Solutions: Potential Ways to Create Risk for Bandits
4) Bandits should carry in their inventory the components to build their own caravan if they plan to take the crates away. And those components should drop if they are killed. Full loot not just half, anytime even before they find a caravan. Without such components they should not be able to summon a caravan, which actually should be built, not summoned.
It's the same argument as saying gatherers signed up to go out and gather mats, so there's no need for corruption.
You are mistaken, on one end the gathering player has to go out to get those mats, on the other end the caravan running group DOES NOT have to go run that caravan, a very distinct and important characteristic. Additionally the risk for attackers failing to prevent large resource transports is quite high and is part of the endgame loop. As any nodes development will rely on large quantities of mats.
All told the risk for attackers are as follows
- Failure to take the caravan means it was a complete waste of time... time you yourself could have used to transport a caravan or something equivalent
- Assuming caravans are common then guilds who routinely take caravans will become well known.
- Failure to prevent resource transport will mean development of nodes that are likely not yours and thus provide power to those you are likely already at ends with
The risk to an attacker are significant but not as directly linked as they are for a defender, as it stands now I wager the balance for caravans will be delicate, and will likely need to be tuned more towards the attacker not less.
Simply because attacking a caravan will require you to then transport a caravan yourself for 50% the value or take like 20%? of the original mats. Which really just means running your own original caravan will net a more consistent profit... and players are all about min/maxing.
I'm failing to see the important quality of choosing to gather mats vs choosing to transport mats. Gatherers can also choose to not gather mats, so in both cases they have a choice.
All of these "risks" are fairly unconvincing as to why a bandit or random passerbyer would weigh these risks. I am asking you to put your shoes into a bandits and seriously ask yourself whether a bandit would not attack a caravan based off these "risks" you've listed.
If you lose in caravan PvP you don't get penalties, and you get the pleasure of caravan PvP. People will not view losing in caravan PvP as a waste of time, they are playing this game for PvP.
"Guilds who routinely take caravans" will include every competent guild in the game. If you beat other people and take their caravans that's just playing the PvP game everyone signed up for. If someone is at the top of the bandit list, that will be seen as a positive rather than a negative, just like the murder list in Ultima Online turned into a cred flex.
Failure to stop your rivals progression isn't a reason to not attack a caravan, it's a reason to attack it. A similar "risk" under this framework is not getting free gold from caravans if you fail the attack. But that's not a "risk", that's "no reward."
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The Risk of failing a Caravan attack is not progressing your Node to Metro or not being able to capture a Castle.
As long as the Expected Caravan Profit is more than the gold gained from vendoring glint to the local merchant, everyone should try and use a caravan.
Great point, but I think this is only true for node commodities, which can ONLY be transported by caravan. For harvested materials, players also have the option of transporting them to a different node via player inventory on mounts. This changes the outcome, because we now have three options.
1) Sell at local node,
2) Transport via caravan
3) Transport via mount ('carriers').
If transporting via mount, goods can be split among carriers who would have acted as defenders - this also introduces redundancy, such that carrier transport has inherently less risk than caravan transport. I.E. we could put all our eggs in one basket, or we could spread our eggs among multiple carriers. On the other hand, it's more difficult to convince multiple people to cooperate and share profits from their inventory vs convincing them to act as defenders of a caravan. Especially if all carriers need to travel a long distance (can you imagine convincing strangers to go on an hour-long trek with you without them running off with your goods?). The other downside to carrier transport is inventory capacity, which even among a small party of carriers is presumably lower than the total capacity of a caravan (at least it should be). Capacity may not be limiting for the rarest gatherables which don't exist in high abundance. But this is fine - I think the caravans are more about transporting bulk items to locations with higher demand.
In sum, caravans are viable for node commodities when expected_caravan_profit > local_profit, but for gatherables, caravans are only viable if expected_caravan_profit > local_profit, & expected_caravan_profit > expected_carrier_profit.
I'm failing to see the important quality of choosing to gather mats vs choosing to transport mats. Gatherers can also choose to not gather mats, so in both cases they have a choice.
All of these "risks" are fairly unconvincing as to why a bandit or random passerbyer would weigh these risks. I am asking you to put your shoes into a bandits and seriously ask yourself whether a bandit would not attack a caravan based off these "risks" you've listed.
If you lose in caravan PvP you don't get penalties, and you get the pleasure of caravan PvP. People will not view losing in caravan PvP as a waste of time, they are playing this game for PvP.
"Guilds who routinely take caravans" will include every competent guild in the game. If you beat other people and take their caravans that's just playing the PvP game everyone signed up for. If someone is at the top of the bandit list, that will be seen as a positive rather than a negative, just like the murder list in Ultima Online turned into a cred flex.
Failure to stop your rivals progression isn't a reason to not attack a caravan, it's a reason to attack it. A similar "risk" under this framework is not getting free gold from caravans if you fail the attack. But that's not a "risk", that's "no reward."
Firstly - Caravans being routinely attacked by everyone would be the healthiest and best option we could ever hope for.
Second - If caravans are routinely attacked then caravan defenders will be routinely hired... and that is an extraordinarily good thing.
We REALLY REALLY REALLY want caravans to be routinely attacked, they are part of an accessible endgame content loop that will keep this game spicey.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited May 16
Caravans are a content loop that begins by the time the first players on the server are Level 20-25 and Villages are Stage 3.
Caravans are just a content loop - not an "Endgame" content loop.
I don't think people will attack caravans for loot. They will attack probably because they want to PvP. Personally, I'm not gonna waste my time trying to destroy caravans when I can just farm my things and be more profitable in the long run. The high risk for attackers is to not successfully destroy a caravan and they wasted their time instead of farming themselves.
Who are we to make assumptions on people's possible future behaviors ?
Let's just wait for Alpha 2 to be there for at least couple months and then we can talk about people's behaviors. If there is something that wasn't intended, Intrepid will fix it. End of discussion.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Caravan PvP is really more about Node progression and Castle progression than individuals acquiring "things".
Caravan PvP is really more about Node progression and Castle progression than individuals acquiring "things".
Caravans are about node and castle progression but arent considered and endgame loop in ur mind.... how tf
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited May 16
Node progression is a content loop that begins at Level 20-25 which is not Endgame.
I guess now that Steven said a few weeks ago that the Ancients in the Castles are Level 50, Castles are an Endgame loop, sure.
But, Caravans are not an Endgame loop because Caravan PvP begins in the mid-game rather than at the Endgame.
Node progression is a content loop that begins at Level 20-25 which is not Endgame.
I guess now that Steven said a few weeks ago that the Ancients in the Castles are Level 50, Castles are an Endgame loop, sure.
But, Caravans are not an Endgame loop because Caravan PvP begins in the mid-game rather than at the Endgame.
It's possible/likely that with the currently shown economic design, though, that most Pattern-Matcher/Optimizer Econ players (the ones you think of as 'greedy') will consider Caravans an Endgame loop though.
So if we consider that, it makes more sense to consider it Endgame. Sure, players can participate and run Caravans before personally reaching that level, but that will usually just risk PvP against max level bandits. If Freeholds are high level, and most nodes won't even be up to run Caravans between (or Caravanserai themselves will be rarer due to the node situation), this will make the routes even more predictable.
From the 'Greed' perspective, Caravans are endgame content that you have the option to risk doing at a lower level (but not actually 'early', it would just be a matter of you, the player, leveling slowly and putting yourself at disadvantage).
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited May 16
Objectively, it's not an Endgame loop because Caravans begin at Stage 3 when the first characters on the server are around Level 20-25. The fact that those characters will reach Level 50 before other Nodes reach Stage 3 is irrelevant. Caravans are not gated as Max Level/Endgame content.
Subjectively, gamers can consider all kinds of crazy stuff.
Objectively, it's not an Endgame loop because Caravans begin at Stage 3 when the first characters on the server are around Level 20-25. The fact that those characters will reach Level 50 before other Nodes reach Stage 3 is irrelevant. Caravans are not gated as Max Level/Endgame content.
Subjectively, gamers can consider all kinds of crazy stuff.
End game is not defined by being gated via max level.
Besides there is some weird game theory going on in this game (well future game). Anybody who has ever played a full loot style PvP focused game will not trust random strangers with there loot (or glint or w/e). In Albion / EvE the Player will transfer the loot or ships them self not hand it over (AFAIK some for ArchAge). This whole system is another newbie trap.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It kinda is defined by whether it's gated to start at Endgame.
I'm not sure what trusting strangers with loot has to do with Caravans.
I'm also not sure how an Endgame loop could be a newbie trap.
Does this work like the raid/dungeon systems Steven mentioned in the AMA where the penalties from death stack so as to lead to a “winner” from the conflict? Meaning the penalty would be basically a wipe with some downtime to remove the penalties.
this was a comment that was based on the zerging of dungeons as was said that it would combat the zerging by making one side useless after dying so many times.
and is one of the biggest things I think we will see in the caravan system, like Dygz has said the caravan system kicks off at node level 3 so guilds are going to be the first out with caravans and then the first to zerg on them to stop other nodes getting resources to level up. if a guild gets on with 50 plus players every other night they will stop caravans traffic and make a tone of resources while giving its pvp crowd something they want to actively do. I made a whole post about it my self..
if I can think of it now not being in a big guild I can imagen they are doing more than just thinking of it, activly planning for it...
so yes I think more risk is needed and the death penalties stacking is the least I would expect....
It kinda is defined by whether it's gated to start at Endgame.
I'm not sure what trusting strangers with loot has to do with Caravans.
I'm also not sure how an Endgame loop could be a newbie trap.
ABC has a good point. even if you can do caravans way before max level, they are still an endgame activity. they are part of the endgame loop. this is what players will do very often at max level.
Caravan attackers should be rewarded commensurate with the amount of risk they take. It's like any other system in the game. No quantifiable risk = no quantifiable reward. High risk = high potential reward. And anything in between.
Sieges have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Node and Guild Wars will have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Naval combat the same (the ship and any loot on it is put at risk).
To me the solution is pretty simple; don't let attackers get any quantifiable reward unless they put up their own caravan and transport the goods.
The political and social game of denying caravans to nodes to hurt their economy, or just hurting the economy of other players, is its own gameplay loop, with it's own risk/reward structure.
Caravan attackers should be rewarded commensurate with the amount of risk they take. It's like any other system in the game. No quantifiable risk = no quantifiable reward. High risk = high potential reward. And anything in between.
Sieges have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Node and Guild Wars will have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Naval combat the same (the ship and any loot on it is put at risk).
To me the solution is pretty simple; don't let attackers get any quantifiable reward unless they put up their own caravan and transport the goods.
The political and social game of denying caravans to nodes to hurt their economy is its own gameplay loop, with it's own risk/reward structure.
attackers already don't get rewarded until they do a caravan run themselves as the defenders...
Caravan attackers should be rewarded commensurate with the amount of risk they take. It's like any other system in the game. No quantifiable risk = no quantifiable reward. High risk = high potential reward. And anything in between.
Sieges have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Node and Guild Wars will have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Naval combat the same (the ship and any loot on it is put at risk).
To me the solution is pretty simple; don't let attackers get any quantifiable reward unless they put up their own caravan and transport the goods.
The political and social game of denying caravans to nodes to hurt their economy is its own gameplay loop, with it's own risk/reward structure.
attackers already don't get rewarded until they do a caravan run themselves as the defenders...
They can currently break open the crates and get some reward. Hopefully very little in comparison.
Edit: And failing to stop the caravan should also have a cost of failure. Through the BH system as has been proposed, or loss of progress in the highwayman system, or by other means.
Caravan attackers should be rewarded commensurate with the amount of risk they take. It's like any other system in the game. No quantifiable risk = no quantifiable reward. High risk = high potential reward. And anything in between.
Sieges have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Node and Guild Wars will have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Naval combat the same (the ship and any loot on it is put at risk).
To me the solution is pretty simple; don't let attackers get any quantifiable reward unless they put up their own caravan and transport the goods.
The political and social game of denying caravans to nodes to hurt their economy is its own gameplay loop, with it's own risk/reward structure.
attackers already don't get rewarded until they do a caravan run themselves as the defenders...
They can currently break open the crates and get some reward. Hopefully very little in comparison.
Edit: And failing to stop the caravan should also have a cost of failure. Through the BH system as has been proposed, or loss of progress in the highwayman system, or by other means.
if the defenders are transporting materials, then sure. if they are transporting the commodities thingies, the attackers still have to launch their caravan to sell the commodities at a different node.
if the defenders are transporting materials and they lose the caravan run, some of the materials are lost, arent they? plus whatever Is dropped will be split among the attackers if they decide to open the boxes right away. on top of that, defenders can launch a bunch of decoy caravans.
chances are as an attacker, it might not even be worth it for you. you are acquiring a negative social reputation. you could straight up lose the attack and lose attackers progression. if you win, you still need to transport the goods (if you get any, as anybody including the defenders can loot the caravans as well assuming you focus fired the caravan instead of killing everybody first, or people had time to respawn and come back). if you decide to open the boxes right there, you get less stuff (assuming you can even open a box, there will most likely be more people than boxes). at the end of the day, its possible that you could have got more mats per hour by simply farming them and not attacking any caravans, unless you are that one lucky guy who manages to open all the boxes (which is unlikely as everybody will be trying to loot them).
Dont you think there is RISK in the form of: "spent x hours scouting the area to find a caravan to attack"?
Take in mind that the map will be enormous. And with 10k players logged at the same time, there will be a lot of land with no players. This also means when you run a caravan you can check the commission board first to check where the quests atm are situated, so you just avoid those places.
If some group of 30 players spend 3 hours scouting for caravan and dont find any caravans, this is pretty big risk, since the other players will make gold/craft items/ get levels/ prepare for some siege/ upgrade their nodes and ect.
This also punishes large guilds, since they can have spies. And so the large guild have more players to defend their caravans, and in the same time are more exposed to attacks, and since they cant group too fast with no fast travel, they can lose their caravans.
And also atm i think you opt in to the defenders or attackers side. But what happens if 2 different groups want to attack the caravan, but dont want to split the loot. There should be option when you want to attack a caravan to either join existing attacking group, or make new attacking group. So you can have a free for all fight between defenders and multiple attacking groups, or they can just band together but get less loot since it splits to all.(or someone steal it all, but this is risk you take when you band with other group you dont know)
Dont you think there is RISK in the form of: "spent x hours scouting the area to find a caravan to attack"?
No, that has nothing to do with risk in the "risk vs reward" sense of it. There is an opportunity cost to every single thing we spend time on ingame and IRL. That's different.
No, that has nothing to do with risk in the "risk vs reward" sense of it. There is an opportunity cost to every single thing we spend time on ingame and IRL. That's different.
How is it different? People spend time on gathering with certain reward and the risk comes after if they try to get more by running caravan to particular node in order to get bigger reward.
In the other hand, you spend the risk of scouting the area for particular time with chance to get nothing. And then get the CHANCE to get reward if you win in the pvp of the caravan.
The risk comes from the fact that if the players waiting with hours for a caravan spent their time to gather they maybe would earn even more for the same time. And if you dont find a caravan / or dont win in the pvp when attacking the caravan, then you get 0 (but the time is already spent).
And here comes the next part. If you win then you can either get small reward by opening the crates (wich will 100% put you in the red, coz you get really low reward that will split to all players, and for sure the time spent wont be worth it). Or you run your own caravan, where you still have the risk to lose what you EARNED (yes you earned it by spending the time to scout and winning the pvp). So now the enemy knows where you are and that you run caravan to take the stolen goods, and they can easily try to take the goods back.
And i dont say there wont be group of players doing quests or gathering and finding themselves by coincidence near a caravan. So this eliminates the time spent risk for searching caravans. But in this case it can no longer be called "gank box". And also such encounters potentially wont be with enough players to endanger your caravan run. and many other factors.
No, that has nothing to do with risk in the "risk vs reward" sense of it. There is an opportunity cost to every single thing we spend time on ingame and IRL. That's different.
How is it different?
Wasting or spending your time is not a risk. Whether you spent 3 hours unsuccessfully looking for a caravan, 3 hours running circles in a node, or 3 hours doing RL chores while your character idles in your home, you've risked nothing in the game. All you have done is spent time. That's not a risk.
Wasting or spending your time is not a risk. Whether you spent 3 hours unsuccessfully looking for a caravan, 3 hours running circles in a node, or 3 hours doing RL chores while your character idles in your home, you've risked nothing in the game. All you have done is spent time. That's not a risk.
If what you say is true - this means that running caravan has no risk at all.
Since all you can lose is the time spent to gather the goods (which dont count as risk)
Wasting or spending your time is not a risk. Whether you spent 3 hours unsuccessfully looking for a caravan, 3 hours running circles in a node, or 3 hours doing RL chores while your character idles in your home, you've risked nothing in the game. All you have done is spent time. That's not a risk.
If what you say is true - this means that running caravan has no risk at all.
Since all you can lose is the time spent to gather the goods (which dont count as risk)
Honestly - you dont make any sense...
Ok, I don't think you understand the word "risk" in the game then. There is risk involved with gathering, and it's not based on the time spent. The risk is dying to other players or NPCs and losing your stuff. There is the risk of losing the stuff on the caravan, and again, it's not about the time lost running the caravan. It's the potential loss of material goods. Risk = potential loss of stuff. Risk in the "risk vs. reward" game concept is not potential loss of time. Loss of time can feel bad but any risk you feel associated with it is a personal RL one. The game can't reward you for that in material goods form.
Ok, I don't think you understand the word "risk" in the game then. There is risk involved with gathering, and it's not based on the time spent. The risk is dying to other players or NPCs and losing your stuff. There is the risk of losing the stuff on the caravan, and again, it's not about the time lost running the caravan. It's the potential loss of material goods. Risk = potential loss of stuff. Risk is not potential loss of time.
AGAIN... the goods that you can lose are actually the time spent to gather them.
And all those other "risks" you talk about are present everywhere on the map. Even scouting for caravan can lead you to unwanted pvp outside of the caravan pvp fight.
And you can mitigate most of the risk of being PK-ed while gathering by being "Non combatant" flagged. So if someone kills you he gets corrupted.
Its you who dont understand the concept of RISK. The goods you talk about are actually the time spent to gather them. IF for 1 hour you can gather 100 gems, this means that if someone kills you and gets all your 100 gems, then for 1 more hour you can still have 100 new gems. (if the game was p2w and had in game transactions then it could be different, since potentially you could lose irl money by losing the goods)
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or sail away with it.
4) Bandits should carry in their inventory the components to build their own caravan if they plan to take the crates away. And those components should drop if they are killed. Full loot not just half, anytime even before they find a caravan. Without such components they should not be able to summon a caravan, which actually should be built, not summoned.
I'm failing to see the important quality of choosing to gather mats vs choosing to transport mats. Gatherers can also choose to not gather mats, so in both cases they have a choice.
All of these "risks" are fairly unconvincing as to why a bandit or random passerbyer would weigh these risks. I am asking you to put your shoes into a bandits and seriously ask yourself whether a bandit would not attack a caravan based off these "risks" you've listed.
If you lose in caravan PvP you don't get penalties, and you get the pleasure of caravan PvP. People will not view losing in caravan PvP as a waste of time, they are playing this game for PvP.
"Guilds who routinely take caravans" will include every competent guild in the game. If you beat other people and take their caravans that's just playing the PvP game everyone signed up for. If someone is at the top of the bandit list, that will be seen as a positive rather than a negative, just like the murder list in Ultima Online turned into a cred flex.
Failure to stop your rivals progression isn't a reason to not attack a caravan, it's a reason to attack it. A similar "risk" under this framework is not getting free gold from caravans if you fail the attack. But that's not a "risk", that's "no reward."
Great point, but I think this is only true for node commodities, which can ONLY be transported by caravan. For harvested materials, players also have the option of transporting them to a different node via player inventory on mounts. This changes the outcome, because we now have three options.
1) Sell at local node,
2) Transport via caravan
3) Transport via mount ('carriers').
If transporting via mount, goods can be split among carriers who would have acted as defenders - this also introduces redundancy, such that carrier transport has inherently less risk than caravan transport. I.E. we could put all our eggs in one basket, or we could spread our eggs among multiple carriers. On the other hand, it's more difficult to convince multiple people to cooperate and share profits from their inventory vs convincing them to act as defenders of a caravan. Especially if all carriers need to travel a long distance (can you imagine convincing strangers to go on an hour-long trek with you without them running off with your goods?). The other downside to carrier transport is inventory capacity, which even among a small party of carriers is presumably lower than the total capacity of a caravan (at least it should be). Capacity may not be limiting for the rarest gatherables which don't exist in high abundance. But this is fine - I think the caravans are more about transporting bulk items to locations with higher demand.
In sum, caravans are viable for node commodities when expected_caravan_profit > local_profit, but for gatherables, caravans are only viable if expected_caravan_profit > local_profit, & expected_caravan_profit > expected_carrier_profit.
Firstly - Caravans being routinely attacked by everyone would be the healthiest and best option we could ever hope for.
Second - If caravans are routinely attacked then caravan defenders will be routinely hired... and that is an extraordinarily good thing.
We REALLY REALLY REALLY want caravans to be routinely attacked, they are part of an accessible endgame content loop that will keep this game spicey.
Caravans are just a content loop - not an "Endgame" content loop.
Who are we to make assumptions on people's possible future behaviors ?
Let's just wait for Alpha 2 to be there for at least couple months and then we can talk about people's behaviors. If there is something that wasn't intended, Intrepid will fix it. End of discussion.
Caravans are about node and castle progression but arent considered and endgame loop in ur mind.... how tf
I guess now that Steven said a few weeks ago that the Ancients in the Castles are Level 50, Castles are an Endgame loop, sure.
But, Caravans are not an Endgame loop because Caravan PvP begins in the mid-game rather than at the Endgame.
It's possible/likely that with the currently shown economic design, though, that most Pattern-Matcher/Optimizer Econ players (the ones you think of as 'greedy') will consider Caravans an Endgame loop though.
The developers estimate that players will reach level cap before a quarter of nodes reach Village (stage 3).
So if we consider that, it makes more sense to consider it Endgame. Sure, players can participate and run Caravans before personally reaching that level, but that will usually just risk PvP against max level bandits. If Freeholds are high level, and most nodes won't even be up to run Caravans between (or Caravanserai themselves will be rarer due to the node situation), this will make the routes even more predictable.
From the 'Greed' perspective, Caravans are endgame content that you have the option to risk doing at a lower level (but not actually 'early', it would just be a matter of you, the player, leveling slowly and putting yourself at disadvantage).
Subjectively, gamers can consider all kinds of crazy stuff.
End game is not defined by being gated via max level.
Besides there is some weird game theory going on in this game (well future game). Anybody who has ever played a full loot style PvP focused game will not trust random strangers with there loot (or glint or w/e). In Albion / EvE the Player will transfer the loot or ships them self not hand it over (AFAIK some for ArchAge). This whole system is another newbie trap.
I'm not sure what trusting strangers with loot has to do with Caravans.
I'm also not sure how an Endgame loop could be a newbie trap.
this was a comment that was based on the zerging of dungeons as was said that it would combat the zerging by making one side useless after dying so many times.
and is one of the biggest things I think we will see in the caravan system, like Dygz has said the caravan system kicks off at node level 3 so guilds are going to be the first out with caravans and then the first to zerg on them to stop other nodes getting resources to level up. if a guild gets on with 50 plus players every other night they will stop caravans traffic and make a tone of resources while giving its pvp crowd something they want to actively do. I made a whole post about it my self..
if I can think of it now not being in a big guild I can imagen they are doing more than just thinking of it, activly planning for it...
so yes I think more risk is needed and the death penalties stacking is the least I would expect....
ABC has a good point. even if you can do caravans way before max level, they are still an endgame activity. they are part of the endgame loop. this is what players will do very often at max level.
Sieges have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Node and Guild Wars will have a buy-in cost and a cost of failure. Naval combat the same (the ship and any loot on it is put at risk).
To me the solution is pretty simple; don't let attackers get any quantifiable reward unless they put up their own caravan and transport the goods.
The political and social game of denying caravans to nodes to hurt their economy, or just hurting the economy of other players, is its own gameplay loop, with it's own risk/reward structure.
attackers already don't get rewarded until they do a caravan run themselves as the defenders...
They can currently break open the crates and get some reward. Hopefully very little in comparison.
Edit: And failing to stop the caravan should also have a cost of failure. Through the BH system as has been proposed, or loss of progress in the highwayman system, or by other means.
if the defenders are transporting materials, then sure. if they are transporting the commodities thingies, the attackers still have to launch their caravan to sell the commodities at a different node.
if the defenders are transporting materials and they lose the caravan run, some of the materials are lost, arent they? plus whatever Is dropped will be split among the attackers if they decide to open the boxes right away. on top of that, defenders can launch a bunch of decoy caravans.
chances are as an attacker, it might not even be worth it for you. you are acquiring a negative social reputation. you could straight up lose the attack and lose attackers progression. if you win, you still need to transport the goods (if you get any, as anybody including the defenders can loot the caravans as well assuming you focus fired the caravan instead of killing everybody first, or people had time to respawn and come back). if you decide to open the boxes right there, you get less stuff (assuming you can even open a box, there will most likely be more people than boxes). at the end of the day, its possible that you could have got more mats per hour by simply farming them and not attacking any caravans, unless you are that one lucky guy who manages to open all the boxes (which is unlikely as everybody will be trying to loot them).
Take in mind that the map will be enormous. And with 10k players logged at the same time, there will be a lot of land with no players. This also means when you run a caravan you can check the commission board first to check where the quests atm are situated, so you just avoid those places.
If some group of 30 players spend 3 hours scouting for caravan and dont find any caravans, this is pretty big risk, since the other players will make gold/craft items/ get levels/ prepare for some siege/ upgrade their nodes and ect.
This also punishes large guilds, since they can have spies. And so the large guild have more players to defend their caravans, and in the same time are more exposed to attacks, and since they cant group too fast with no fast travel, they can lose their caravans.
And also atm i think you opt in to the defenders or attackers side. But what happens if 2 different groups want to attack the caravan, but dont want to split the loot. There should be option when you want to attack a caravan to either join existing attacking group, or make new attacking group. So you can have a free for all fight between defenders and multiple attacking groups, or they can just band together but get less loot since it splits to all.(or someone steal it all, but this is risk you take when you band with other group you dont know)
No, that has nothing to do with risk in the "risk vs reward" sense of it. There is an opportunity cost to every single thing we spend time on ingame and IRL. That's different.
How is it different? People spend time on gathering with certain reward and the risk comes after if they try to get more by running caravan to particular node in order to get bigger reward.
In the other hand, you spend the risk of scouting the area for particular time with chance to get nothing. And then get the CHANCE to get reward if you win in the pvp of the caravan.
The risk comes from the fact that if the players waiting with hours for a caravan spent their time to gather they maybe would earn even more for the same time. And if you dont find a caravan / or dont win in the pvp when attacking the caravan, then you get 0 (but the time is already spent).
And here comes the next part. If you win then you can either get small reward by opening the crates (wich will 100% put you in the red, coz you get really low reward that will split to all players, and for sure the time spent wont be worth it). Or you run your own caravan, where you still have the risk to lose what you EARNED (yes you earned it by spending the time to scout and winning the pvp). So now the enemy knows where you are and that you run caravan to take the stolen goods, and they can easily try to take the goods back.
And i dont say there wont be group of players doing quests or gathering and finding themselves by coincidence near a caravan. So this eliminates the time spent risk for searching caravans. But in this case it can no longer be called "gank box". And also such encounters potentially wont be with enough players to endanger your caravan run. and many other factors.
Wasting or spending your time is not a risk. Whether you spent 3 hours unsuccessfully looking for a caravan, 3 hours running circles in a node, or 3 hours doing RL chores while your character idles in your home, you've risked nothing in the game. All you have done is spent time. That's not a risk.
If what you say is true - this means that running caravan has no risk at all.
Since all you can lose is the time spent to gather the goods (which dont count as risk)
Honestly - you dont make any sense...
Ok, I don't think you understand the word "risk" in the game then. There is risk involved with gathering, and it's not based on the time spent. The risk is dying to other players or NPCs and losing your stuff. There is the risk of losing the stuff on the caravan, and again, it's not about the time lost running the caravan. It's the potential loss of material goods. Risk = potential loss of stuff. Risk in the "risk vs. reward" game concept is not potential loss of time. Loss of time can feel bad but any risk you feel associated with it is a personal RL one. The game can't reward you for that in material goods form.
AGAIN... the goods that you can lose are actually the time spent to gather them.
And all those other "risks" you talk about are present everywhere on the map. Even scouting for caravan can lead you to unwanted pvp outside of the caravan pvp fight.
And you can mitigate most of the risk of being PK-ed while gathering by being "Non combatant" flagged. So if someone kills you he gets corrupted.
Its you who dont understand the concept of RISK. The goods you talk about are actually the time spent to gather them. IF for 1 hour you can gather 100 gems, this means that if someone kills you and gets all your 100 gems, then for 1 more hour you can still have 100 new gems. (if the game was p2w and had in game transactions then it could be different, since potentially you could lose irl money by losing the goods)