New Ashes of Creation Video Showcases Caravan PvP Gameplay | MMORPG.com

Abimor

Kyleran said:

To make things "fair" this should be like Somali pirates attacking a ship protected by a modern destroyer.

The pirates should rarely win unless exceedingly clever.

I am making a second post on this idea before you ever posted I almost said what if you can pay some kind of royal npc patrol fee that while doesn't guarantee safety but gives a chance for calvary or something to show to help.
Tons of ways to make this better but it requires deep level planning from the start. If your game gets killed by a bunch of murdering hobos not a lot to do after a point to save it.  

ChildoftheShadows

Kyleran said:

To make things "fair" this should be like Somali pirates attacking a ship protected by a modern destroyer.

The pirates should rarely win unless exceedingly clever.

Damage to the transport should require expensive equipment that can also be stolen

Scot

If you can raid there base while they are out hunting caravans it would be fine.

Babuinix

Looks interesting and running smooth!

Wargfoot

In Fractured Online:

• The bad guys there fight with a pretty big disadvantage and the good guys only lose inventory upon death (and not expensive gear).
• If you don't want to go to PvP land, you literally don't have to go there.
• If you do want to go there, it is easy to mitigate risk.
• The sheriff system works well and the bad guys complain about it constantly.

That said, I know of a dozen people in my small guild that quit the game because any inconvenience from bad guys was intolerable.

By the time you mix in exploits/etc the caravan system is dead on arrival, IMHO.  I think they're putting an enormous amount of time and effort into something that will get little to no use.  The only people excited for it are probably planning to be bandits.

I like that developers are trying new things but I don't see where anyone has found the answer to this particular problem.

Wargfoot

Scot said:

If you can raid there base while they are out hunting caravans it would be fine.

There are so many people who log into FO for the first time, they've no skills, they've no gear, they've no experience and yet their first question in general chat is:

"Can I rob other people's houses?"

*sigh*

I like your idea, but it is nearly impossible to implement.  The bandits would transfer all loot to clean characters and the base of theirs you can loot would guaranteed be empty. 

I guess in Ravendawn your damage decreases with karma, so the more innocents you kill the less damage you put out - or you can play on a instance where it is a free for all with no karma loss - which begs the question, why implement this at all.

What would be interesting to me would be caravans that NPCs attack and rival merchant factions could up the bounty on an enemy merchant guild thereby increasing NPC threat.  Sort of a 'finance the bandits' arrangement.

Slapshot1188

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

If you can raid there base while they are out hunting caravans it would be fine.

There are so many people who log into FO for the first time, they've no skills, they've no gear, they've no experience and yet their first question in general chat is:

"Can I rob other people's houses?"

*sigh*

I like your idea, but it is nearly impossible to implement.  The bandits would transfer all loot to clean characters and the base of theirs you can loot would guaranteed be empty. 

I guess in Ravendawn your damage decreases with karma, so the more innocents you kill the less damage you put out - or you can play on a instance where it is a free for all with no karma loss - which begs the question, why implement this at all.

What would be interesting to me would be caravans that NPCs attack and rival merchant factions could up the bounty on an enemy merchant guild thereby increasing NPC threat.  Sort of a 'finance the bandits' arrangement.

I’ve always preferred faction based PvP.  Red = Dead but clear delineation of safe vs PvP areas

In this case, the Caravan could be faction based and success provides benefits for the faction.  Maybe increased defenses, or a faction-wide buff, or access to some special zone like Darkness Falls from DAOC.  While the enemy faction works to deny that. Maybe collecting something from each Caravan they stop which can turn into rewards as well.

This even works with the NPC bandit idea you posed as the bandits could get stronger or weaker based on overall war status.  The “winning faction” faces ever harder bandits while the “losing faction” has an easier obstacle. 

Scot

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

If you can raid there base while they are out hunting caravans it would be fine.

There are so many people who log into FO for the first time, they've no skills, they've no gear, they've no experience and yet their first question in general chat is:

"Can I rob other people's houses?"

*sigh*

I like your idea, but it is nearly impossible to implement.  The bandits would transfer all loot to clean characters and the base of theirs you can loot would guaranteed be empty. 

I guess in Ravendawn your damage decreases with karma, so the more innocents you kill the less damage you put out - or you can play on a instance where it is a free for all with no karma loss - which begs the question, why implement this at all.

What would be interesting to me would be caravans that NPCs attack and rival merchant factions could up the bounty on an enemy merchant guild thereby increasing NPC threat.  Sort of a 'finance the bandits' arrangement.

You are assuming that the bases buildings can't be raised to generate loot. You got no loot as such for doing that in the likes of AoC but it was good fun.

Somebody send Slapshots post to the dev team so they get an idea of the sort of incentive system they will need for caravans to work, sorry if I sound off hand about the team but we have seen so many bobbly basic mistakes being made with these Crowd Funded MMOs I would not be surprised if they hadn't a clue how to balance this.