Boats in Rivers

Did anyone else catch Stevens comment that only caravan rafts can be in the rivers of Verra on this months livestream?
It confused me a little bit. Obviously, game mechanics no yet showcased, and further context given down the line might change how I feel or think about it, but it definitely felt odd.
After all, wouldn't you never travel overland with caravans then if ever river travel was an option for your journey? Not only would it be just as obscured as overland travel, what with forests, hills, and cliff faces, but generally speaking, players in water in most games function differently from a combat perspective when in water, than they do while on land. Usually in a negative way, either slower in movement, or unable to use certain abilities, or even most abilities while in the swimming animation. Plus, there's often a much smaller amount of pve obstacles in water areas as well, compared to land.
Is the Water Current mechanic we were told about what brings the risk/reward here? Maybe making some rivers unnavigable either in general or during certain time windows? Or are there a mess of water foes that just make it unfeasible sometimes?
As always, more info needed before I can get a more solid impression, but I find myself hoping Steven misspoke, and just meant to say we won't see the massive raid style vessels talked about previously, plying the waters of the Riverlands, and not that smaller early game vessels are banned as well, or that this is how it will be during Alpha 2. And of course, going through all of this with the understanding that player boats need access to a harbor area to be placed into the world, so the rivers I'm speaking of here would have to have some connection to such an area.
As a kind of ending note to this, if this is the intention going forward, is this a recent decision? And if it's not recent, why in the Weather and seasons update last year, did Intrepid tease (to much hype) a pair of merchant vessels sliding slowly down a river, off to the side of the showcase? Either way, how did everyone else feel about this? Not very relevant, excited, disappointed?

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Ludullu

Yeah, feels like a recent change.

And if it stays this way, guilds/people will definitely run as many river caravans as possible, cause while Steven was going real close to the shore to show off player attacks from land - no one in their right mind would go anywhere that's not the damn middle of the river, at which point the caravan is barely even attackable.

I think the logic for caravans is that they can only get to land in specific spots, so those can be ambushed, and Intrepid might be thinking that it's a good counterbalance to the relatively safe river travel. But having at least solo ships available on rivers would be great.

Endowed

I like the premise of this question.
Also, will the rivers only ever have one direction of current and will the flow-speed(s) always be the same? This, along with the above sentiment of advantage for river travel over all other options would seem to pick "winners" for some nodes over most of the others. At least for caravan considerations.

SkylarckTheBotanist

In the weather showcase we saw a medium/large(?) boat in a large river, so I am hoping theres categories of rivers that allow a variety of sizes of ships. But that was years ago so maybe there was a change in direction.

Same thing goes for the ships only being able to be launched at beaches. I hope that doesn't include the single person boats like the wispwatcher needing to be at a harbour to launch. I feel like small boats like that would only be viable for small streams, so launching them at harbours is just a recipe to be killed in the waters while you are leaving the harbour to go inland.

Cadac

Primitive bridges are a problem for Naval, and I think a personal vessel could easily destroy a land caravan/raft, and would be scaled to Naval Caravans, and content?
Coastal waters are still flagged, Open Seas are further out.

Ludullu

Cadac wrote: »

Primitive bridges are a problem for Naval, and I think a personal vessel could easily destroy a land caravan/raft, and would be scaled to Naval Caravans, and content?
Coastal waters are still flagged, Open Seas are further out.

Oh right, bridges. Nodes will be able to make them on roads iirc, so majority of ships won't be able to travel all that far after a while. While caravans can change from water to land.

That might be one of the main reasons for this change as well.

Ventharien

Endowed wrote: »

This, along with the above sentiment of advantage for river travel over all other options would seem to pick "winners"

Trueeee. Would be a huge boon for Nodes "upstream".

Cadac

Ventharien wrote: »

Endowed wrote: »

This, along with the above sentiment of advantage for river travel over all other options would seem to pick "winners"

Trueeee. Would be a huge boon for Nodes "upstream".

Those citizens might want to enhance the rainfall they get, and rivals may work against that. afik

Ventharien

Cadac wrote: »

Primitive bridges are a problem for Naval, and I think a personal vessel could easily destroy a land caravan/raft, and would be scaled to Naval Caravans, and content?
Coastal waters are still flagged, Open Seas are further out.

The bridges do make sense as a possible issue, but especially primitive ones, likely just wood stilts on a small pathway would impede even caravans. And wouldn't it be more engaging to have the question, "Do we build a bridge, or put node resources toward their construction (however the system shakes out) or do we leave a navigable waterway?"
As for the scaling, that's just a numbers game. They can have any which way that damage scales and amplifies depending on target. Ships might barely do any damage to players, for example. As for the flagging, attacking caravans is outside of the corruption system either way, so it's a non issue.

Ventharien

Cadac wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

Endowed wrote: »

This, along with the above sentiment of advantage for river travel over all other options would seem to pick "winners"

Trueeee. Would be a huge boon for Nodes "upstream".

Those citizens might want to enhance the rainfall they get, and rivals may work against that. afik

Yeah, or some artifact to change the flow? Crazy magic stuff like that.

Ventharien

I guess maybe my disappointment is it seems to cut out a whole tree of possibility, maybe making Nodes up large river ways but farther from the sea less lucrative, No guilds specializing in defending certain waterways near nodes on smaller ships (Maybe not being able to go to the dangerous seas yet), OR the drama if one node notices its rival is getting alot of traffic up a certain popular river that crosses it's ZOI so they block off the river with a bridge. Think of the sieges tossed around because of that hahah.

Endowed

SkylarckTheBotanist wrote: »

In the weather showcase

The seasons and weather could be a nice off-set.

If its all done equitably, than perhaps Rivers could freeze, dry up or become too flooded**. Or become too swampy/vegetation-laden to even make use of during certain months or seasons. River monsters? Even true river hazards that ebb and flow that can hurt or destroy a raft. whirpools, storms, rock outcroppings and just too damn rough**.

*Imagine your raft being swept away in the totally wrong direction... EPIC!

tautau

Remember that weather impacts the world. I believe that they have said that in the summertime, some rivers will dry up, in the wintertime some will freeze (becoming like a road). Some roads through mountain passes will be impassable in wintertime. In summer, when lake and river levels fall, roads into the underworld will open up.

Which reminds us, there will be underworld routes for caravans as well as choices of various roads and rivers --- finding that caravan isn't going to necessarily be a simple task even if you know one is going to run from a particular node around a particular time. It would be a foolish caravan master indeed who told anyone what route she or he would take.

Mag7spy

Why would I not just use my water mount and get on the raft or attack it???

How are you going to cross the area without a bridge so you have no choice but to use the raft or go a super long way. Either way it is player choice how they want to approach things.

Ventharien

Mag7spy wrote: »

Why would I not just use my water mount and get on the raft or attack it???

How are you going to cross the area without a bridge so you have no choice but to use the raft or go a super long way. Either way it is player choice how they want to approach things.

Well of course you would to approach. And you would be just as vulnerable to mount knock off as you would be on land. Perhaps slightly less so depending how they go with surface of the water interrupting targeting or not, we'll see. But the statement wasn't rafts will be invincible, it was feeling like with smaller boats being now banned from river systems, beyond just being dissatisfied with the change, I'm curious what's the risk reward for using the rivers, because as it seems, it's just objectively better if the option is available to whatever journey you're taking
It isn't more exposed, it doesn't appear to be slower the storage capacity didn't seem to change, and as someone mentioned earlier, Steven was playing near the shore, within range of the cliffs. But if there isn't an unknown restriction, Noone would do that. They'd sit, in the middle of the river, especially if its larger, completely out of range.

FlackJackie

NiKr wrote: »

Yeah, feels like a recent change.

And if it stays this way, guilds/people will definitely run as many river caravans as possible, cause while Steven was going real close to the shore to show off player attacks from land - no one in their right mind would go anywhere that's not the damn middle of the river, at which point the caravan is barely even attackable.

I think the logic for caravans is that they can only get to land in specific spots, so those can be ambushed, and Intrepid might be thinking that it's a good counterbalance to the relatively safe river travel. But having at least solo ships available on rivers would be great.

Yea I think the counter balance will really come from those ambushes on the spots to land. If scattered around properly. Plus water mobs might make it where you have to take the ambush head on

Mag7spy

Ventharien wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Why would I not just use my water mount and get on the raft or attack it???

How are you going to cross the area without a bridge so you have no choice but to use the raft or go a super long way. Either way it is player choice how they want to approach things.

Well of course you would to approach. And you would be just as vulnerable to mount knock off as you would be on land. Perhaps slightly less so depending how they go with surface of the water interrupting targeting or not, we'll see. But the statement wasn't rafts will be invincible, it was feeling like with smaller boats being now banned from river systems, beyond just being dissatisfied with the change, I'm curious what's the risk reward for using the rivers, because as it seems, it's just objectively better if the option is available to whatever journey you're taking
It isn't more exposed, it doesn't appear to be slower the storage capacity didn't seem to change, and as someone mentioned earlier, Steven was playing near the shore, within range of the cliffs. But if there isn't an unknown restriction, Noone would do that. They'd sit, in the middle of the river, especially if its larger, completely out of range.

Ya id do that but they went through the risk of turning it into a raft and they still have to land. I'm sure it will help a lot with some nodes, and some nodes river might not be a good. People could also use their own raft to board, and aqua mounts being under the river to be more difficult to spot.

Granted ya im all for defenders to always have stronger advantages though.

Ventharien

tautau wrote: »

Remember that weather impacts the world. I believe that they have said that in the summertime, some rivers will dry up, in the wintertime some will freeze (becoming like a road). Some roads through mountain passes will be impassable in wintertime. In summer, when lake and river levels fall, roads into the underworld will open up.

Which reminds us, there will be underworld routes for caravans as well as choices of various roads and rivers --- finding that caravan isn't going to necessarily be a simple task even if you know one is going to run from a particular node around a particular time. It would be a foolish caravan master indeed who told anyone what route she or he would take.

True, but the question isn't, are there no other options, it's what is the give and take from this particular option. Underrealm caravans will, after all, still be just as on firm ground as above, and will be just as populated npc wise as the land above, if not more. At least from what we've seen so far.

Ventharien

Mag7spy wrote: »

People could also use their own raft to board

After the hmmm don't like this feeling i got from hearing this, that was basically what I thought too. Or even ramming Caravan rafts with hopefully less upgraded ones. Or blocking river paths with multiple ones.

Ventharien

FlackJacket wrote: »

Yea I think the counter balance will really come from those ambushes on the spots to land. If scattered around properly. Plus water mobs might make it where you have to take the ambush head on

Shy of any other info, really the only minus I can see. Baiting people into starting the animation. That said, they also said it was cancelable, only costing however much time you've already put in to go back. So likely, you'd wanna wait half way, so they couldn't just pop right back.

daveywavey

I mean, currently there are different classes of ships (https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Ship_classes), and from the number of players on the caravan raft, it would seem that the "Personal Vessels" would be smaller, given that they're for a maximum of 3 players. So presumably they'd be able to travel on any rivers that the caravan raft does.

But as Mag7Spy said, send 20 players over on aquatic mounts. At least half of them are likely to make it, then the defenders are too busy fighting them off to attack any more aquatic mounts, and you get more players on-board.

Something to test in Alpha-2!

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