Griefing

All of those things require a ton of time and resources, while it'd be way easier to just farm those resources themselves.

Aside from that. High value resources will most likely be farmed by guilded high lvl players with defenders around them (cause why risk it). So instead of PKing this will just be some pvp for the resources.

On top of that, any high value location will be built out with freeholds as soon as people know that it's a high value location. No one will sell their freehold there and you won't have the space to just plop your shit there and PK everyone around you.

Also, if you already have a freehold near high value resources - why PK someone there when you can just farm those resources and immediately store them at your freehold w/o risking long-distance travel with them.

Also, we don't know whether family can TP to you on their own or whether you'd have to summon them. And in either case IS could just disable the TP if one of the members is flagged/red/in combat.

And as the main point, high value resources would probably be located near high lvl nodes/mobs/dungeons. Which means high lvl people would be running around and you yourself would have to be high lvl. Leveling in Ashes takes quite a bit of time. The more PK count you have on your character - the more corruption you'll get for each new kill. The more corruption you have - the more XP debt you'll get on death. So if you use your main character (or a guild uses several people) to constantly PK different gatherers - soon enough they'll get so much corruption for one kill that they'll have to spend days grinding the lvls back.

Also, if the same guild does this kind of shit, they'll have awful reputation, get no new players and will get shit on by every other guild/player group.

So once again, why would a guild/alliance risk aaaaall of that just to get a few rare resources that they could've just farmed themselves w/o any problems?

NiKr wrote: »

So once again, why would a guild/alliance risk aaaaall of that just to get a few rare resources that they could've just farmed themselves w/o any problems?

Because it will be easy.

One doesn't have to do this all the time, and OP still outlined a relatively optimal strategy for doing it occasionally or a bit more than occasionally. It's part of the game. Similarly, a player who specializes in the Processing Skill might not be able to do the Gathering part. Then, if their allies are not online, or only the combat ones who don't do gathering or crafting are online, their source of materials is either 'buying it' or 'killing the player who is gathering it'.

Exp Debt is a problem, but so is 'spending actual currency on materials'.

Also, there's the fun factor for some. Most PvP minded players are so much better at it than average dabblers that it's borderline ridiculous and even a 40% decrease in effectiveness from Exp Debt will not make them lose to the type of person they'd be targeting. The main 'risk' here is 'not getting away with it' which is a separate consideration.

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Well, I've got no specific questions in mind for this month's Q&A segment, so you can leave it to me. What exactly are we asking?

"Can a Corrupted Player use the Family Summon Mechanic, from either side, either summoning Family or being summoned?"

Azherae wrote: »

Because it will be easy.

I mean, barely any of the things OP described were "easy". But even if some of them are, if it's a guild - it's easier to just farm the resources. If it's a couple of guys just trying to earn some "ez loots", then yeah they might be able to do that a few times and get away with it (that is if they're lucky), but after that - good luck farming back all of that XP debt.

If anything, I'd say it's easier to level up a gathering alt and just have yourself a character that can gather those resources w/o you going red. And your friend can defend you while you gather. Now that's an ez solution..

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Then those one-offs will happen a few times for each person and then everyone will just return to normal marketing existence. But I somehow highly doubt that:

• it'll be even possible to do with high value resources (cause guilds)
• a lot of people even attempt this (cause trading is just less risky)
• the gatherers won't ever fight back and prevent the "griefing"

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Because it will be easy.

I mean, barely any of the things OP described were "easy". But even if some of them are, if it's a guild - it's easier to just farm the resources. If it's a couple of guys just trying to earn some "ez loots", then yeah they might be able to do that a few times and get away with it (that is if they're lucky), but after that - good luck farming back all of that XP debt.

If anything, I'd say it's easier to level up a gathering alt and just have yourself a character that can gather those resources w/o you going red. And your friend can defend you while you gather. Now that's an ez solution..

That's a weird take, to me.

If you 'just' raise a Gatherer, and I even EXIST as the 'person who kills gatherers and takes their stuff', then you still have to get good enough to stop me and my group from doing that. And if you're at the skill level where you can stop me from killing you to TAKE your stuff, then you're above the skill level of the other 'person who just leveled up a gatherer'.

Similarly, if you had that level of skill and move in a group of two, then when you meet the 'Gatherer plus their Protector' you still win, in fact that's an optimal situation for you because the Protector will probably fight back and you won't get corruption from them, and if the Gatherer heals the Protector, they too will flag and no more corruption.

The entire point is that if your opponent fights back, you don't gain Corruption. You don't have to be good enough to beat a person who fights back, you have to be good enough to convince your opponent that it's better for them to not fight back.

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You're forgetting about the "PK count". If you have 10 kills on your character, your next PK will give you way more corruption than your first PK did. So you'll have to die several times, have even bigger XP debt and add yet another PK to the counter.

Also, I'd hope Intrepid can implement a "check" of sorts that prevents friends from abusing the BH system. The easiest way to do that would just be "if you claim the same bounty (this being the PK player) - your bounty reward is reduced" and make that shit inverse scalable.

Azherae wrote: »

That's a weird take, to me.

Well, I was talking in the context of "high value resources gathering", which would require a long time to level the character's profession (and probably adventure lvl too), and will most likely be done by people in guilds or big friend groups.

And in that context, just killing the gatherer and its protectors would already no longer be "easy". And it'd have to be done by bigger groups than just "a couple of friends", at which point it's no longer griefing (which is the OP's main concern).

And if instead of trying to farm some valuable gatherers you just make your own and maybe even become the same highly protected dude - that's not only more valuable, but imo easier.

But even all of that said aside, my main point is "it'd be really difficult to continuously grief high value gatherers (for multitude of reasons)". And if those gatherers fight back - it's no longer griefing, so the OP's concern doesn't apply.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

That's a weird take, to me.

Well, I was talking in the context of "high value resources gathering", which would require a long time to level the character's profession (and probably adventure lvl too), and will most likely be done by people in guilds or big friend groups.

And in that context, just killing the gatherer and its protectors would already no longer be "easy". And it'd have to be done by bigger groups than just "a couple of friends", at which point it's no longer griefing (which is the OP's main concern).

And if instead of trying to farm some valuable gatherers you just make your own and maybe even become the same highly protected dude - that's not only more valuable, but imo easier.

But even all of that said aside, my main point is "it'd be really difficult to continuously grief high value gatherers (for multitude of reasons)". And if those gatherers fight back - it's no longer griefing, so the OP's concern doesn't apply.

Got it now, but in this case the OP's (and to some extent, speaking for myself as well) point is that this is the intention. The idea at the core here being "put one's freehold near a good gathering spot as soon as possible".

Basically you could literally 'look out from your own front porch and decide if to kill the gatherer that is walking about near your house for the materials that you basically know they are gathering'.

I agree that if every PvP 'bandit's' house or hideout is treated as a 'Danger Zone' or 'dungeon' for Gatherers and they always bring friends, then the situation will be different, and that may be intended. If it is somehow not intended, then OP's point that Freeholds may be a difficulty in design for Intrepid, is valid.

Azherae wrote: »

Basically you could literally 'look out from your own front porch and decide if to kill the gatherer that is walking about near your house for the materials that you basically know they are gathering'.

Yeah, and I countered this interaction in my first post here. If it's a highly valuable resources - they'll be protected (even w/o considering other players' freeholds). If it's random gatherers running around and you just kill them periodically - you'll still suffer the corruption penalties and lose more time recovering from them than you would've if you'd just gotten a gatherer friend or an alt. And considering that freeholds are account-wide - your alt would have that house too, so you yourself would be more protected from the attacks OP described, because you'd be able to run away from the resource spot to your freehold and be completely safe (cause no pvp in a freehold).

Also, I'm fairly sure there'll be no highly valuable resources near freehold locations. Mb a tree or some bush, but that'd be a very limited resource that might not even drop on death (unless the dude farmed that shit for over 10h straight and you just sat there in your freehold watching him like a damn vulture lol).

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IS could prevent guild/ally-mates from BHing each other (I'd support it).

And if you're only killing one-two people once a few days or once a week - that ain't griefing, That's just participating in the game's systems. Griefing would be standing between the node/freeholds and the gathering/farming spots and literally PKing every player going through. And corruption is there to prevent exactly that kind of behavior.

And if more casually-inclined players complain that they get killed once in a while in Ashes - that's on them. They should've known what they were getting themselves into. They should've gotten into a guild or found some friend group to help them out. Or just be ready to die by players' hands here and there.

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The more PKers, the more BHs, the less PKers, the less victims. It's all a part of the system and working as intended. I really don't see this as a problem.

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Well, that shortens the question, but might still be good to ask it anyways, so now it's just:

"Can a Corrupted Player use the Family Summon system to call their Family?"

NiKr wrote: »

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The more PKers, the more BHs, the less PKers, the less victims. It's all a part of the system and working as intended. I really don't see this as a problem.

@Avoxtrium - as far as I know, that's the intended design of Ashes. You say 'normal player' but in Ashes the 'normal player' is probably expected to either 'be able to hang in PvP' or 'always bring a group who can', while constantly weighing the situation.

I don't think it's particularly unfair since it also isn't really a surprise. If you see a Freehold sitting on or near a good resource spot, you basically know that you will be in danger if you try to get that resource.

Adding on the idea that 'the player who kills you might not suffer much for doing it because of their setup' isn't really a problem, is it? Even on a larger scale, it's just 'players creating a weird sort of PvP mini-dungeon', no different from 'Trying to gather something that is in an area patrolled by a random aggressive elite mob'.

@Nikr - I understand your view, but I never 'trust' developers, even good ones, to have the same perspectives on things that players consider 'common sense', particularly because their intentions may be entirely different. So I wouldn't necessarily 'bet' that one can't place Freeholds near relatively high-value resources.

Similarly, there's something to be said for the very simple fact that a sufficiently large amount of medium-lower value resources is now 'high value' and worth it for me to kill the gatherer for, which I would consider the bigger 'concern' here, but it's all the same.

Azherae wrote: »

@Nikr - I understand your view, but I never 'trust' developers, even good ones, to have the same perspectives on things that players consider 'common sense', particularly because their intentions may be entirely different. So I wouldn't necessarily 'bet' that one can't place Freeholds near relatively high-value resources.

Similarly, there's something to be said for the very simple fact that a sufficiently large amount of medium-lower value resources is now 'high value' and worth it for me to kill the gatherer for, which I would consider the bigger 'concern' here, but it's all the same.

True, those things will have to be proven and tested.

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I dunno how exactly they'll have it in Ashes, but in L2 it wasn't just what you were wearing, but the gear in your inventory too. So the corrupted players might still lose their good stuff on death.