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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
inventory space: I think the system or organizing it by shape and size is good, I'd like hands on experience before I comment on the size of the inventory.
when it comes to Crops I find farming normal crops we got on earth to be a little dull. I'd like to see a lot more crops unique to Vera. now that I think about it, I'd like the same for livestock.
The size-and-shape inventory management system looks good and is going in the right direction. There are many instances where other MMOs keep both inventory and material in the same space which limits and becomes a hassle for players most of the time. Some MMOs use paywall or subscriptions to separate them giving them for example unlimited material space, but then again it should be like that because it's being paid for. So keeping them separate as was shown in the Dev update is a good choice.
The “tetris” type of spacing used for the material bags isn't a bad idea as long as there is a possibility of higher quality bags that can be achieved through in the world or achievements. The spacing will wary for many players depending on their playstyle and what they wish to achieve, but there will be players who might have more use than others when it comes to the space for the “tetris” system so having different bags in different rarity, quality and increased space would be a good way to keep this system going and accessible for majority of the player base.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold?
The systems for planting crops looks good, easily understood and seems very versatile depending on what ones wishes to plant
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Personally I am not that familiar with animal husbandry or raising livestock so it's something I need to test during A2, should I be able to acquire a freehold or outside of a freehold. Visually and mechanically it looks good so you guys should continue on with what is already there and see what you could do differently with the data from A2.
I do have some concerns about the limited Freeholds and the possibility of big guilds and powerful players taking over the Freeholds system and markets. Though I am for the PvX part of Ashes and support the “High Risk v High Reward'', there will be some items/objects that can only be attained by certain players. I feel like this part of the game can be intentionally alienated/gatekeeped from a big amount of the player base and ruin overall game experience for most. But it's something that we will see how is being done and tested during A2.
Also I wanted to touch on a more complex question as watching the gameplay of freeholds left me asking a lot of questions.
Playing the mage and playing the farmer are two very different things. Watching the preview of the mage and the preview of the freehold brought some interesting thoughts when comparing the two.
If I am a player who solely wants to farm or solely wants to craft. Will the gameplay have as much dynamics when crafting as I they do engaging in combat?
Will i be in involved in striking the anvil or chopping the wood? or will I just point and click and watch the bar go through the motions for me? Will there be press button interactions when gathering resources other than the initial click and watching the avatar go through the motions.
If i do ask again in the future I'll try to drill down this idea to its simplest ask for something crafting releated.
I'd love to see more of a gameplay engagement when putting together a piece together jewelry or armor or interactive process of pruning the flower or peeling the corn. It does not inherently have to lead to "better" item if done correctly but just a more engaging crafting and/or farming process than click here to "create" or click here to "collect". maybe have something engaging following that click...
Perhaps something smart enough to trick the bots AND still be fun for the player?
Just spit balling! Great work so far!
Processing max tier only at a Freehold : Excellent idea, 100% behind this.
Freehold Availability : Wait what? Only ~20% of the playerbase can own a Freehold? Terrible idea, just terrible. You either need to increase land size or reduce Freehold size because this current iteration is a massive red flag. I didn't back the game at Kickstarter to be potentially denied access to a huge part of the game because I am not in a top guild with 100's of friends.
Bidding for Freehold: Absolutely worst idea I ever heard AoC consider, cannot imagine anything more detrimental to Players for Freehold ownership.
Inventory Tetris : Really? Why are you trying to ruin a potentially awesome game with awful mechanics like this?
Graphics & audio are great though, kudos to the art & sound ppls.
There's probably more, but I am in a massive negative spiral atm over these Freehold restrictions.
I honestly think you've gone way, way waaaay off track with this.
This. Right. Here.
Please get rid of it. It's a gimmick that's fun and interesting for all about 2 minutes, then it gets annoying.
In EQ2 I really liked having my own space, I could decorate and place my rewards and trophies.. etc..
some personal crafting storage and crafting tables.. you could invite friends in or least people in as a visitor ( with read only access.. etc..
Bleh, but if it what you go with I will choose to roll with it.
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?
Works for me, but i am pretty easy going and tend to roll with most choices.
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I will probably use mine for more processing and less animal stuff, with a small patch for farming if I decide it is needed.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Again would probably roll with whatever is available.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Functional Furniture sounds awesome to me.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
Oh boy, where to begin? Lets start with high level things. This will be a novel, you are warned.
I first heard of this game few years ago, and have been keeping an eye on it ever since. Heard PvP and went meh, but heard of the Freehold system and immediately said "Tell me more!!!!" Now I am not a stranger to PvP games. Played Eve. Played Aion and loved it, played Archeage and really loved it (least till they fucked up the economy with MT's). I am what I refer to as Casual Hardcore. I will never be the first to level cap, and never world first on things, but have done server first raids and such, hence Casual Hardcore. But I have some MMO characters that I still play that are older than my teenage daughter (and on certain days I like them better than her too)
But what really sold Archeage to me was land and housing. Hands down the best game for a housing system I have seen so far (even with it's glaring problems). The gameplay loop of my property and farm and crafting is literally the top of my desire in a MMO. Add in the packs that I would spend hours making and sneaking to the other continent. It gets logged as my favorite so far.
What will make or break this game for me is two very specific things. Do I get a freehold? And can I keep and use my Freehold without Interference.
The first is simple enough, will there be enough freeholds available and will they be attainable without the backing of a big guild. While I have no issue joining a guild, my playstyle tends to be more solo focused except for things and activities that are group focused. Honestly I hate having to have other players to get things done. Exceptions for Raids or faction warfare obviously. But for day to day playing if I have to stop what I want to do either because I need a party / raid to protect me or even manage basics as resource gathering or I have to stop what I want to do to hold up my side of the social contract and protect someone else doing what they want to do because they do it for me I lose interest fast.
The second question is more nuanced, but still pretty straight forward. Can I keep what's mine regardless of other players. This is why Eve lost me. Sector changed hands, there went my home base. Corp hard up for money and jacked taxes through the roof, there went my home base. Some Jackass came by and blew it to hell for the Lulz, there went my home base. While I am more than happy to live with risk vrs reward for my character while I am out and about questing or gathering. I cannot accept not having a safe spot to go home to and work from. Going back to the Eve reference, losing ships, materials, even skills didn't bother me much. Having my home lost or taken did, Immensely.
Now I still keep an eye on this game, tried like hell to get an alpha invite years ago when you were giving them away before you started selling them in those (let's be honest here, extremely overpriced) pre-order packages. And I'll be honest unless I here certain serious red flags like the above two questions I will buy the game and give it a go. Would not be the first time I spent 40-70 on a game to have it not work for me and walk away. But while I try to not focus on wording of things because I know that is very interpretive. The phrase in the preview
"Owning a freehold is a privilege, not a right"
has caused me some concern, and reinforced that I did not spend hundreds of dollars on a pre-order package was a good idea. I don't mind working my ass off for the privilege, but I have to feel like I have a fair shot at it if I try. And 2000 spots out of a 15000 player server base worries me that a shot I will not have.
There are 4 types of housing int he game including instanced and non instanced.
You will be able to sell it to someone who does not already have one.
Ya just like the real world the middle class is getting destroyed in open world MMO's. Gaming is an escape and shouldn't feel like a job. Housing is a huge pull for why I want to play an MMO like Ashes. It appears the only safe way to experience it in this game will to be part of a large in game Family. Developers always seem to forget about the recluse gamer that doesn't want to deal with living in a social group in a game. Sadly doesn't look like I will be able to be a solo player and have a freehold will be to hard to maintain alone.
I never even planned on getting one myself, because my playtime is limited, but the decision to triple the size, make it family based, yet still with 1 owner instead of co-ownership, and gating off very important content behind them! was not even close to being the right move I think, and it goes against what you've told us and sold us for years.
I have watched most of the old dev streams and several interviews and at no point did you ever suggest they were going to be this limited or that this was the only way to do endgame processing. No amount of sophistry or "well technically we never said" or "you should have known that we omitted this part" arguments will ever change that.
We are here to resettle Verra, and freeholds are a huge part of that effort. Requiring a lot of effort to get is fine, and maybe not in an ideal location because the good spots get gobbled up fast is also fine. It's not fine for it to be artifically limited to this extent, all of a sudden, and practically impossible for 90% or more of the playerbase to get.
You were up front about the in-node housing being super limited in numbers, and that was ok because major content isn't being gated behind it, and because we'd at least be able to get a freehold instead if we really wanted to own a piece of land. I hope it is still the case that major content isn't gated behind owning an in-node house? I hate that I can't even feel sure about that anymore.
I was actually slightly concerned how this beautiful game world of Verra was going to look with all the freeholds scattered around, but I thought maybe you'd do clusters of them in strategic locations instead of having them too spread out. Or maybe you'd reduce the size of the freeholds a little. Not this. This is more akin to a rug pull on a large part of the playerbase. It's not the dream you've sold us anymore for sure.
I like many of the suggestions people have come up with, from having different tiers of freeholds to small villages and such, with much smaller plots. I have no problem with the larger family based freeholds also existing. Had you introduced those as an addition to the old freeholds, a majority of people would likely have cheered. Especially if you had also introduced even cheaper and smaller plots compared to the old freeholds, to make sure even filthy casuals would have a decent shot at getting one. Casuals are who's actually paying the bills and making the game be profitable, after all. They need meat too.
One thing I'd like to know is if there's been talks on allowing other players to gather resources on your Freehold.
I.E When entering your freehold they have a choice of either : Using services (Processing/Tavern etc.) / Harvesting Resources for a Fee (paying gold to harvest 100% of resources) or Free Harvesting (Harvesting Resources, but 75% of resources goes to the Owner of the freehold)
My reasoning for this is that this allows other players to interact with your freehold and You getting something in return obviously, especially if you are out in the world and don't have time to tend to your crops or animals. It also allows other players who are maybe just starting out to get a few resources for a bit of labor on their part.
This could be a toggle feature by the owner, that they can activate whenever they need to.
This seems reasonable to me since the game will have a big economic focus.
Please let me know what you think.
You'd have to apply to your Mayor to be able to do crafting/processing on your Freehold, and there would be a limit on those.
This would allow Freeholds to be opened up to more people yet still limit the crafting to a lower percentage of people.
Have it so that you'd need a Freehold before you could even start the application process for a license.
I'm not against the idea of having bags specifically for gatherables, but the tetris bit seems like a waste of time. From what Steven said about being purposeful about what material you plan to gather, I think I would prefer exclusive gathering bags to specific resources. For example an ore chest only collects rocks, gems, etc. The tetris thing seems like an extra step, but without testing it I am just speculating.
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?
For both crops and livestock I am really excited for a more casual style of live skill gameplay. Gathering/crafting are big time investments for me in games, and I am happy to see AoC investing in that aspect of Freehold ownership. I am concerned that I will need to constantly be plugged in to keep crops, food, etc. from spoiling. If there were a hireling setup to keep things running smoothly that would be cool too.
What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
I was a big fan of armor stands in Skyrim and taxidermy in Conan Exiles. I think it's fun to display not just household cosmetics but also your combat achievements within your homestead.
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?
Overall, I am very excited by what was shown with the Freehold Preview. My enormous immediate concern is that Freehold space will be monopolized exclusively by large guilds. In the Alpha 1 making significant contributions to even an early stage node required dozens of people. Steven has said smaller elite guilds will have a place among larger guilds in AoC because systems will support trading quality for quantity. Gating Freeholds (and more importantly crafting) behind a first come first served, limited availability, bidding war is a death sentence for small groups that cannot collectively generate wealth as fast. I am concerned any system in place to throttle larger groups from dominating the Freehold market will just be compounded on more casual smaller guilds. From what was show, I would like all housing to have some availability to reach maximum refinement and crafting benches, and all open world housing to have the availability to attach purchased cosmetic skins.
There are other MMOs where this system has been tried, with mixed reception from players. An example of good implementation of a Tetris minigame is Megaman Battle Network 3 for GBA. The player had to organize 'upgrade chips' to give Megaman different abilities. The important lesson from that game, and the reason the Tetris minigame was successful, is because it was implemented in a calm 'deckbuilder' context. People engaged in that minigame only when they were out of combat and had the time to tinker. When players are gathering in AOC, or looting a body on the fly, they may not want to take the time to play Tetris. Perhaps a Tetris bag manager would be better suited to caravan-packing before a long journey. IF the team is dead-set on using Tetris for player bags, perhaps have both Tetris and weight-based bags available, with the Tetris bags holding slightly more resources, at the cost of manual organization.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I believe in the team's innovative spirit! Can't wait to see where they take these designs in the coming months.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I am concerned that Joe blow and his friends won't be able to acquire a freehold even if they have the funds because of monopolies. As long as guilds cannot monopolize the bidding system, I think things will work out. If this isn't expected to occur, I have no issues! That said, perhaps the devs could experiment with cheaper, smaller freehold tiers that are more accessible to smaller groups?
And that freehold should be accessible to citizens who contributed the most to the node the previous month.
Right off the top, I really don't like the family system for housing management. I think that is tying too much of the family system to the property management system, which I think a lot of players will find icky and alienating, statements like "yeah he's my guild leader but I don't wanna be in-game *related* to him" will occur, or citing the DS9 quote about Quark treating anyone with a debt "like family" where that means he's planning to exploit the hell out of anyone that owes him money like he'd do his own family. That "F" word is charged with a lot of meaning and I don't want it to muddy the waters for the actual purpose of trying to facilitate access to in-game property. Make it a business-level faction, not a family-level faction. I believe there's room for robust server-enforced contracts and permissions to facilitate and limit access on a per-player and per-group basis, as well as room for an odd-numbered consortium/board to purchase a Freehold through a joint venture that requires consensus to make big moves. And in particular, I hate the idea that a player who may no longer be able to play for various reasons ends up tying up the operations of an entire freehold until such a time that the surrounding area gets levelled in a war, that seems like a bogus deal for EVERYONE on the server because each server has finite freeholds to begin with.
The inventory system seems interesting. I don't know how I feel about having resources stack into slot-fitted spaces while completed items do not. This furthers the concerns that I have that gatherers and processors will potentially suffer much greater losses in a PvP death than someone who only carries completed items, thus giving reduced risk to final product crafters since they would need to (at worst) repair completed goods. Now, in addition to that risk of loss, they have to spend more time Tetrising the resources in place and making hard decisions on what to drop if they come upon one very rare resource they'll likely only see once or twice a week. And one may say the limitation is mutual, that gankers will need spots in their bags for the stolen goods, but it is probably easier to go patrol, fill a bag halfway, stash it back home, then go ganking again to fill another half a bag, than it is to stop gathering early and often since frequent runs to town and back means passing more prospective gankers. I don't know that it actually solves anything to add the shape-based resource storage system.
Planting crops is something I need to see in more detail and how it impacts gameplay and economics before I can really say more. I like livestock as an option, and it makes me wonder what varieties of livestock and resources we can potentially get, like specialized toxins from mushroom livestock, or culling the older amethyst boughbites for their well-formed jeweled shell parts.
Freehold customization... I want all of it. Way beyond what's offered, going into a level of feature creep so deep you'd be making a completely different game, but I know that isn't what you're asking for here.
With the intended limit of 6 functional structures, I get the feeling that guilds will min/max accordingly, dumping resources into a few freeholds selectively to fully maximize each particular trade for processing, crafting, and maximizing yields on farming and ranching activities. From there, more farming and ranching is where I'd expect further resources to go, since there will only be so much that one freehold can grow and manage.
One big question though: when a rare structure blueprint is discovered, how much of the existing resource investment will go into replacement.... suppose I have a blueprint for a rare version of a structure I have, do I just pay the upgrade fee to apply it, or do I have to tear the whole thing down and rebuild the entire tech tree again? I could imagine the elation of finding such a blueprint being immediately dashed by the reality that it will require a full rebuild from scratch that costs for the rarity more WHILE you also can't use the upgrades that the demolished structure would have been providing during the rebuild downtime.
And on that subject, how much of what can be reclaimed from deciding to demolish a structure, is there just a 1 for 1 return, is it diminished in some way like 1/2 the base structure and 1/4 of expended tech tree upgrade resources?
I've only seen this puzzle style of sorting in Tarkov. If there is an auto-sort button it would make the system seem pointless. Having multiple bags in your main inventory that are designed to hold certain gatherables or items sounds like a good idea. Can we rename the bags or will there be a feature, such as color, that designates what each bags main purpose is?
It's an MMO, with real people, so I expect people to plant crops in the shape of a dick. I don't mind it, but i expect it.
It looks good. How long should we expect the animals to live if we are not slaughtering them for their goods? Can I have a cow that I only want milk from and a hen I only want eggs from for a certain period of time before they die? Could life be tied into the weather cycles? For example a cow that is taken care of will last "X" full weather cycles. Or will their life be determined by after they produce their product X amount of times they die or stop producing their product.
I'm not against blacklisting people from using your Freehold. The shopkeeper would tell them they don't want their business.
Maybe giving some type of extra benefit such as cost down, duration for buffs, number of uses, and more options for citizens, guild members, family members, etc. Conversely, I'd be ok with higher costs, less options, or not even being able to be used by adjacent nodes citizens.
The way it seem the Freehold wasn't on top of the Node and out in the open world.
Let's say my Tavern has a really good buff for combat or gathering. It wouldn't feel great to allow a rival group to gain this buff and then proceed to kill me and my friends over and over, or out claim us on raw materials in the world. Crops and Livestock have protection from theft, Taverns could have a similar restriction or permission.
Maybe I am manifesting this but crafting was said to have a mini game like effect to it? Let's say you are crafting on the Freehold what happens if you are ambushed during the craft? Do you lose the mats? Do you become invulnerable? Also when you complete a craft does it show everyone in range the items you are creating?
• Inventory:
The game is going to be so rich, I think that even though ”tetrinventory” is a cool little thing in isolation, it is going to take away from the sauce of the game, spurring more frustration than fun.
Imagine being in a group where someone is constantly semi AFK managing their inventory. I like my inventories to be quick and easy to manage. The idea is interesting, but I fear that it ends up being a nuisance and an undue time sink. I'd beg not to experience the irony of having a fantastic game to explore yet being held back by inventory management – that’s like having fantastic shoes with a pesky stone in them you can’t get rid of – inventory pervades most of the game, your bags should be your friends helping you, not a constant wrestle of dilemma.
Special inventory for quest items, materials, maybe gems too, all that jazz I do like.
• Freehold customization:
- I would like to be able to plant some crops on my roof; special grass, fungi or more crazy stuff. Imagine having a cow living and grassing on your roof (WARNING - DANGER - Not Recommended For Everyone!).
- Display a wide array of trophies and collectibles inside and outside. This could include perhaps real, or perhaps just some props of a crafter's assortment. Imagine if you could display some stuffed creatures that you bred in the past, then you could point to one and ask your friends, "Remember this guy? Whoa he almost got Billy for good, well, yes! That's the one they call Billy Longbottom Farfart now. Maybe we should've stopped refining on its talons a bit sooner, alas, probably a good thing that poor Jeff died before he could befriend a yeti to splice them up."
- I’d love to be able to create my home in a tree or across multiple trees, or on a mountainside.
- ”Freehold Wizardry” of all sorts. One idea is having some kind of visual queues to nudge (welcome) guests that are close toward your freehold. I imagine anything from magical particles, somewhat like how scent is portrayed in cartoons, to simply a firefly or even some phantomesque rabbit. You could really get an impression of the residents when you see two black ravens circle, or a white rabbit dash towards then explode into magical firefly particles buoying and lightning the last few steps to impress and buoy you up, and it could facilitate some little flavour texts too depending on the nature of the attraction that wants to lure you.
• Concern:
Availability for casual players.
---v---v---v---v---v--- Below pertains to GATHERING ---v---v---v---v---v---
I regret not supplying this feedback when you asked about that topic, but sometimes the timing of ideas can be a little jazzy.
I noticed something in the little sequence of Halcyonite mining before the adorable bunny-up to Bucky’s freehold which spun a string of ideas.
When Steven was gathering from the second Halcyonite, he swung 4 times, then stutter-moved and interrupted his mining for a second which reset the gathering process. The full sequence seems to have to be completed in one go, and then you receive the entire haul at the end.
In short, here’s my idea:
It would be cool if resources were yielding in increments as you gather them (in general but with potential exceptions such as picking (a) flower). Additionally, I would love to see lumberjacking having 2 concrete steps instead of just the one currently, namely #1 down the tree, and #2 chop it up to receive its loot incrementally. I know it’s a bunch of work, but I would absolutely love to see the step sequence represented graphically wherever appropriate – this would make gathering even more stimulating, and perhaps also sound queues unique to some of the progression levels, i.e. rocks giving a special groan at 50%, 80% and 100%.
A slightly more defined impression of the idea:
- The resource has a state/condition, i.e. tree is rooted and 50% cut through the trunk, or tree has been downed like a baws and now 30% chopped into pieces to carry, or vein is 80% mined.
As implied, these ”states” would be inherent to the resource, thus if only partly gathered, they would remain so until they would otherwise respawn – then they would mend (reset). If also reflected graphically, then of course you could with a keen gander spot if someone had swung a couple of times at a vein and then moved on, or chopped into a tree and then fled from the unrelenting attacks of this crazy mean bird living in that tree – which you know because you experienced the same thing earlier that morning, and now the tree is creaking ominously and swaying threateningly as you tiptoe on your way underneath not to attract the attention of the glooming bird above.
- Whenever meaningful, the resource would yield with the increments that you process it, for instance, a vein would yield 1/6 of its contents at every swing (perhaps with a small bonus at the final blow), or a tree could begin yielding after being taken down – with the carcass at its side of an unfortunate bird that had known this tree its entire life and refused to settle for a lesser one – you bloody murderer.
This would have some cool implications in my opinion. Here are some:
#1 It would add more fluidity and meaning to the very process, the tiny adventure of every swing, being rewarded as you work, not only at the end.
#2 It would feel better, in my opinion, increasing realism and immersion.
#3 It would make the world even more dynamic, deep, and living as you inhabit and traverse it.
#4 It could facilitate more social interactions, and maybe group-based gathering on big mother-jumbo stones or trees. This could even become a mechanic intertwined with combating, or unlocking/discovery on some very special occasions. For instance, a secret dungeon behind a high tier mineral, or an elemental boss shedding living rocks that need be tricked and mined with Halcyonite picks rather than clonked by regular weaponry – and the mats be Ranger-snap delivered to the backlines where the greatest smiths smelt it into a spear of oblivion power necessary to be hurled with heroic force, exceptional precision, and jesterly timing at the titanic monster right as it towers one last time, revealing its weak spot for the critical moment where The One Sorlax propels and strikes with this weapon made from the very abomination that it now congratulates with death!… Ahem sorry I couldn’t resist the tangent :}
*side note; I imagine that most normal ”single-player” resources would be ”locked” to the player who initiates the gathering – for as long as they are gathering – preventing others from harvesting the tree that you have just cut down, or playing a game of sync-swing tally on the other side of the vein that you initiated – (perhaps unless in your party) – thus they would have to attack and interrupt you if they really wanted a piece of that tantalizing Halcyonite. Schools of fish would probably always be open game until fished out, but these schools of fish I guess will be less clearly defined in their extent, thus requiring more skill (player and/or fishing skill) to both assess and pull.
#5 Being interrupted while gathering by attacks or other means would not net you zero, but the fraction that you have successfully processed, making the elemental boss a bit less frus and a bit more fiero.
#6 Receiving randomly occurring additions of the resource, possibly some rare component would feel pretty exciting while you are in the process of gathering, because you might get lucky again on the next swing.
*curveball idea; Imagine having magical creatures that are entirely or partly gatherable. Like shearing sheep with scissors singing; now pluck a crown leaf from a creature plant – some would become hostile, some would unexpectedly reveal their throat and – counter your melody.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for listening to the community.
And thank you for living the dream and making a fantastic game that me and my friends cannot wait to explore!
Cheers!
Please add a way to make art yourself or maybe even make it possible to sell selfmade art. This would give a players a big option to make their home a lot more flavorfull and persenal.
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?
1. Stream format
2. Players earning vs giving players the freehold fantasy
Based on this, I think its essential that the kind of gameplay and fantasy that the freeholds offer, should be available to everyone to participate, but obviously with the more hardcore players able to leverage this system to its greater potential.
Luckily, progression and rewards could be used to create this kind of dynamic, where more casual players can still engage with the "freehold type gameplay/experience/fantasy" but not get as good of benefits out of it if they cant manage their freehold as skillfully, such as making lower quality processed goods as a result.
If this is what Steven implies when he says that "lower tiers of processing can achieved to a large degree in nodes", and he means that you can experience all of the gameplay a freehold has to offer, but just at a lower level of effectiveness through being at a lower level of progression- then that is good imo.
However, it could be interpreted that he means that basically the gameplay of a freehold will be potientially split up and segmented into more isolated systems that you can interface within a node at lower levels of processing progression.
If that is the case, then it is important to note that there is a difference between being less efficient in a given system, vs only being able to engage with specific isolated mechanics/experiences within an overarching system.
So if he is actually implying that you can only do specific gameplay loops until you unlock a freehold, then that is only good in terms of the design aspects of teaching the player and rewarding their progression, but I think there still needs to be a level of accessibilty to that more endgame type system where you can get the "full freehold experience", but while still having that depth and rewarding more skilled players within that system.
I think this approach would maintain the risk/reward element of rewarding player skill and player investment, without undermining the agency of players by allowing them to choose which systems they can enage with, regardless of skill level.
3. Meta design- Player quantity vs player quality
Again, allowing for accessibility would help solve this issue, and retaining the depth and rewarding skill and strategy could help these more organized groups to gain an upper hand in their performance, which would be good design imo.
4. Freehold space management
It kind of reminds me of "infrastructure management" or "city sim" type games like Sims city, frostpunk, etc. where you have to manage what what you place and where, in order to produce the best results. This is pretty cool, and I think looking into the best games in that genre could potentially help you learn from them and fine tune this particular system.
5. Utilizing space management for NPC interactions
This connects back to the "Lore characters" dev discussion, because the node system/freehold system or any other kind of system that allows for the placement of structures would be a fun way of interacting with lore characters, in the various ways that were discusses in that thread.
Here is an inferesting video about the design aspects for this topic:
6. Base Defense
base defense type of gameplay when defending your freehold from attackers. Things like being able to set up defenses and plan for how to protect your resources and survive an onslought of people coming to pillage your freehold after a successful siege. I think that would be pretty fun.
This could also be a fun aspect of sieges as well, if players are able to manually build and place defenses to use against the attackers and help to counter their siege weaponry.
7. Artisan professions
As mentioned in this stream, factor sim games like "Factorio" or other "logistics management" games where you have to manage a "logistics network" to produce good results, would be good inspiration to fine-tune this system. "Foxhole" is a fun and popular mmo where the players themselves function as a logistical network to support other real players fighting on the frontlines, in real-time.
8. Processing gameplay:
From what i've seen and what seems to make sense to me is that gathering is supposed to be more exploration focused, processing is supposed to be more relaxing, and crafting is supposed to be more "cerebral" and/or dexterity based.
I think what was shown for the processing was good as far as creating a more relaxed feel.
It would be wise to take inspiration from the "cozy sim" type games to really execute well with this approach, from games like "Stardew valley", and "Animal Crossing".
9. Selling/auctioning freeholds
10. Tetris inventory management system
11. Skill tree
12. Rabbit mounts
Also, from a combat perspective, if the mount is intended to have an aggressive "burst" option to intiate attack or as a surprise tactic to close distance quickly, it also doesn't look like it would really be able to do that well either at that speed.
From a traversal perspective, since there is no fast travel it should be fun, engaging, and should look and feel good when riding around the world- to me that means going at a pretty fast pace trying to react to the layout of the environment and terrain around you as you navigate the most efficient path to your destination, getting close to obstacles to shave off travel time, taking risky shortcuts, constantly steering and tweaking your direction, timing when and where you use your mount abilities, etc., and I think these are all more engaging when you have a faster pace as you move around. The pace I imagine doing this, is faster than the pace that I observed the mounts moving at.
Additionally, the walking animation could be better, rather than a slow-motion running animation.
Overall, great livestream!
The Bidding system
I find it to be perfectly okay with having freeholds being a limited resource that can only purchased by 1 for each account so long as their hard to get a hold of.
Forgive my late-entry wall of text. I've followed the project for about a year now and this is my first foray into direct dev feedback. I generally enjoyed the Freeholds update - it's always a good feeling to see the world of Verra becoming more "real" and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it in Alpha Two. Since watching the stream live, I've been mulling over which things I think could be better and how to best communicate those. IRL I spend a lot of time thinking about land use and the policies that affect it. Obviously there are no truly 1:1 land use analogies when applied to a video game (save for maybe Cities: Skylines), but I think some such perspectives may still be helpful. Some of that will necessarily border on IRL political commentary but I will of course tie it back into game development in a way that is genuinely relevant.
In the June update we learned that freeholds must be placed on parcels in predetermined locations. I had a knee-jerk negative reaction to this and was among the first in twitch chat to express my disappointment, but upon some reflection I recognize the technical limitations that would prevent placement of freeholds truly Anywhere, so in that way it does make sense that there should be parcels that aren't directly on top of a point of interest, halfway through a cliff, in the middle of a road, etc.. That said, I do have some concerns with the one-freehold-per-parcel policy and the minimum distance between freeholds. I worry that such policies may be a bit too "California-pilled" owing to the unfortunate common reality of legally-mandated low-density housing developments in the IRL locale of Intrepid Studios. Sure, freeholds should be difficult to achieve, but I think that should be ensured moreso through sheer resource requirement rather than by abject scarcity of opportunity. There are a number of knobs that can be turned to affect this:
- Cap the number of freeholds per node and then let players place their freeholds as close together as they want (with some reasonable few-meters buffer to allow egress). The most chaotic option, sure, but given a choice I think players will naturally congregate their freeholds around the node itself and near points of interest. This would naturally create areas of denser development while also maintaining some sparser untouched lands. I think it is not at all an aesthetic problem to have some denser areas as long as there are still unsettled areas.
- If the above degree of freedom is untenable, then consider letting players put freeholds closer together with the consent of all involved, i.e. perhaps multiple freeholds within one parcel but the owners all need to be in the same family. Even within that, a max of 2-4 freeholds per parcel could be reasonable, and a per-node cap can still apply so that some parcels even go unused.
- Simply make the max freehold count per node higher, (and parcels slightly smaller and closer together) but also make the base cost or "starting bid" for freeholds quite high so that it's still an immense achievement to get one even if nobody bids against you. You can make the land valuable without making it artificially scarce.
To reiterate and conclude this point, I think it should be difficult to get a freehold because they require a lot of resources, not because there are no places left you're allowed to put a freehold.Freeholds should become accessible to players somewhere between level 30-40. To balance this change, perhaps the quest that unlocks a freehold at a node could be a significant time gate, requiring actions on several different days, etc.. The problem this addresses is the pressure to "power-level" rather than simply enjoying the game for what it is.
I understand there's been a bit of controversy around this point, but I'll add one simple voice to the flame: Freehold owners shouldn't need to make someone family to let them use the freehold. It seems like an oversight to expect the community to sort out these arrangements using the family system, whereas that's clearly not in the spirit in which that system is designed. Family should consist of deeply trusted long-term companions, in contrast with potential strangers with whom you've just made a business deal. There should be some sort of option to add freehold permissions to a trade interface, for X number of uses of some processing station or Y amount of time. This could be balanced by limiting the number of these agreements that any freehold owner can make at any one time or over a certain period of time.
Slaughter of livestock: There is no reason to tone-down the immersion factor there - it was in fact much more tame/humane than the bloody reality of factory farming, which most people support financially without really thinking about it. It's also not materially different from quests like "go hunt 20 boar" etc., which people generally have no problems with. Without being too heavy-handed in my moralizing: To those who would object to inclusion of such an animation, I would encourage you to analyze your cognitive dissonance, particularly if you are in fact paying people IRL to do what that animation depicts. Your food comes from somewhere!
Farming: Certain crops should remain planted when harvested and should only need to be replanted after they are killed by the winter freeze, i.e. I shouldn't need to cut down a tomato plant to get a tomato, but I do need to uproot a plant to harvest potatoes.
Generally, the direction of artisan classes and their interactions with freeholds look great. I recognize the need for gold sinks, but it makes absolutely no sense to require an expensive permit to put furniture in a building I own, especially if it's not a public "business" type building. This just feels like overbearing Homeowner's Association type stuff. One-time blueprint purchase to craft stuff sounds fine, but permit sounds ick.
If there are to be ongoing taxes for freeholds, I would strongly prefer that it be at a flat rate per freehold rather than taxing individual improvements within them. This will encourage freehold owners to make the best use of their investment, whereas taxing each component would disincentivize them from improving the land. (this has a real-world analog in the form of movements like r/JustTaxLand) Hell, Intrepid, I don't even think y'all should need to decide on that kind of tax policy - leave it up to the node mayor! Taxes for all those individual things should be able to be set granularly by the mayor of each node. One mayor can tax freeholds at a flat rate, another can just tax the improvements, etc., and the players will decide which mayor they like better
The slideshow-type presentation was fine, but would be better if we could also see the devs' talking heads alongside the informational still-frames.
Thanks for reading! I recognize that a lot of this more policy-focused stuff will get ironed out in testing, and I'm looking forward to playing a part in that.
Be well.
We published an article that takes a deep dive and unveils some detailed information about Freeholds that you all may enjoy. It may even bolster your feedback!
The article can be found below, and I highly recommend checking it out!
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2023-07-14-exploring-the-boundless-opportunities-of-freeholds
Parishes for religious nodes with perhaps a higher quantity of freeholds but smaller and more specialized? Diocese > Parish > Homestead.
Hundreds for military nodes with even more freeholds and housing to support the numbers required to field a small army and the logistics required to support it. I.e. hundreds (100 hides) > hides (60 to 120 acres > burgages (smaller plots). Again, military node freeholds represent more specialized, smaller space.
I think the same framework could be utilized, just different flavors, sizes and options.
BTW, I think these differences drive the value of certain node types and what players may be attracted to. So if you want a higher percent chance of gaining a freehold, then maybe a religious or military node is the one to go for. If you want the best economic freehold, then there is going to be competition for it. On the other side of that coin that value will make it a target for sieges or raids. So those powerbrokers on the housing market are going to pay dearly to maintain that, especially if other players see they operate poorly or do not provide the node a meaningful return on investment.
The current node design approach practically requires a top-down authority to the freeholds. If the design and progression of a node was bottom-up, say you need enough players in a node with a house or settlement built in order to progress to the next level, rather than the other way around, then it means when an area fills up new players are spreading out to build up new nodes. The higher the node level, the denser the development. It also may mean those early landowners are landlords when the node advances in levels. They then have the option to sell or rent their land. Of course as the node progresses so does their tax burden, so better have something profitable on that land you own.
Having read it, it seems to say (to me):
"We expect that the primary concern you have is possible, and will happen for some unspecified percentage of Freeholds, and we will be considering some further unspecified system for making it not as likely."
Since there was no indication that the Lord's Quest can happen before endgame, I'm still in disagreement with most of this system's 'restrictions' as they are.
This disagreement is not particularly personal, though I also don't want to rush to endgame with my group just so I can level my Processing to Master. I understand and agree with this quest not being available to a low level character, but I see no reasonable argument why it must be restricted to max level characters and somewhat hope that this changes (if that information is even still current).
A freehold offers so much already I don't see why they need/should have this as well? Is there a specific reason why this has been designed like this? It would be good if someone from the dev team could explain the rationale behind it @Vaknar.
By all means allow a freehold to have the top tier processing station but it shouldn't be the only place it can occur. Tie it in with the node system to give more players more reasons to fight for their node.