surrounding area. I liked that the plants didnt have to be next to each other and it looks like they could be individually gathered so they don't look copy pasted over and over.
The bad. The speed of gathering (as a skill) should increase based on profession I hope otherwise if we had to watch Steven gather all that wheat at once it would take him a long time for that 1 field alone. 1 wheat took up 2 slots in his inventory so is wheat more valuable then milk(1 slot) or does taking care of a cow cost less then planting a wheat? I assume you can do more with wheat over milk with this current bag system. Can it be possible to bundle items at the cost of bag slots? It would have been nice to see the grid of the freehold from the players perspective so we could see layouts, but maybe it wasnt ready yet.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
3) The good. The animation for the milking was excellent I was happy to see you pull out a stool. The speed was also nice to see because 50+ cows would take a long time solo to milk until you could get a hired hand to help. I liked that you pet the pig before killing it. I loved that you could move and still keeping doing the chicken animation. I assume when you walked past the pigglets that you could also kill them and if its an emergency for the player that could be a important choice to make later on.
The bad. The animals didn't move very much in their pens and while I get not wanting them to escape the pens do to wonky ai pathing they seemed way to stiff. When the pig fell over after death instead of it just 'vanishing' why not make it turn to ash in the wind like when a player dies? That way if an item needs to be dropped it can leave a small bag behind instead of the larger pig model.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
4) The more important the crafting/gathering the more space it should take up on your freehold, but even the smallest freehold should allow 2 of the highest level crafting/gathering/processing 'benches' with a little space leftover for creative aethetic things like hay bails/piles of bricks/potion kegs/ ect. Being able to color the roof and paint the walls of the house would be nice incase you were feeling blue instead of red. Hopefully types of wood plays a role on the aethetic of the houses interior and possible farm buildings. Not sure yet if trees/plant/frogs(?) farms are going to be a vialble type of farm options, but would be nice for herbalist or potion masters.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
5) I was happy to see all the diffrent items and customizations the interior of the house had and the fan picture on the wall I hope is an option for someone like me who could make and sell cool creation concepts to players to display ingame (within reason of course). Even if I can't own a home myself being able to decorate an apartment with cool pictures and little statues would make me happy with small crafting benches. Kinda like playing animal crossing but in ashes of creation
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
6) I understand availability for players will be limited across the map for freeholds and thats fine because thats what the node war system is for to shake those players out of said homes if they don't participate in said fights. However, high level crafting systems should have locations outside of the freehold system so there are multiple avenues for a player to explore if they find getting their hands on a freehold to be harder then expected. Up to level 3 crafting as a cititzen seems fine especially for the start of the game. But with the limited knowledge that we currently have I hope intrepid has a way to prevent rich get richer power gets more power schemes. Ark Survival Evolved has a serious issue where one or 2 guilds would own the entire server and would crush and bully smaller guilds into comforming or quiting the game like choke pointing valuable resource nodes or killing new players in thatch huts on the beach. Monopolies need to be shaken up and new players need to feel welcomed and not forced to join a guild immediately or perish.
7) Summary: Overall I am pleased with the textured look of the bunny mount and can't wait to see what other cool designs other skins might have. I enjoyed the animals and means of gathering, but found them too static on the farm. I liked that you seem to be able to freely plant your choice of produce and hope to see what other goods for proffesions can be planted, but the gathering speed was a bit slow(hoping its tied to profession lvl ups). I thought the interior of the house looked great, very homey, and customizable, but I hope the freeholds are treated as a fun and helpful avenue of gameplay and not a bottleneck that leaves everyone feeling like they missed out if they can't obtain one.
I feel the exact same way. I don't want to play a single player mmorpg and be able to solo every little thing in the game. I have absolutely no problem if I don't have a flying mount, if I don't become a mayor, if I don't ever own a freehold and even if I don't ever get bis gear. I am just going to play the game and do what I am good at and be part of the node/guild community and do what is needed for our node to become the best one.
Yes!
- Gating gameplay content behind player housing is ok.
- Making player housing hard-to-obtain and very expencive is ok.
- Making player housing destructible (as with sieges) is ok.
- Selling cosmetics for specific player housing structures at a premium is ok.
- Making player housing like Freeholds accessible only to a small percentage of the population is ok.
But combining all of them? And selling cosmetics to something without specifically stating that only a small fraction of the public would ever get a (real) chance to obtain one?
That is not ok.
- The presentation style is amazing, it gives so much information in a concise form. However, I would like to see who is talking, just a small window in a corner with whoever is talking is enough. Somehow it's easier to retain all the information if you are able to look at the person.
Freehold feedback
- If I understand correctly, Family members can have permission in a freehold. How much permission can they have? Are they able to build buildings and have all the permissions that the owner has or is it always less than the owner's permissions?
- To extend on this, can you buy a plot for a freehold together with friends/family and co-own them?
- Is it possible to place a freehold next to another freehold? Would my friends and I be able to have our freeholds adjacent and create our own little bubble?
- Based on the previous questions, if my friends and I have adjacent freeholds, can one of us build multiple houses for each of us to live in while the others focus on, for example, only having a farm or a particular artisan profession?
- I love the idea of owning a tavern, a place for friends to meet up, or having a stranger come along and create new friendships. So far it's been said that a tavern can give rested experience. Are there other major benefits to a tavern because rested experience won't be useful anymore once you have reached max level, making it less attractive to visit a random tavern of someone else.
- If you want all upgrades in an artisan building, do you need multiple of the same building? The Lumbermill for example was shown to have three branches of upgrades. If I want to become a pure skilling account that focuses on the processing of wood, do I need to build three different Lumbermills to get all the benefits?
- Killing livestock can be more impactful in my opinion. It could deepen the connection you can have with your animals because they are no longer something that you can get rid of as easily as before. People could even decide not to kill the animals because of the impact and become vegetarians instead. From a role-playing perspective that could be very interesting. For those that do kill their livestock, can you build a slaughterhouse or something, a place to get more and better quality meat?
- Is it possible to build a stable for your mount(s), or a place where travelers can park their mounts before entering the tavern?
- I would love to see different harvesting animations. Harvesting corn shouldn't look the same as harvesting wheat
- Will there be a sorting option on chests, making it look tidy with the click of a button or a button to place items from your inventory in already existing stacks of the same item in the chest?
- Is sleeping only intended for resting exp purposes?/
- You can only have and sell one freehold, but what if you create multiple accounts? Would you be able to buy and sell a freehold with each account?
- What happens to a freehold if a player doesn't play anymore, will it just stay there or will it disappear after a set amount of time (for example after a year of not playing)?
Extra feedback
- How much customizability is there to the UI? I would love to be able to walk around the world without seeing any UI on my screen and for it to only be visible whenever I'm in combat, or to be able to scale down the UI as much as possible. Having a minimal UI setup improves the immersion of the game tremendously, and Ashes with its amazing graphics would be perfect for total immersion
- Would it be possible to share youtube videos of purely the audio or music in the game? Music is also something that could totally change how you look at a scene. For example, the coastal vivarium from Hogwarts Legacy not only has stunning views but the music that accompanied it made it breathtaking and made me stop for a while to just enjoy the music and scenery
Thank you very much for reading, sorry for being so lengthy
Given that small scale open world PvP has a corruption system which taps more or less into Gods related lore... make it so that these Gods would also be upset if their worshipers get defeated in the large scale PvP battles over and over.
There should be divine consequences.
How do they work?
Hamlets are three by three, five by five, and seven by seven acres of land where members of a family or guild can place their freeholds close together. This not only saves space in the overworld by packing freeholds so tightly but also allows tenants to defend each others freeholds in case the parent node is successfully sieged.
Hamlet Mechanics
Unlike individual freeholds, which still exist in the world, hamlets can only be built on predetermined patches of land. They work like tetris puzzles with each freehold built on the freehold a tetris piece. Those who build hamlets will have to decide whose freehold goes where, and which way it faces. One caveat is that hamlet freeholds are only one acre large but with a twist.
To make up for smaller freeholds, all processing benches in a hamlet are shared, meaning that not everyone has to build a processing station and can instead specialize in having a large house filled with furniture buffs, or just do farming for the guild.
Group Defense
A great benefit to hamlets is the close knit community that can help neighbors fight off raiders, but in addition, everyone in the community can choose to invest in pallisades which surround the entire property and must be breached before any individual freehold can be plundered. In essence, you are building a close knit micro community who help each other in times of chaos.
How does this help solo players?
Hamlets mean there is more space for individual freeholds in the world, which retain their 1.5 acre size.
Attainment
Hamlet plots can only be attained through a deed provided by the mayor of the local node, and only if the local node has a mayor. This promotes a give and take balance between node and hamlet where each help each other. A king and vassal relationship. The mayor may also evict tenants with a one week warning period, effectively clearing the plot for another hamlet.
Sizes
Hamlet sizes are determined by the plot, and each plot has an upkeep that must be paid to a local mayor. Common sizes include 3*3, 5*5, and 7*7 acres, allowing for up to fifty members.
Larger hamlets also have stronger pallisade walls that can further be upgraded to stone and concrete, with their base durability increasing with building material and the total size of the hamlet plot.
Guild Hamlets
While most hamlets are awarded by mayors, a guild may earn a hamlet by conquering a castle or clearing a particularly difficult dungeon and getting a hamlet deed as a drop. He who owns the deed may only share them with his guild.
These hamlets can only be raided if another party conquers the same content from which they were attained and attains their own deed. After a week, the guild hamlet is cleared, and the new deed owner can start placing their own freeholds.
If the source content dissapears, for example the dungeon from which the deed to this hamlet was earned due to a change in world events, then the guild hamlet is lost as well until that piece of content. The main benefit of a guild hamlet is swift access to a piece of lucrative content with nearby inns and taverns.
Please, let's keep conversations polite and constructive. Let's also remember to be well unto one another, and follow forums rules. If you're new here, the rules can be found here: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/41679/forum-rules-code-of-conduct#latest
This has been a very interesting thread to go through, and we appreciate all of your feedback! ^_^
Overall the Freeholds look awesome. Very good showing.
I agree that freeholds need to be limited, and not someone everyone has. However, the fact that processing is gated behind the freehold, and the fact that some people just want to create an identity via freehold, makes me think that WAY more than 10% of players should be able to get them. Maybe 25%. So many people have envisioned themselves as a Master Alchemist, or a Master Breeder, or whatever, and now need to come to terms with the fact that their playstyle (solo, semi-casual, whatever) won't allow them to get anywhere near a FH.
Separately, given people's passion about freeholds, it definitely seems like there need to be ways for all walks of players to have a path to FH ownership, even if it is still out of reach for the majority. I wonder if Intrepid could create several paths to freehold ownership.
- Some auctioned by the node, as planned.
- Some achievable through exploration.
- PVE drop
- Some achievable through a crafting path
- PVP path. Possibly via guild wars, a subset of castles perhaps. Maybe let the guild that owns a castle have 50 FHs to distribute to members. This would almost guarantee lively guild wars if FHs are properly limited.
- Some awarded through religion and/or reputation
- Etc
I agree about the castle freeholds but not the number. 20 is more than enough if families are involved. We don't want castles to be 75 hectares deep in any direction which is what 50 freeholds would equate to.
100 extra freeholds from 5 castles should appease a lot of guilds.