Today, we go into detail and answer questions regarding Campaign Export Rules. In addition, Lead UX artist Billy Garretsen – narrates his process in creating our latest Knight Poster!
Campaign Embargo FAQ
How are rewards determined at the conclusion of a campaign?
Players can place items, resources, and materials into Embargo – basically, this is a way of “uploading” items to your Account Bank inside a Campaign. This can only be done at certain specific locations inside a Campaign, and items placed there are basically “in quarantine” until the Campaign is over.
When the world is destroyed at the end of a Campaign, some portion of the player’s winnings (i.e. the contents they have placed inside their Embargo vault) will be transferred into that player’s Account Bank. The number of items transferred depends on how well that player fared within the Campaign.
What is the Account Bank? How does it work?
Each player has an Account Bank, which can be used to transfer items between characters on that account. The account bank cannot be accessed when your character is locked into a Campaign.
How does the Account Bank related to the Embargo Vault?
The account bank exists at the account level – meaning that all of your characters share one account bank. The vault is Campaign specific, meaning that each Campaign will have a different Embargo area. At the end of the Campaign, depending on how well you (and your team) did, some number of item(s) will be moved from the Embargo into your Account Bank. The rest of the items will be lost.
What determines the number of items that can be placed in the Embargo Vault? The size of the Embargo Vault changes based on Campaign type. As a general rule, longer and more risky Campaigns will have larger Embargo Vaults (higher risk leads to higher reward).
The primary factor that determines the size (and loss factor) of the Embargo is how well your team (faction or guild) finished in the Campaign, as well as your individual contribution to the Campaign.
The length of time spent in a Campaign will be used to scale the final results. This is done to prevent players from waiting until the last moment and then jumping on the winning team of a Campaign just to get the reward. (In fact, Players who join at the very end may get no reward -- even if their team is victorious.)
We really believe in the concept of risk vs reward. The more difficult the ruleset of a Campaign – and the longer of a commitment the player is required to make -- the larger the potential payout from the Embargo.
Add this to the fact that the more rare crafting materials are more plentiful in the difficult Campaigns, and we should have a risk/reward ratio that is quite compelling.
Where is the embargo located in the campaign?
To place item(s) into the Embargo Vault, players must physically transfer those items to a particular type of Point of Interest known as a Summoning Circle. The Summoning Circle acts like a giant bank, and can be found in only the most hostile areas. (Thematically, you could think of these like the giant IO towers from TRON).
We are certain that these areas will be incredibly deadly, as they make fantastic ambush spots – other players will know that this is a location players will gravitate towards, and that they will be heavily laden with items when they come. This system also ties well into the Caravan system (currently at stretch goal) to haul stuff to the Embargo. Items placed within an Embargo Vaults cannot be removed. You can’t use Summoning Circles to “teleport” items around the map.
Is the Embargo Vault specific to a player?
Yes! Each player will have their own Embargo Vault to fill, in each Campaign. Players will need to balance how much of the world’s resources are dedicated to helping the team win, versus how much they want to scavenge for themselves. Having a full Embargo Vault isn’t going to help maintain control of the structures in a world!
Are the contents of the embargo safe? Yes. If you can make it safely inside the Summoning Circle, then any items you place inside your Embargo Vault will be locked there until the conclusion of the Campaign. It is just like a bank in many respects.
Some of the Rulesets call for 20% reward how does this work for items?
For materials and resources it is easy – we can just adjust the size of the material stack that each player is entitled to. For equipment, we will have to work out some other means of scaling the rewards.
Do I have any control over which item(s) are kept and which item(s) are lost from my Embargo?
Maybe. Right now our design is simple: we will randomly select which item(s) and materials will be released and which item(s) and materials will be lost. We could certainly change this design later, to give preferential treatment to certain items based on rarity, size, value or player preference.
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