Best posts made by OlivePit

Q: Will Vegetables be implemented at the start of the beta? 14:35

A: Not yet

Ok, this is a big problem.
I spent two alpha tests gathering data as to why this is a problem and shared it with the developers which agreed that it was a problem and that it would be fixed before beta.
It clearly was not fixed. I do not know why. Since explaining the problem clearly to the developers in private did not work, and they did not give me the curtesy of an explanation in our DM's I feel my only option left is to air the problem here despite the damage it may do to the game.

Currently every city has 60 external farming fields. Depending on the region fertility they produce 50%/100%/150% of base crop yields. to rank up and pay weekly city maintenance cities need to provide increasingly larger numbers of cereals, proteins, and (eventually) vegetables. at 100% fertility a town needs to be optimally using 50 of these fields to supply the 40 proteins and 80 cereals needed to sustain a rank 15 city.

When vegetables are introduced that cost will increase to 50 proteins, 100 cereals, 50 veggies.

The 100% fertility rank 15 town would need 63 fields just to supply the proteins and cereals... nothing to say about the veggies.
The argument that the problem will be dealt with when it is come to ignores many facts. While only having to supply 2 crops the towns can stockpile them with the surplus 10 fields not being used, thus when the 3rd crop is introduced its effect on the economy will not be felt for quite some time and thus not provide good testing data for even longer.
That is a one scenario.. The other is that the town is not prepared and is faced with immediate loss of ranks due to the change.
This is the more likely scenario and is almost guaranteed for the low fertility cities.

Both scenarios are artificial conditions that would not exist if we start with the 3rd crop and familiarized ourselves with it before making huge costly decisions as to city location and farming methodologies.
As they are artificial conditions they will not produce good data on which to make decisions on how to adjust the game for release.

Another reason not starting with the 3rd crop is a problem is because it eliminated the primary motive factor of intercity trade and commerce - buying and selling food to sustain cities.
It has been stated multiple times that cities above rank 10 will not be self sustainable -=by design=- to encourage trade, diplomacy, and raiding.
Without the 3rd crop even a low fertility city can be totally self sustaining at rank 15 if they commit 1/3 of their city space to farming.
Thus killing motivators trade, diplomacy, and raiding.

Because of all of these reasons the 3rd crop needed to be implemented from the start.
But apparently that will not be done.

The remaining options the Devs have is to :
1: Increase the city upkeep requirements such that they are -=theoretically=- equivalent to the demand once vegetables are added and just replace part of the demand with vegetables.
This is gambling and will still produce bad data for quite some time before the system stabilizes. Maybe a month after the change we will finally have good data and an adapted global economy.

2: Do a wipe of all cities when vegetables are implemented.
Even if this is just a wipe of the cities and not player progression it is still a huge slap in the face especially when we were promised no wipes until the end of the beta.

3: Reset all field nutrients and all city stockpiles when vegetables are implemented.
This is a lot of work, hard to do, and almost impossible to verify that it was done as there are plenty of places players can store crops. It would also still cripple low fertility cities who would all of a sudden have to trade, raid, or bargain for food in an environment where that was never necessary before.

No matter what choice is made, the economy of the human world will only provide useful test data as to why it is a bad idea to only have 2 of the 3 crops implemented at the start of a test period.. for the 3rd time...

If the wild folk world is implemented after the 3rd crop it -may- provide good data on which to make decisions... but it will not be including the effects of raiding and thus will only be a partial picture.

The demon world is not going to provide useful data by its very nature of constant open pvp and special abilities that allow solo players to destroy walls... Few cities will be lucky enough to grow big enough to ever even have to consider outside sources to meet its upkeep.

This is all very bad news... and it will likely be worse as the growth time, yield, and nutrient costs of vegetables is still unknown and may be incompatible, or too compatible, with current optimal crop rotations thus throwing everything into a greater mess.

At this stage it could very easily take 6 months to just figure out and balance the crop system -=after=- the 3rd crop is implemented.
Meaning the need for multiple wipes or even more months of bad data before good data can be obtained with which to make adjustments.
Other than me, I do not know of many people willing to be jerked around that much regarding something as foundational to the game as the cities.

I hoped for the best, I was promised that it would be ready, and now we get the worst.

https://support.gamigo.com/hc/en-us/articles/4721951469981-Foundation-Freeze

@BECKFAST
Bodo is a deliberate, careful, and considerate person.
He did multiple draft checks with the guild before posting to make sure it would not be adversarial. He is worthy of the benefit of the doubt most get without a second thought.
We may disagree on points, but they are still good points.

This could be good, this could be bad.
I have no problems with the siege system as is (other than the clear bugs and exploits). But removing the adjacent restriction seems like a bad idea to me.
By removing the adjacent restriction on Sieges you allow zerg or grief groups (like bussy) to wantonly destroy other towns for no reason other than they can. This means that despite the promise of having 3 continents and towns spread out there is no way way to distance yourself and protecting a town from a heavily hostile group is left with one option: pre-emptively destroy them, and most likely through constant battles and attrition.
I would like to hear what albion veterans have to say on this change.

The rest of the proposition seems great. Giving players of all types credit towards improving the guild ranking is a wonderful inclusive decision.

early access was a gamigo thing.
but then gamigo pulled out and the game shut down.
in the last 4 months Dynamight got back the rights and have been working on the game again.
Currently we are doing intermittent tests every month or so with anticipation of 24/7 uptime again once the bugs are worked out in the new back end and new servers.
Currently a test is planned for 'the end of august'.
if it is anything like the last tests it will be focused on a specific aspect of the game to be tested and be up for 1-3 weeks.
If you buy the game now you will be able to participate in the tests and the game once it goes full time.

The only 'leg up' your alts will have is access to the equipment your primary is able to source. This will make a big difference (up to 100% effectiveness) and help with doing the knowledge process all over again. But the only way to make the whole trip shorter is to do the VIP subscription.... which is kinda the point.
The key is that you only really need to go and learn 8 skills to complete a build, so there is no need to learn 'everything' again for an alt.
in the end it will be far easier to just complete a quest to respec your stats (once a month) instead of rolling a new character.
The only reason to have an alt is to experience a different world or if you want a dedicated homebody to tend the smelters.
The skill, talent, and equipment systems are flexible enough that you can basically hot swap archetypes so long as your stats do not pidgin hole you.

I also just noticed that the foundation ranking and reward system is not an option.
Is it scrapped? or just hidden? Ah, found the page, it is 'under construction'

also, there is no 'log in' button...
so to log into the forums you first have to go to the forums, then click log-in there, which kicks you back out to the web page where you log in...
and it freezes up or goes in a loop.
and only if you go back to the forum page do you notice that the log-in actually worked.

Sadly that is not a thing, you just have to mine sweep with your cursor.
over time you will just notice the interactables passively, so it is not a bother for most players after a short learning curve period.

1: yes, more so if working in groups.
2: Karma system affects how much loot you drop on death, if you are a criminal or a sheriff, time spent in prison (or size of bail) if a sheriff kills you (a criminal), no stat loss, no rogue state. Some towns may be pvp friendly allowing criminals to use the the towns crafting stations, while the default is that you cant. However if you are a citizen or resident of the town, at which point your karma is irrelevant for that purpose.

The justice system punishes criminals by them getting locked into prison for up to 48 real world hours or having to pay 10k? -I am not sure- to be released. Note that when you are released you only have the equipment that did not drop on death (and if you are criminal, all of it does), and you are released inside the town that built the prison (hostile territory). Oh and you can only pay the bail yourself if you have that much in the global wallet, which can only be added to via a bank or market when someone buys what you put up for sale. Otherwise your friend has to travel to the town and bail you out in person.
Simple attrition will destroy the marauding gank squad, limit them to regions with criminal towns, or make the act unprofitable without significant investment in gear/skills/talents.
The amount of loot a character can carry is very limited, thus requiring the building and use of town banks or private homes and chests. You are limited to one house plot per account. This means having to transport your loot to a drop point safely. If it becomes known the plot is used as a bolt hole for criminals you can bet it will get the attention of the sheriffs. This means having to transport your loot to a drop point safely while under pressure.
Town banks are only accessible by criminal players if the town is criminal friendly... presumably rare...Or you are a citizen of the town. Town leaders are probably going to be picky on who to allow citizenship, especially as it is not necessary.

The starting skills are not anything to sneeze at but are certainly not competitive. It would take a weekend to get the skills for a modest build and there could still be weaknesses. Not to mention that equipment is a major component of any human build.

The horizontal progression is not quick. Unless you have some outside feeder source, it takes well over 40 hours to get the equipment necessary to be effective. Not to mention that skills and talents can easily take longer and are not transferable between characters on the same account. Groups help, but there are also AOE powers (only really obtainable through moderate work) and a person in a -good- build can take on 3 with shitty '2 hr builds'.

Due to equipment decay, no repair, and a constant flow of goods, the griefer groups will not be able to make any lasting damage to the players they victimize and bring lots of attention to them from the sheriffs.

The fact that there is very limited fast travel (from port to port) which is also expensive also greatly reduces the affect and range of griefers. Even at its worst two alphas ago, the cry of 'reds at XXXXX' would see anyone feeling vulnerable in that area log off and on to an alt elsewhere, while all near by sheriffs converged like hunting dogs for the kill, chase, or to patrol incase the reds came back. The griefing was also heavily localized to 1/4 of the island area. I myself lost three sets of gear to griefers, but it barely set me back at all since I had the economic weight of a week of materials generated by my guild and town, and I know that two of those times the griefers were hunted down by eager sheriffs. Being grieffed was more of a -sigh- event than a rage quit one. In the last two weeks of that test griefing was practically unheard of as was the case of practically the whole of the last alpha. -to my knowledge-

While there are many ways a grifer could use alts to avoid the pain of prison, it would still be a massive amount of time spent -not- progressing. In the world of the red queens race (better equipment synergy, skill sets, talent synergy, group cohesion), you would just loose in the end.

It is totally possible that an organized group of thieves would create a criminal city and make raids on near by points of interest while hoping to make it back with the loot before being caught. The counter is to just play somewhere else. Each island is big, travel is slow, and most of a characters assets are in very safe places. If the raider group want to move to where an established group is in order to prey on them, they are fighting an uphill battle the whole way.

It has been stated that a maurading group of players -could- raid a town and seize assets from the towns coffers if victorious. However this takes 3 days notification, a timed event, and if you do not have access to catapults then practically impossible vs a town with wood palisades.

Hopefully this helps some.

Page 1 of the news is the same as page 2,3,4,5... the page never actually updates to show the other pages despite the change in the address... thus no way to look at older news posts...wtf.

be in smaller groups? As one of three people I get plenty of XP as the tank. I think it only is really punishing when you are in much larger groups.

country or 'wild' housing has been mentioned and used in past, not much action.
The governors dont get to set the house price outside of town, or the upkeep price (1k/week currently). They just get half of the proceeds.

AI 'guards' have been talked about a lot, said they would be implemented, but not high on priority list.
Mostly as gate or mining node deterrents.

The only reason a wipe at this time would be remotely acceptable is if they are; brining in vegetables and leafy greens, alchemy, imbuing, AND changing the item crafting / durability system. thus the need to remove all the older stuff we have stockpiled.
If these things are not all done then it will just be a repeat of the start of beta all over again with the same mess and problems.

Get goblin trapper net skill.

Sadly, this does create the very real problem of players persistently camping a mob spawn site instead of a constant rotation or more organized, dedicated, extended campaign to achieve an objective...
I can definitely see why the devs might not want to allow it.
Think of it like a rogue lite game, you progress as far as you can with a certain set of skills, equipment, and strategies. Get to a point of no further progress. Learn from the experience, go back to the start, and have another try at it.
While having a refresh point part way into the run would diminish the effort and accomplishment of the eventual victory.

hmm...
I'm going to have to retract my previous support and instead say that it would be better to have a consumable that 'emergency teleports' you back home, so you can at least reduce the time spent trekking back. It would also be good for real life events that require you to log off in the middle of a hostile area.
maybe restrict its use to once every 12 hours? to curb abuse?
and some thing to also prevent you from using it to do 'fast travel trading'

Will we be able to summon wheat, beans, cotton, etc.. or will we need to farm them?
or will we need to raid others for the resources needed to upgrade our towns?
Either way is fine... tho I would find it very funny that you would need to spend 0 gold to raid a rank 1 town in order to get the food necessary to rank up your town to get the tech needed etc...XD
Also will all city tech be unlocked or will we need to rank up to get access to different things?

The sea trolls also can hit you with it when you are 10+ m away despite it only having a 3m range : /

@Jazzysunshine
Hi, Harbinger of Famine here.
I think it is safe to say I have done the most testing and investigation of the games farming and harvesting potential and am happy to answer most any question you have on the topic.

So... Good news and bad news.

Bad news:
Without major changes to the plot sizes and city permissions there is no way to have your 'own farm'.
Gathering wild plants, trees, mob drops, and ore varieties are heavily effected by local biome differences.
Farming takes -days- to go from planted to harvestable and needs checking up on every 10-30 hours depending on need of crop.
You cant farm most of the crops and plants that are found in the game. Right now we only have 5 crops.
Anyone at the citizen level can mess with the crops which you do have access, and power over to, farm meaning that if all of them are not on the same page someone might just dig up what you are growing and plant whatever it is -they- want.
Farm animals are not introduced yet... but there are plans for the future.

Good news:
Farming is absolutely essential to the city economy which enables technological progress, so there will be demand for farmers.
The fertility and nutrition mechanics are just complex enough that some time must be put into maintaining soil nutrition levels through crop rotation. This gives risk/reward and benefits to planning.
Not everyone is interested in farming and not everyone needs to be a citizen to get what they need from a town. Thus it is very possible to restrict the number of wild cards and establish yourself as one of a few leaders of the cities farm plots.
Because of localized resource scarcity the value of harvested goods is likely to be stable and due to slow transport systems the further you go from an area of high availability the goods should increase in value accordingly.
Gathering ore/plants/trees will have -some- danger as mobs will be in the general area, so you are unlikely to be totally board, but is still safe enough that it is a low risk task that is necessary. This means that others will pay for you to do the farming/gathering for them while they are off doing the 'more fun' aspects of the game like boss grind and pvp.
Since the harvestable resources are diffusely populated on the island there is very low chance to be targeted for pvp as they cant be sure where you will be. This is in contrast to mob hotspots which are much more likely to be watched and or camped.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Lots of good news in the post and I acknowledge the importance and need of many of the things on the road map,
but.
no veggies or leafy greens yet? your killing me and city economics man...
no tech tree? ouch, that really hurts. the idea of each city getting some special bonus unique to it will certainly create diversity and could balance the value of different locations but it removes choice which also hurts.
there is still the question/issue of the city prestige system. combined with more diverse crops, negative prestige for crop plots, and an actual city maintenance requirements you could achieve the city diversity mentioned earlier such that a rank 15 is not self sustaining and must specialize and trade or form alliances to get it all.
I hope that your proposal is a stop gap for a real system and that this is not the devs giving up.
You could still have the specilized city bonuses, just tie them into the cities ranking in the season system. better yet have a list of possible bonusses and let each city pick one in order of their rank.
I just think that cities have a lot of potential and do not want to see it stagnate.
Good work so far, glad for the good news, keep it up.

Hmm.. logged out and back in and the next 2 rabbits had paws... just plain weird.