Caravans: How often (frequency) can you find and engage one?

" The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location. As far as mass guilds securing trade routes, there is always a bigger fish in the pond. Also caravans will have limitations on carrying capacity and launch windows that will segment mulitiple caravans by several minutes, which would space out the caravans, making it difficult to "zerg" a defense.[12] – Steven Sharif"

So my question is how often do you think there will be caravans in transit? As stated in the quote above they might be difficult to detect if not ready for them. Will there be major downtime between caravans?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Dygz

"At the end of each week leading up to a castle siege there is a period of time in the weekend where NPC generated caravans start moving toward one of the castle nodes carrying castle taxes from the nodes that fall under the castle's purview.[27][36]
During this time it is incumbent upon the owning guild, its allies, and citizens of the nodes to escort these caravans to the castle node.[27]
The enemies of the guild have incentive to attack these caravans to reap the rewards from the caravan and to sabotage the tax collection, which will reduce the defensive capability of the castle nodes and hence the castle itself.[27][20]
Citizens of nodes that fall under the purview of the castle are automatically registered as defenders of these caravans and may not participate in attacks against them.[27]"
---https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges

Ayeveegaming1

Dygz wrote: »

"At the end of each week leading up to a castle siege there is a period of time in the weekend where NPC generated caravans start moving toward one of the castle nodes carrying castle taxes from the nodes that fall under the castle's purview.[27][36]
During this time it is incumbent upon the owning guild, its allies, and citizens of the nodes to escort these caravans to the castle node.[27]
The enemies of the guild have incentive to attack these caravans to reap the rewards from the caravan and to sabotage the tax collection, which will reduce the defensive capability of the castle nodes and hence the castle itself.[27][20]
Citizens of nodes that fall under the purview of the castle are automatically registered as defenders of these caravans and may not participate in attacks against them.[27]"
---https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges

Yep, that is one type of caravan. So that will be once a week for that one.

Dygz

5x per week because there are 5 Castles per server.

Zipp_Adoudel

Once the economy gets going there will be caravans all the time...The idea is gathers will pick up stuff and place it in a node. A caravan will be needed to move it to a place to process(freehold or node with processing). On a mount it takes 3.5 mins to travel from one node to the next. A caravan would be slower and you might not be going directly to the next node. Then from wherever you process, you will need to take is somewhere you can craft. Last, will be to the market. All of these goods will need to be transported. It will happen all the time because this will be the way to achieve maximum profit. Even if you take the min-maxers out, you will have to move goods around to some extent to do it on any sort of scale.

Spif

I look forward to seeing their implementation of a Caravan event. This is the one case where the defenders should have several large advantages, because the attackers are risking very little. Examples that may work:

Defenders can rez on the Caravan (respawn delay is probably necessary). Attackers need to be rezzed by a player or use a world rez point that may not be close by
Attackers should have to destroy defenses (destroy = ?interact?, this can't be based on weapon damage) for several minutes at least, before they can have a chance to destroy something like a storage compartment and get loot to drop.
The defenders should be able to repair that defense if they manage to clear the area of attackers.
Mounted weapons options for defenders
Armored beasts of burden so it takes longer to stop the caravan
Cap on the # of attackers relative to the # of defenders? I'm not sure about this one. It just doesn't make any real world sense, but it sure would suck for your caravan with a full group on defense to run into a random world boss raid group or streamer zerg.
Joining the defense could be invite only and the caravan leader can kick you.
Looting caravan items is a FFA, and the attackers can fight each other for loot in some way (possibly after dropping the caravan event, anyone who looted items stays purple for 5 minutes?)

tautau

I expect (without confirmation) that caravans will be parts of quests and of character advancement as well as a very efficient way to make money.

You may need to do personal caravans not only for optional quests but also for advancements in certain organizations (like the Merchants' Society) or to obtain your subclass. Nodes may have to do caravans to complete advanced buildings. Guilds may have to do quests to advance in rank or obtain certain skills or to have a guild hall. Crafters, gatherers and others may need to complete caravans (or quests including caravans) to learn advanced skills for weapon or armor crafting.

I suspect we will be given many motivations, and strong motivations, to complete caravans successfully. Some of these we may find out about in A2 and Betas, many others might be revealed only after release. So, I expect there will be lots of caravans running. However, given the world size and geography, finding the caravans is an entirely different challenge. I remember there was a thread about that back in April 2021.

Ayeveegaming1

" The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location."

So this I ask: Will we be able to find most caravans? Do we need spies in opposing guilds to tell us the routes? As stated if we do not know when a caravan is launched it is likely we will not be able to intercept it. Maybe some people will just lay in wait in perpetuality for one to come down the trade route. Who knows.

MachadoDeCarvalho

Ravicus wrote: »

" The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location."

So this I ask: Will we be able to find most caravans? Do we need spies in opposing guilds to tell us the routes? As stated if we do not know when a caravan is launched it is likely we will not be able to intercept it. Maybe some people will just lay in wait in perpetuality for one to come down the trade route. Who knows.

I like it the way it is described. It is up to you to figure out routes or just stumble upon a caravan by chance, and then alert people if you plan on intercepting. Sounds fun!

Ayeveegaming1

MachadoDeCarvalho wrote: »

Ravicus wrote: »

" The caravan system is designed to be initiated by the player. Which means, information of the caravans launch time and route, should be a closely guarded secret. Routes will also be diverse, and the world is large, so it might behoove you to scout the route ahead before a launch. Fast travel in our game is also limited, which means unless the guild had knowledge of your plans before hand, it is likely that they will be unable to organize and travel to a location."

So this I ask: Will we be able to find most caravans? Do we need spies in opposing guilds to tell us the routes? As stated if we do not know when a caravan is launched it is likely we will not be able to intercept it. Maybe some people will just lay in wait in perpetuality for one to come down the trade route. Who knows.

I like it the way it is described. It is up to you to figure out routes or just stumble upon a caravan by chance, and then alert people if you plan on intercepting. Sounds fun!

yes, I like the system as well. I'm just wondering if there will be much downtime between for pvp. Trying to figure out the workings of things in a broad sense

Noaani

The frequency of a caravan isn't really something that wouldn't be able to have a figure placed on it, even once the game is live.

How frequent caravans run is too dependent on where things are. If there is a smelter and blacksmith in the same node as an iron mine, then players can make finished products without needing a caravan for that iron.

If those three things are all in different nodes, you now need two caravans just for the iron.

The thing there is, it is entirely possible that any of those three things (mine, smelter, smith) could cease to exist in that node. Perhaps the mine has been exhausted, maybe a node war destroyed the Smith, or you purchased the freehold with a smelter in order to force people to get the iron out via caravan.

In an attempt to as best answer your question as I can though, I wouldn't go expecting to be able to defeat a caravan a day. You may come across several per day, but most are likely to be so heavily protected that they arent worth attacking unless you happen to have your whole guild with you.

Percimes

I know this will sound preposterous, but maybe the best way to get some caravan PvP action will be to join the defenders/escort side instead of looking around for one to attack.

daveywavey

Percimes wrote: »

I know this will sound preposterous, but maybe the best way to get some caravan PvP action will be to join the defenders/escort side instead of looking around for one to attack.

If everybody does that, there'll be nobody to defend against.

Percimes

daveywavey wrote: »

Percimes wrote: »

I know this will sound preposterous, but maybe the best way to get some caravan PvP action will be to join the defenders/escort side instead of looking around for one to attack.

If everybody does that, there'll be nobody to defend against.

That's a big "if" considering the target audience. Technically possible, but quite unlikely.

Ayeveegaming1

Percimes wrote: »

I know this will sound preposterous, but maybe the best way to get some caravan PvP action will be to join the defenders/escort side instead of looking around for one to attack.

Ya, that is kind of the exact opposite of what I am asking in this thread :P I am kind of wanting to evaluate if there is a long wait between caravans and if there is downtime to finding and attacking them. If there is downtime it gives a chance for OWPVP. Layng in wait for a caravan that might not even happen seems like it could end up kind of boring. There might be multiple caravans all day but with no fast travel you most likely will not be able to intercept them. I wonder how many people will be flagged in the world for OWPVP or will they all be on the sea?

Noaani

Sitting in wait for random caravans isn't really going to be a thing.

Keep in mind, a caravan represents dozens of hours of player effort - expect it to be exponentially longer than that between caravans you successfully defeat.

Ayeveegaming1

Noaani wrote: »

Sitting in wait for random caravans isn't really going to be a thing.

Keep in mind, a caravan represents dozens of hours of player effort - expect it to be exponentially longer than that between caravans you successfully defeat.

Yep, I agree.

Dolyem

daveywavey wrote: »

Percimes wrote: »

I know this will sound preposterous, but maybe the best way to get some caravan PvP action will be to join the defenders/escort side instead of looking around for one to attack.

If everybody does that, there'll be nobody to defend against.

I say to limit the number of defenders, that way people who miss out or are booted can jump onto the attacking side if they feel slighted

Caww

AoC could do a generic system wide notice in chat stating something like "A caravan has left a node in the Riverlands" and give people a heads-up in a general fashion but not specific enough for the entire server to jump it.

Noaani

Caww wrote: »

AoC could do a generic system wide notice in chat stating something like "A caravan has left a node in the Riverlands" and give people a heads-up in a general fashion but not specific enough for the entire server to jump it.

Nah, that's what spys are for.

Ayeveegaming1

Caww wrote: »

AoC could do a generic system wide notice in chat stating something like "A caravan has left a node in the Riverlands" and give people a heads-up in a general fashion but not specific enough for the entire server to jump it.

Hehe that would be fun but can you imagine the PVE playerbase would go nuts. They want to get their resources home and safe

Child Item