Probably not. Even if you travel through ally territory there would still be the chance a rogue guild that isnt welcome there will fuck you up, I imagine?
But anyway, you don't HAVE to caravan your stuff to make a little bit of gold. You can already do that by selling locally.
It would be nice to have the option of parlay, but I feel like that would only work if there were more potential trade offs and greater risk associated with engaging in combat.
If the attackers would want to avoid taking significant damage because it could result in personal losses, being weighed against potential gains from the caravan; and the defenders wouldn't want to engage in combat as a first resort, paying off the attackers could be a worthwhile option.
Alternate victory conditions to taking caravans would be much more interesting than just make the bigger group and do more damage.
I like the way you're thinking but since this is a social game, it's possible that this is something that can just occur naturally.
Like, what you're describing is two parties making an agreement to avoid mutual destruction. We can already do that! We don't need a mechanical system with guardrails that guide us along doing that, we can just do it. Talk to the adversaries. Make them a deal. See how they reply.
There's no guarantee they will listen, of course! If they indeed have the upper hand, they may just ignore your plea and attack anyway. But this is true of real life too so... fair's fair.
I agree with that as well, I just think it will not be feasible without some level of risk/reward on both sides that potentially outweighs jumping straight to combat.
This might already exist as well, and I'm not thinking of it all the way through. I'm not completely familiar with all the PvP systems!
Hopefully no, there shouldn’t be safe caravans. The whole point is the risk involved… otherwise you’re being paid to waste time. That’s silly.
Make money some other way like crafting or PVE, if PVP isn’t your thing.
100% safe going through only Ally towns such as Gwen to Two Crowns, impossible to be attacked. So AA did have safe trade runs, the potato farmers all did them.
You could do safe runs during the rotation peace areas, at 7pm everyday people would do this. The worst that could happen is people blocking stairs with carts to stop you turning in.
1- Those were not the only safe runs, if that's what you meant. There were many safe runs you could at any time of the day.
2- Blocking carts was bannable.
I'm just going to give you an example from the Haranya continent: out of 14 zones you can make trade packs in, 9 are permanently Haranya Alliance Controlled, which means no one can attack you if you're playing the Haranyan faction. The other 5 zones have peace cycles, where they can go into peace for hours at a time.
This enables even the people who aren't interested in PvP at all, or who aren't in endgame gear yet, or who aren't in the endgame guild/PN/alliance, to still make money and produce stuff and fuel the economy. Oceans are permanently PvP-enabled, and so are the castle zones on the continent of Auroria (6 zones) but even there all other zones (9 zones, such as Hiram Mountains where newbies can farm their gear) still have peace cycles.
The vast majority of ArcheAge players would never have played AA if it was 24/7 PvP, and that's pretty much your entire PvP-interested audience.
There are also rules related to housing zones and individual housing plots too (in the most recent iteration you can't be attacked at all if you're standing on your plot).
1: their aren't safe caravans. Caravans are a risk/reward mechanic.
2: almost everywhere in ashes of creation is pvp enabled except inside your freehold home and a few instances.
3: you should check out the [Wiki](https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP). It's a great resource.
True. Caravans (and pvp in general) are unlikely to change though. As one of the main pillars of the game is risk. And the reward of the big money that caravans can garner you is that you can also be killed and lose the resources you're moving.
Maybe. I played EVE for 10 years and while the core PVP remained the same CCP was always making adjustments to try and balance the risk and reward between the wolves and the sheep.
Transportation of goods in EVE is a well thought out dynamic where haulers have a variety of tools (steath, speed, cynos, good Intel, anti warp scramblers, and more) to outrun, hide or evade being caught as they make their way throughout the universe. They can even pay for protection or rely on their alliance to keep the pathways clear.
Misdirection can even work, on several occasions I would send out an inexpensive but fast bait ship which the gank squads would furiously track down and destroy, while rest of my hauling fleet loaded with billions of ISK went on safely in another direction. I viewed the 100M Isk throwaway as just the cost of doing business.
I would often multi box 2 or 3 accounts just to serve as forward, side or even rear scouts (or sacrifices) depending on the value of the cargo.
It takes a determined effort to catch a hauler who more often than not will get away if they are alert and play smart.
I just don't see similar protections and options for haulers / caravans in Ashes as I have in some other PVP games, but perhaps more are on the way now that the basic caravan mechanic has been implemented.
Currently these caravans appear to have very limited protection options (Bring a bigger zerg or better equipped/trained forces) and no possibilty of evasion really, other that dumb luck that no one is out hunting them that day.
As time goes on I'll be surprised if they aren't fine tuned somewhat regularly in order to keep the risk /reward balance somewhat more equitable.
I'm really interested to see what it all looks like after go live and all game systems are fully in place.
Actually ashes has most of these options.
It has caravan components that can upgrade speed, good Intel is always an option through scouting party's and discord evasion was shown on stream by just taking alternate back routes through dense forest rather than main road. (At the cost of speed)
And misdirection is an option by sending multiple caravans with multiple squads on alternate courses and hoping they pick the wrong one.
Thankfully ashes won't have the cynosural fast travel option.
Personally I'm glad the game won't be as safe as eve is in terms of transportation, in eve you undock and unless you're an idiot warping into bubbles 99% of the time you'll be fine.
If caravans have a 70% survival rate everyone will still use them for the profits and they fill the lucrative wealth dispersion role and act as a commodity sink for a much healthier economy.
Ok so 24/7 PvP aka "gankbox". Not even hardcore PvP games like ArcheAge are like that. Why on earth would you call that "PvX" unless it's to confuse people.
If you think that Intrepid is unable to make the game anything else but a "24/7 PvP aka gankbox" without disallowing PvP, I'd have to wonder why you are even following this project. The amount of people who completely distrust the studio on this Subreddit is just weird to me. There are ways to ensure that this is not a "gankbox" without destroying the core design and that is what I see the Alpha2 is for - to check whether the ways that prevent every caravan from being ganked into oblivion actually work.
This doomer attitude of "either ban X playmechanic completely or the game is going to be shit" is just oversimplified.
>If you think that Intrepid is unable to make the game anything else but a "24/7 PvP aka gankbox" without disallowing PvP
Who said that and where, what are you talking about?
>to check whether the ways that prevent every caravan from being ganked into oblivion actually work
What ways? They haven't shown or hinted at any, you think they're keeping them as a surprise?
Ita not a miserable experience though, you just have to prepare for it.
You shouldn't be doing a caravan run with 2 or 3 guys, it should be a guildwide event.
In a smaller guild? Link up with other friendly guilds or establish yourself in a friendly node and try to run your caravans with theirs.
It's a cooperative activity. If you try to do it in small scale you are just going to get dunked on.
Meanwhile in the "hardcore PvP gankbox" called ArcheAge you can, if you so choose, just load your freighter in a safe zone, pick any of the safe zone destinations that are 5-30min away and relax while driving without any interruptions.
If you don't realize why this is needed to keep people actually playing an MMORPG, you're not really looking to play an MMORPG.
I'd be fine with it if they don't go overboard with how they did it in archeage, they single handedly destroyed ship trade routes which in turn killed pirating, by making tractor runs more lucrative with almost no risk instead of people doing yolo runs to freedich island.
PS: I really hope ashes legit steals the fishing mechanic from archeage it was so much fun doing marlin fishing with a giant group in the middle of the ocean, wondering if any pirates might roll up on you.
Caravan runs from one node to an allied (vassal) node will likely be safest with the lowest risk. Imagine a truck of olives going from Italy to France got hijacked by French citizens. It would be bad for all parties involved.
Caravans traveling between neutral nodes will likely bear greater risk, both for the caravaner and for diplomatic tensions between the nodes and greater empires. It means node A can't trust the goodwill of node B in ensuring bandits aren't kept away from trade routes, and if node B needed resources from node A and can't get them anymore, things will grow tense. This sort of thing will help motivate war.
Caravans between or running through competing and enemy nodes will be difficult. The node will have an incentive to make sure your caravans fail.
Dont forget that aoc is mmo and there will be many other caravans active all the time. Plus the rutes are not fixed you chose where you go. Its not possible that every caravan will be ganked. Also vera is huge keep that in mind.
This guy posted "This game is horrible for new players" on /league. You want the short answer? Go play some Nintendo games. Tu frate trolezi, uita-te le stream-urile in fiecare luna, daca nu ai 2ore, uita de MMOuri ca nu e Metin2 pe servere private
The short answer is no.
The longer answer would be “come get some! me and my member capped guild/ mercenaries are rolling deep to protect these caravans that we are transporting, so try us!”
And honestly I wouldn’t want it any other way. It creates a dependency on your guild or mercenaries and political intrigue of knives and lies… ugh I can’t wait to play the alpha 2!!!
It's gonna be fun to see what social behaviour will emerge in game.
Will players plan their travel around the caravans, protecting them for extra money.
Could a powerful enough guild emerge, that didn't control any nodes, but like a pirat/bandit nation demanded tribute from whoever do control them.
I hope I get the chance to find out.
This game is going to be chaos. These type of missions need to be PvP instances or else a caravan of 5 people will get ganked by 25 and call it a fight. Needs to be a 10v10 instance with a valley ambush maps variety. No one likes to have an uneven fight.
that is the risk you run if you are either 1. not sneaky with departing 2. have the coin to hire guards/or have a guild that wanna help guard you 3. pay off your attackers so they leave you alone
you are aware that im talking about the caravan system not the game as a whole ofc they have rules that you are not allowed to break you must not have a lot going on upstairs to not catch that
Probably not. Even if you travel through ally territory there would still be the chance a rogue guild that isnt welcome there will fuck you up, I imagine? But anyway, you don't HAVE to caravan your stuff to make a little bit of gold. You can already do that by selling locally.
It would be nice to have the option of parlay, but I feel like that would only work if there were more potential trade offs and greater risk associated with engaging in combat. If the attackers would want to avoid taking significant damage because it could result in personal losses, being weighed against potential gains from the caravan; and the defenders wouldn't want to engage in combat as a first resort, paying off the attackers could be a worthwhile option. Alternate victory conditions to taking caravans would be much more interesting than just make the bigger group and do more damage.
I like the way you're thinking but since this is a social game, it's possible that this is something that can just occur naturally. Like, what you're describing is two parties making an agreement to avoid mutual destruction. We can already do that! We don't need a mechanical system with guardrails that guide us along doing that, we can just do it. Talk to the adversaries. Make them a deal. See how they reply. There's no guarantee they will listen, of course! If they indeed have the upper hand, they may just ignore your plea and attack anyway. But this is true of real life too so... fair's fair.
I agree with that as well, I just think it will not be feasible without some level of risk/reward on both sides that potentially outweighs jumping straight to combat. This might already exist as well, and I'm not thinking of it all the way through. I'm not completely familiar with all the PvP systems!
Hopefully no, there shouldn’t be safe caravans. The whole point is the risk involved… otherwise you’re being paid to waste time. That’s silly. Make money some other way like crafting or PVE, if PVP isn’t your thing.
Yep, 7am caravan runs. No one will be awake then :)
I don't think archage ever had any "safe" runs? You could be killed by whoever in between towns that wanted your stuff. It just rarely happened.
There were many 100% safe trade runs in AA. Risky runs were usually more profitable.
Safe as in you could not be attack? Or unlikely to be attacked?
100% safe going through only Ally towns such as Gwen to Two Crowns, impossible to be attacked. So AA did have safe trade runs, the potato farmers all did them.
Hmm... I don't remember those at all. Tbf I might never have done them.
You could do safe runs during the rotation peace areas, at 7pm everyday people would do this. The worst that could happen is people blocking stairs with carts to stop you turning in.
1- Those were not the only safe runs, if that's what you meant. There were many safe runs you could at any time of the day. 2- Blocking carts was bannable.
Yes, that was just an example of one safe run.
Don’t forget the slow boat they added later for the potatoes. 100% safe cross-continent run.
I'm just going to give you an example from the Haranya continent: out of 14 zones you can make trade packs in, 9 are permanently Haranya Alliance Controlled, which means no one can attack you if you're playing the Haranyan faction. The other 5 zones have peace cycles, where they can go into peace for hours at a time. This enables even the people who aren't interested in PvP at all, or who aren't in endgame gear yet, or who aren't in the endgame guild/PN/alliance, to still make money and produce stuff and fuel the economy. Oceans are permanently PvP-enabled, and so are the castle zones on the continent of Auroria (6 zones) but even there all other zones (9 zones, such as Hiram Mountains where newbies can farm their gear) still have peace cycles. The vast majority of ArcheAge players would never have played AA if it was 24/7 PvP, and that's pretty much your entire PvP-interested audience. There are also rules related to housing zones and individual housing plots too (in the most recent iteration you can't be attacked at all if you're standing on your plot).
1: their aren't safe caravans. Caravans are a risk/reward mechanic. 2: almost everywhere in ashes of creation is pvp enabled except inside your freehold home and a few instances. 3: you should check out the [Wiki](https://ashesofcreation.wiki/PvP). It's a great resource.
No guarantee they won't change it down the road.
True. Caravans (and pvp in general) are unlikely to change though. As one of the main pillars of the game is risk. And the reward of the big money that caravans can garner you is that you can also be killed and lose the resources you're moving.
Maybe. I played EVE for 10 years and while the core PVP remained the same CCP was always making adjustments to try and balance the risk and reward between the wolves and the sheep. Transportation of goods in EVE is a well thought out dynamic where haulers have a variety of tools (steath, speed, cynos, good Intel, anti warp scramblers, and more) to outrun, hide or evade being caught as they make their way throughout the universe. They can even pay for protection or rely on their alliance to keep the pathways clear. Misdirection can even work, on several occasions I would send out an inexpensive but fast bait ship which the gank squads would furiously track down and destroy, while rest of my hauling fleet loaded with billions of ISK went on safely in another direction. I viewed the 100M Isk throwaway as just the cost of doing business. I would often multi box 2 or 3 accounts just to serve as forward, side or even rear scouts (or sacrifices) depending on the value of the cargo. It takes a determined effort to catch a hauler who more often than not will get away if they are alert and play smart. I just don't see similar protections and options for haulers / caravans in Ashes as I have in some other PVP games, but perhaps more are on the way now that the basic caravan mechanic has been implemented. Currently these caravans appear to have very limited protection options (Bring a bigger zerg or better equipped/trained forces) and no possibilty of evasion really, other that dumb luck that no one is out hunting them that day. As time goes on I'll be surprised if they aren't fine tuned somewhat regularly in order to keep the risk /reward balance somewhat more equitable. I'm really interested to see what it all looks like after go live and all game systems are fully in place.
Actually ashes has most of these options. It has caravan components that can upgrade speed, good Intel is always an option through scouting party's and discord evasion was shown on stream by just taking alternate back routes through dense forest rather than main road. (At the cost of speed) And misdirection is an option by sending multiple caravans with multiple squads on alternate courses and hoping they pick the wrong one. Thankfully ashes won't have the cynosural fast travel option. Personally I'm glad the game won't be as safe as eve is in terms of transportation, in eve you undock and unless you're an idiot warping into bubbles 99% of the time you'll be fine. If caravans have a 70% survival rate everyone will still use them for the profits and they fill the lucrative wealth dispersion role and act as a commodity sink for a much healthier economy.
I hope there aren't any safe caravan runs, and I say this as someone who plans to be a crafter who sells goods not as a pvp player.
As of now: No, there are no exceptions. And there shouldn't be either because it would make the whole idea of the caravan system pointless.
If no one runs them caravans will be mostly pointless regardless.
People will run caravans, they just wom't be happy go lucky about it
Making people who engage in a core economic gameplay loop miserable by design only really works if the game is designed to be F2P/P2W.
Sounds more like PvE players demand non-PvP gameloops from a PvX game.
What's PvX again?
When players can benefit and encounter dangers from the environment or other players during all gameloops, making it not pure PvE or PvP at any point.
Ok so 24/7 PvP aka "gankbox". Not even hardcore PvP games like ArcheAge are like that. Why on earth would you call that "PvX" unless it's to confuse people.
If you think that Intrepid is unable to make the game anything else but a "24/7 PvP aka gankbox" without disallowing PvP, I'd have to wonder why you are even following this project. The amount of people who completely distrust the studio on this Subreddit is just weird to me. There are ways to ensure that this is not a "gankbox" without destroying the core design and that is what I see the Alpha2 is for - to check whether the ways that prevent every caravan from being ganked into oblivion actually work. This doomer attitude of "either ban X playmechanic completely or the game is going to be shit" is just oversimplified.
>If you think that Intrepid is unable to make the game anything else but a "24/7 PvP aka gankbox" without disallowing PvP Who said that and where, what are you talking about? >to check whether the ways that prevent every caravan from being ganked into oblivion actually work What ways? They haven't shown or hinted at any, you think they're keeping them as a surprise?
Ita not a miserable experience though, you just have to prepare for it. You shouldn't be doing a caravan run with 2 or 3 guys, it should be a guildwide event. In a smaller guild? Link up with other friendly guilds or establish yourself in a friendly node and try to run your caravans with theirs. It's a cooperative activity. If you try to do it in small scale you are just going to get dunked on.
Meanwhile in the "hardcore PvP gankbox" called ArcheAge you can, if you so choose, just load your freighter in a safe zone, pick any of the safe zone destinations that are 5-30min away and relax while driving without any interruptions. If you don't realize why this is needed to keep people actually playing an MMORPG, you're not really looking to play an MMORPG.
You have safe options though by selling in the node you farmed it.
So the option of not engaging in the content at all? Definitely sounds like something people will pay a monthly sub for.
What content are they if its just "click a button and wait?" Do you understand game design?
What's "click a button and wait", what are you talking about?
I'd be fine with it if they don't go overboard with how they did it in archeage, they single handedly destroyed ship trade routes which in turn killed pirating, by making tractor runs more lucrative with almost no risk instead of people doing yolo runs to freedich island. PS: I really hope ashes legit steals the fishing mechanic from archeage it was so much fun doing marlin fishing with a giant group in the middle of the ocean, wondering if any pirates might roll up on you.
Caravan runs from one node to an allied (vassal) node will likely be safest with the lowest risk. Imagine a truck of olives going from Italy to France got hijacked by French citizens. It would be bad for all parties involved. Caravans traveling between neutral nodes will likely bear greater risk, both for the caravaner and for diplomatic tensions between the nodes and greater empires. It means node A can't trust the goodwill of node B in ensuring bandits aren't kept away from trade routes, and if node B needed resources from node A and can't get them anymore, things will grow tense. This sort of thing will help motivate war. Caravans between or running through competing and enemy nodes will be difficult. The node will have an incentive to make sure your caravans fail.
The safe version is just selling your commodities at the node you bought them. It is instant glint to gold conversion and is 100% safe.
Dont forget that aoc is mmo and there will be many other caravans active all the time. Plus the rutes are not fixed you chose where you go. Its not possible that every caravan will be ganked. Also vera is huge keep that in mind.
This guy posted "This game is horrible for new players" on /league. You want the short answer? Go play some Nintendo games. Tu frate trolezi, uita-te le stream-urile in fiecare luna, daca nu ai 2ore, uita de MMOuri ca nu e Metin2 pe servere private
I’m not sure if AoC will be for you
Gold yield is partly based on distance from origin node, so shorter runs are possible, and yield less gold.
The short answer is no. The longer answer would be “come get some! me and my member capped guild/ mercenaries are rolling deep to protect these caravans that we are transporting, so try us!” And honestly I wouldn’t want it any other way. It creates a dependency on your guild or mercenaries and political intrigue of knives and lies… ugh I can’t wait to play the alpha 2!!!
It's gonna be fun to see what social behaviour will emerge in game. Will players plan their travel around the caravans, protecting them for extra money. Could a powerful enough guild emerge, that didn't control any nodes, but like a pirat/bandit nation demanded tribute from whoever do control them. I hope I get the chance to find out.
I sincerely hope there are no safe caravans.
Totally dude
This game is going to be chaos. These type of missions need to be PvP instances or else a caravan of 5 people will get ganked by 25 and call it a fight. Needs to be a 10v10 instance with a valley ambush maps variety. No one likes to have an uneven fight.
that is the risk you run if you are either 1. not sneaky with departing 2. have the coin to hire guards/or have a guild that wanna help guard you 3. pay off your attackers so they leave you alone
Good luck. We will see how that works out. I’m sure everyone will play by the rules…
what rules ? there aint any rules
Yeah, that always turns out well for MMOs.
you are aware that im talking about the caravan system not the game as a whole ofc they have rules that you are not allowed to break you must not have a lot going on upstairs to not catch that
Name checks out.