When owning an outpost your relationship with the rest of the homins of Atys is one sided: you posses the goods (crystals, flowers, special mats) that are in very high demand. Since the running of the drills require neither upkeep nor maintenance, other homins rarely posses anything to offer you in return for these goods. Thus trade is seldom an option, which leaves donations or participating in OP battles as the main way to aquire these. Still there seem to be a large proportion of players who are discouraged by the outlook of having to be drawn into outpost battle after outpost battle, when they would rather spend their game time doing other things. Bad luck for them, you might reply... My reply would be the suggestions posted in this article
Measured in quantity of resources, these suggestions will make it less profitable to control a single outpost. Measured in the quality of gameplay, I think these suggestions would be an improvement for all players, regardless of playing style. Instead of OPs being the sole domain of high-level fighting guilds, lets make them into small economic centres for all (or most) players. In the running and maintenance of OPs, in the trade of OP materials, and in the OP battles themselves it is time to involve more players at all levels than simply the owners of an outpost and their immediate allies. It is time for the owners of OPs to step up and become landlords in a wider sense, to employ other homins in their service, and thus integrate their outpost into both the economy and the gameplay of all. The owners should still receive substantial benefits, they must be something worth fighting for, but by allowing a greater participating of all players in the OPs I think we can turn them into something great that would make Ryzom stand apart from other games.
As allways, constructive feedback will be greatly appreciated!
2) Different types appealing to different players
In short, the main idea is to separate the outposts into different types, all being conquered by PvP battles, but each requiring different style gameplay to benefit fully from. Thus different types should be more attractive to some players than others. This should leave plenty opportunity for fun and fierce OP battles around the very attractive outposts, while allowing less PvP enthusiastic players to hold on to an outpost without facing constant battle challenges.
Also, it has been bugging me that the drills excavate flowers. Crystals – yes, I can understand how these are mined. But flowers? Or vines (maga)? So my suggestion would be this: crystals are excavated by the drills, flowers are grown in fields and the unique materials are gained through trading with the tribes of Atys. The current active outposts will remain as drills. The other two types of outposts would have to be build from the ground, on the current ruined outpost sites. When this has been accomplished, the game would have three times as many outposts, but each one producing only one type of resource.
Gameplay determining resource amount and quality distribution
As it is now outposts produce a fixed amount of resources with a fixed distribution of qualities (percentages of resources degraded to each level). I would like these two parameters, amount and quality distribution, to depend on the actions of players. Current quality caps should still apply off course, but enabling players to improve the distribution of qualities (fewer degrades) through various gameplay actions would open new opportunities. Conversely, neglecting to perform these actions should cause the distribution to worsen (more degrades). The type of actions required by players to keep amount and quality distribution up should vary by outpost type.
Farms: Securing the harvest
Farms is where fields are prepared, flowers are planted, grown and finally harvested. A farming taskmaster NPC would offer missions to perform the actual work in the fields. A good quality distribution should be achieved by players cleansing the fields – performing foraging missions for parasites, dead leaves, etc. Amount could be increased through fertilising – donating amounts of suitable raw materials. These could include sap, mushrooms etc. Finally, once each Atys cycle (summer season) it would be time for harvest. This would be a crucial time where players would litterally have to harvest the fruits of their labour – performing foraging missions for the flowers themselves.
Trade posts: Trading greslin for glasspearls with the natives
Would it be farfetched to assume that some of the tribes of Atys has their own secret sources of unique materials? They live out in the wilderness after all, who knows what they have stumbled upon. Some may even have learned to grow maga... Anyways, that is what I am assuming, and for hominkind to gain access to these materials they must do what civilization has done at all times: trade their own processed items with the raw materials of “the natives”. Once a trade post has been erected a NPC tribal trader would appear offering various crafting missions, offering quantities of unique material as a reward. There should be a maximum number of missions available each season. The amount of materials gained would thus depend on your ability to supply crafted items.
Quality distribution should depend on the owning guilds fame with the relevant tribe. If they like you better they offer you more of the better materials. That being said, the guilds fame with the tribe should be slowly decreasing while they own the OP, they are occupying some of the tribal lands after all. To keep their fame, and thus the quality of traded materials up, the owning guild would have to continuously perform various missions for the tribe, not only crafting missions, but hunting, scouting and delivery missions as well. In addition some special missions may spawn from time to time: “Sure homin, we would like to continue trading with you, but that nasty Kirosta is blocking the access to our sources... We count on you to solve that...”.
Drills: The bounty of the faithfull
The big trepans and tree-bores were given by the Karavan and Kami to reward their faithfull and help gather resources / restore the ecological balance respectively. For many, many cycles these drills has been continuously excavating. Who would raise an eyebrow if they should from time to time need a new drill or power source to continue working at peak efficiency? Luckily the Karavan and Kami will be happy to supply these – for a favour off course... I imagine a newly constructed drill should supply a daily amount of crystals somewhat higher than as it currently is. Also the quality distribution should be better. However, both of these parameters should slowly decrease over time, as the drill (quality) and power plant (amount) are gradually worn out. Replacing either would bring the relevant parameter up to full efficiency yet again.
To get a replacement part for a tree-bore you would apply at the Kamis naturally, conversely you would go to the Karavan to get a new part for your big trepan. Getting these should require a minimum fame (not too high though) and performing some mission which will increase your guilds fame with that faction, while decreasing it with the other faction. Thus even neutrals who own a drill will slowly find themselves becoming increasingly factioned if they want to have their drill running at peak efficiency.
The benefits of interdependencies
It should be obvious that drills are going to be the most contested outposts, they are attractive to factioned players (and it is my impression that the majority of the active PvP´ers are factioned), they produce crystals (the most attractive resource), and they require the least upkeep of the three types (only an occasional mission for the K´s). Conversely tradeposts will be less attractive to factioned players, since their fame cap would keep them from getting the best quality distribution of resources. Farms would appeal equally to factioned and non-factioned players, but would require some upkeep, which might make them less attractive to some.
By keeping all of the outposts challengable through regular PvP outpost battles, I think a reasonable balance of power could be achieved. A strong, factioned guild would now have an incentive to allow a non-factioned guild to own an outpost of tradepost type, since the non-factioned guild would make the outpost more productive. The strong guild could then open favourable trade with the non-factioned guild, or flatly demand protection money to refrain from attacking them. Same would be true for farms. A guild of farmers should be able to hold onto their plot of land through trade relations with potential challengers.
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3) Construction: Founding, improving and maintaining your OP
Founding new outposts
Changing drill type
Fortifications
Barracks
Siege Workshops
Upkeep and maintenance
4) Involving other players: OP owners as employers
Getting a slice of it...
Beneficial economic consequences
5) Dynamic graphics: Making outposts live
Encouraging players to be observant
6) OP battles: More bang for your buck!
Better battles vs. more battles
Defensive structures
Siege engineers: Getting the crafters involved
Scouts and counter squads: A new role for the low-levels
Diversified tactics
Organization and communication
The element of chance: When storms blow OPs fall...
7) Consistent storyline: How to implement this
Scarcity leading to creativity
The logic of an armsrace
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Did I mention this is a work in progress? Well it is, the final goal being a nice consistent package of suggestions regarding outposts. So dont hold back on your opinions or suggestions, lets make this into something good
