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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Gathered resources - expiration period Yay or Nay
ArchivedUser
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Let's say you gather bunch of flowers or mushroom, or whatever and bring it to your freehold. Now you need to ship it to city and sell it, or use your second profession to convert them to a finished product.
What if you just get raw fresh mushroom and leave them in your storage, should they go bad after some time?
What if you just get raw fresh mushroom and leave them in your storage, should they go bad after some time?
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Well, it's just that people in other threads talk about adding fatique for combat and suggest other various combat nerfs, because they say it's logical, makes sense and would add depth to the game.
So I propose also adding depth to the game in limiting gathering and crafting a bit, and it totally makes sense. Makes equal sense as nerfing combat activities in a magic game.
Just for the record, I do not think fatigue or some sort of 'action points' or whatever time-in-combat-limiting-resources in addition to mana and refresh rates (I assume those are going to exist) should exist. Oh, and health.
Nobody would benefit from those types of resource limits, and the PvP community would be unjustly burdened by them.
As for this topic, I feel the same way.
I don't want to spend my only 4 hours of gaming time gathering resources that will go bad before I get to play again. What would be the point of PvE at all unless you had specifically dedicated time to each action and prepared ahead of sitting down to play. You would need to time deliveries, players that brought your product could lose them before they used them, etc.. That's way too much effort for a non-survival game, imo.
As for the relation of the two: I think limiting resources during combat that someone will likely 'finish completely' (dead or alive) is different than limiting resources that could go bad when someone is not even logged in. If the gathered resources only ticked down to uselessness while a player was logged in that would be a fair comparison.
Or, if combat skills suffered atrophy while players are logged out this would be a more just comparison because both PvP and PvE players would be punished for not playing.
I am strongly against all of these things.
But, I honestly don't think this game will need any of those "hard core" mechanics. Those would be better suited to games that produce unlimited resources. And, if I'm not mistaken, Steven has said that resources in Ashes will be limited. The example he gave pertained to ore veins, but I'm guessing the same would apply to all gathering resources. Giving limited resources a "freshness timer" seems a little too punitive, imo. Fun idea, though, if you're into "full immersion" mechanics, and such.
The fact that will piss me off is neither here not there at the end of the day. More a case of being necessary.
But, if you have to gather multiple ingredients from different sides of the world to make a certain potion/meal/object, you should not have to work against a timer.
Whereas you have mining or even lumber operations that can exist in a constant safe investment state as they do not spoil.
This would lead to a two-tier economy of Traditional Goods and Lesser Goods, which while they exist in the the real world, is likely not a good fit for a video game that is not aimed at being a simulation.
Over all I love the idea in a solo game but don't find it appropriate in an MMO.
Gathering is my absolute favourite aspect of MMORPGs and although I'm always seeking games that spice up the profession- timed raw materials, I don't think is the answer.
Some reasons have already been mentioned so I'll just add my personal opinion
Remember:
Various activities/events in AoC will change the world.This may change the availability of raw materials. Seasons which work on a weekly schedule is another influence on the existence of raw materials:
- If raw materials are on a decay time-frame, once the materials are gone from the world, your stash will eventually be gone too. This could mean the raw material are gone for a loooong time until events change to have it reappear. I'd find this more frustrating. I'm a hoarder gather and I enjoy selling things when they are rare and needed.
- If the materials expire (after the world has changed to no longer supply) then this may impact recipes that players may collect/have kept too. I wouldn't like to hinder their crafting experience-especially when I've kept a stash aside~
- Transporting and selling materials are also pretty risky in Ashes and time consuming. If a material is not in demand it may take longer to sell. If it expires before it sells then that punishes the Gather despite the time it took to pick, move, sell.
- Having a timer on raw materials (imo) won't increase the use of caravans. A Gatherer that wants to make good profit should understand that travel is beneficial. Why sell a material that is abundant in a zone when you can sell it in a zone where it is not. Take the risk for more profit/sell speed.
- I understand that many dislike "hoarders" but in AoC "hoarders" may just keep the world ticking until raw materials become gatherable again.
- Remember when a resource depletes it randomly spawns elsewhere in the zone. Some may be difficult to be find. You should feel rewarded once you explore and find a resource. Not under pressure to sell asap before the timer expires.
- Times will impact players that don't have as much available time. If you log on and your method of chilling out is gathering, you shouldn't feel rushed to have to sell it asap just encase you can't log on for the next week or so.
- If you have pots to increase the life expectancy of your materials then perhaps that will work but I still feel that is unfair for those that don't have the time to play. I feel these players will be the ones purchasing the pots.
Anyway I'm a passionate gatherer and I think Intrepid are defo on the right tracks to making gathering exciting and adventurous!Fun discussion to read and I look forward to more opinions and responses!
Thanks for posting
Remember to watch out for the "Totally not a flower"!
I'm one of those cranky old men who dislike how much MMOs are catering to the casual gamer and I'm ok if more effort and planning translates to more reward.
I would do it for more profit and well I enjoy gathering and it would be the avenue for my play style to hoard. I prefer it wasn't there but I would do it anyway ^^ My greater concern would be for players that don't have the same time availability. Simply they may not be able to earn as much game currency/ the time needed to make the preservation items etc. I feel the preservation methods would be a disadvantage. It would make gathering an even more time consuming task or reduce their profits margin.
Perhaps an alternative method to preservation pots/items would be to have a skill/passive reached within the gathering profession tree that increases the longevity of a materials. Perhaps a "better with your hands" type of skill. Therefore you are being rewarded for advancing in the profession.
This means if you want to hoard you can by improving your gathering.
If you have less time, it may take longer, but you can increase your longevity with progression. This means eventually you wont suffer financially/have to spend time gathering for an additional item.
A skill point option sounds like a decent compromise. Allows for a more casual gatherer while still limiting the masses from sitting on piles of materials.
I'm excited to see how Intrepid handles it
Then attempting to solve a lot of those issues with an expiration date mechanic, but after seeing it playout in real life in controlled environments when I was working on most of the Minecraft RPG’s and attempting to solve the basic Minecraft issue of being able to amass double chests and buildings of double chests of bread and it not being very realistic or immersive.
The way I resolved the issue was to instead, just add multiple layers to crafting and make each step time consuming and interactive, and thus the crafting is less on gathering the materials and clicking craft, and instead on gathering everything, going through the many actions and steps needed to acconplish the item crafted.
When players are crafting ting high level gear, they want to craft high level gear and the crafting process should feel like that. Every game on the market and development right now has a very lack luster of not fixing the crafting part of the game, and instead try to make items crafted feel rewarding by making the actual materials for them harder to acquire.
When what games need to do is make the gathering of resources challenging, and make the crafting itself challenging.
There are players who would enjoy a game where all they do is craft, and the crafters in games are often not satisfied because they’re not greally crafting. They’re gathering. High level ingredients and clicking a craft button.
Make the time in which it takes to craft items much longer, and not by making a bar that loads slowly, but rather by making 10 smaller copponents which takes a reasonable amount of time each.
Adding an expiration date is a solution to some problems but not the best solution out there. I disagreed for other reasons that everyone else who voted no.
While adding a timer would be more generous it does not address the base issue of disparity between goods.
Reviewing more of the concerns and seeing that Hoarding and Realism were two key concerns that drove the initial concept of having the resources decay helps me better address those issues. And the pair of them go hand in hand in actually promoting each other.
In reality hoarding is an aspect of a realistic economy and is the fundamental strategy of controlling a market. It is how one applies market pressure to a good or sevice by manipulating scarcity. The more that is hoarded the higher prices rise and conversely the more that is released into the market the lower prices fall. Thus they create an equilibrium. Now you could be concerned that if a large, and I do mean large as no one player or even guild would be able to perform this level of market pressure, was to withhold a resource and bring the price to rise they are earning no income from that resource they are hoarding and thus still make nothing until they start to move it. But they are also unable to move the resource in any substantial amount since to do so would drive the price back down. So the only real gain they would have by trying to hoard material is to enrich all other gatherers of that resource since they would be able to sell all their stock at the higher price but the hoarders would be left with bloated and unmovable product.
As to the realism of having bread, herbs, mushrooms, etc last forever well you could look at how detailed you really wanted the game to be. If you wanted to have that level of realism you would also need to have players suffer from hunger to compel them to buy in time with the perishables. But beyond that it is a matter of available time.
While some might see it as catering to the casuals, a term I find dismissive and rude, what it really reflects is a desire that the game feel impactful. And to be honest I would be surprised if many people would really feel like having their resources, food, etc spoil would feel interesting and cool beyond the first week or so. After that it would feel like a chore or a Skinner Box mechanic that is designed to keep people coming back on timers, think Farmville and other timer based games. And as I mentioned above would only serve to push prices into unreasonable numbers. Combined that with the fact that since larger guilds WOULD be able to make a stronger market impact by crowd sourcing the gathering they could drive down the prices with a flooded market that would make solo and small guilds feel like having to play with those timers for lower prices just would not be worth it and thus would shove those gatherers out of the market which in turn means that the larger guilds would then gain the lion share if not the sole control of those markets (ala Monopoly).
So while I do like the idea, it is better served in a solo game with controlled metrics. Kingdom Come: Deliverance does a great job with this concept as a historical realistic simulation but even they do not make everything spoil.
Anyway, short of having a monopolies and mergers commission in game, we have no control over monopolies developing except via resource expiration. And I am not inclined to agree that trading guilds will not become large enough to manipulate the markets directly through scarcity control.
I'm going to be playing casually, probably 3 hours per week, and the last thing I want is for this game to be tuned to those like me.
I would enjoy a sense of urgency to all aspects of the game just to keep the world moving. The scenario if only having a window to sell your good and being the price will get better before they expire seems enjoyable. How did Kingdom Come's system work?
O and Resources where your harvester is today might be completely gone so you dont get much in the way of resources. Resources were very fluid.
Ashes will have resources that pop up all across the realm in large quantities to be extracted by teams.
So it doesnt sound that far removed from what you say.
The main issue that will plague AoC (and all persistent PvP games) is the ability of large guilds to stockpile resources boundlessly over time. After some period of time, these guilds will have so many resources stockpiled they will not be challenged by new players, no matter how skilled or large the new set of players may be.
There definitely needs to be a constant drain on resources, and it doesn't really matter what mechanic is used to drain those resources. That mechanic just needs to be balanced such that stockpiling is sufficiently hampered.
There probably also needs to a "power cap" of some sort to prevent guilds from becoming essentially invincible, but that is a whole other topic.
I think you are seeing the point. I agree 100% that resource depletion should be a thing but I do not think artificial timers on the resources are the way to go about it. It just seems odd that to create that shortage with herbs dying on a timer that you would also have iron "spoil" after a short time.
Rather it would be better if the resources required to upkeep a guildhall, city, or other typical large guild resources were on a sliding and growing scale. That would force even large guilds or trade factions to work together to maintain the level of quality and efficiency for their regions.
@Althor
Just to be clear I do not see a lack of spoiling resources to be a reduction in play complexity. I see it as a matter of balance and economic health. The model they have thus presented does not set itself well to a system of expired resources due to the descriptions around limited carry capacity, zones of refinement and production, and trade routes. These factors create a barrier to play for a vast majority of people that I can't see them finding engaging rather than tedious and punishing.
As for Kingdom Come, the only thing they had that spoiled on its own was food and to a limited extent clothing (when it got dirty it would start to negatively impact you). But because it is a single player game it also means that when you paused or turned off the game to return later the quality would not have dropped in real time. The engagement was from having to worry about those conditions WHILE you played not when you were at work and suddenly realize that because you did not hop on and sell ALL of your stock before heading into work that you just lost "x" hours of gathered resources cause they will be spoiled by the time you get home.
That may seem compelling on an individual level but typical enjoyment does not tend to follow that model.
Thus sooner or later everything needs replacing. Even megalithic stone circles.
I like the idea about progressive resource requirement depending on node size. Its a question of a linear or curves path IMHO.
Thats why I suggested a hysteresis loop with minor requirements at low level and massive requirement when there are 5 metropolis.
Such destruction of the lands flora and fauna would not go unnoticed nor tolerated.
Hey I totally get that everything does decay but the point I was trying to make is that it is an unneeded and would janky to balance.
If you get into the details of how those things degrade then we get into the issue of trying to justify that iron in our desert biome should last longer than those on the coast. Or that the rate of rot for Oak is different from that of Cedar. If just quickly leads to a mess of details that really will go beyond the level of engagement that a mainstream game would be targeted towards.
There are some games where that is fun and interesting but those games have not been MMOs and are designed to allow you to sit down and set your great focus to all the small details but be able to save and close when you are tired and done with them rather than having them hang over your head the whole time you are both playing and away from the game.
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I am glad you see the merit in positive controls. Let the resources last forever but create a situation where we feel compelled to spend them. Economics is the science of scarcity and how you deal with the various opportunity costs involved. So at its most basic we just have to be presented with two or more choices on how to spend the gathered resources to make things dynamic and engaging. We don't need to do so under the threat of a timer to simulate pressure.
Thats where we differ I think. I do see a need for details because those details deepen the immersion (I know the dirty word everyone hates). The level of detail required is subjective. What one thinks is too much another would say is no where near enough. Simplify everything and remove the complexity and there is quickly nothing new to learn and boredom takes hold rapidly. Its like having a Max level and then reaching that ceiling that blocks further progress because the level of detail stops there.
I agree with being compelled to spend them. Just havent seen much offered that creates that compulsion. Thats the point of the thread.