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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.
Why Gathering/Refining/Crafting Should Be High Focus
Alizee
Member
After seeing the alpha footage it appears the gathering/refining/crafting will be generic and essentially just have you press a button and wait, I think this is a bad system.
Despite what others have said, it is actually impossible to stop multi-boxing unless you have to type in your irl I.D when creating an account, and even then there are those who will find a way to abuse this. The reason people multi-box is to gain an economic advantage, I know that mouse inputs/ghost mousing will be tracked and banned if abused, along with scripts/etc... However if the main ways to gain resources has little to no APM or doesn't require you to focus on an interface to gain said resources (what it looks like to me in the video), it will not be difficult to manually do this with muti-boxing on several clients, especially if there are "veins" of resources presumable holding a high amount of that resources in an area. (Especially with the family teleport system, you would just walk around till you find a vein, then teleport 5 of your multi-boxed chars to the vein) Judging from the video It would seem you could cut a log, walk around 5-10 seconds and find another tree to cut, this will not be difficult to do on multiple clients (especially with add-ons, which again, you can't actually stop if someone knows what they're doing), the best way to stop multi-boxing abuse, is to make it as difficult as possible for someone who would multi-box for economic gain. I suggest having a UI that requires you to interact with it that either requires high focus or a level of apm that would be very difficult to pull of on two clients by a single person.
Something like for example.
Pressing a button and waiting a few seconds to gain resources, refine, or craft... is the "participation trophy" of gathering, refining, and crafting.
Despite what others have said, it is actually impossible to stop multi-boxing unless you have to type in your irl I.D when creating an account, and even then there are those who will find a way to abuse this. The reason people multi-box is to gain an economic advantage, I know that mouse inputs/ghost mousing will be tracked and banned if abused, along with scripts/etc... However if the main ways to gain resources has little to no APM or doesn't require you to focus on an interface to gain said resources (what it looks like to me in the video), it will not be difficult to manually do this with muti-boxing on several clients, especially if there are "veins" of resources presumable holding a high amount of that resources in an area. (Especially with the family teleport system, you would just walk around till you find a vein, then teleport 5 of your multi-boxed chars to the vein) Judging from the video It would seem you could cut a log, walk around 5-10 seconds and find another tree to cut, this will not be difficult to do on multiple clients (especially with add-ons, which again, you can't actually stop if someone knows what they're doing), the best way to stop multi-boxing abuse, is to make it as difficult as possible for someone who would multi-box for economic gain. I suggest having a UI that requires you to interact with it that either requires high focus or a level of apm that would be very difficult to pull of on two clients by a single person.
Something like for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YYArGhO3_EPressing a button and waiting a few seconds to gain resources, refine, or craft... is the "participation trophy" of gathering, refining, and crafting.
2
Comments
There is nothing about a tree chopping mini-game that sounds fun.
I feel like refinement of materials should also be free from this kind of unnecessary stuff. Chop the tree, get the wood, turn wood into planks. Just a time sink. You want to make the planks into a refined item? Then yes, I can see how this could be interesting as it would not just require resources, but also skill at doing the interaction to pump out a high number of quality products. But short of finished products this is a bad idea.
Agree. It's one thing to have these mini games in a single player game (like Fable) when you aren't crafting or gathering very much at all. But I can see it being a pain in the butt when it comes to being implemented in AoC.
PvX Focused & Competitive European Guild
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I feel like a lot of criticism towards active systems assumes a wow-like economy, where the only real money is made by delivering wagonloads of ore at once. In such a system, you NEED to do the same repetitive boring task 200 times so you can fill your inventory and flood the auction house with 30 stacks of copper ore. I don't know if anyone would call that fun besond the expected reward, which just stinks of bad design. If the economy depends on skinnerboxes, you almost NEED multiboxers to take the liad off of real players.
If getting resources requires more focus, but is fun in its own right, you can give a lot more to the player than a single worthless blip you need to amass for any meaningful profit. Hunting animals for pelts and other materials does this, raiding does this, pvo does this, fishing seems to go for this, so why not also make other sources of materials both more engaging AND rewarding?
If pressing E gives me 1 flower, and I can press E 10 times per minute, you could easily make it a small activity where you still get those 10 flowers per minute, but you have to do less gathering spots in total. You chop one tree for 10 wood instead of 10 trees for one wood each.
You won't be able to both gather and process materials, so if you decide to gather, you gather.
So no thank you.
If someone wants to pay intrepid another 15$ for a small economic gain or a to get banned then let them do it.
The issue with that is it's not just them paying another $15 oh well it's their money spent, it's about how it impacts the game for those of us that play legitimately.
No quick time events please.
It seems what you're speaking of is already in the game.
FF14's system is deep, but honestly super dry. A bunch of lists and numbers and chances. Good for optimising, but both unintuitive and unimmersive.
To highlight, players seem worried about which trade offs will be made in gathering/crafting between convenience and fun and whether multiboxing will give economic advantage, but I don't know if I've read a single comment in any thread about refinement. Refinement seems to have so little player interest no one is even addressing it, but it will be crucial (probably) to the overall item creation process (and therefore economy) in AoC.
In summary, I worry that regardless of mini-games, almost all players will main a gatherer to have access to raw material, almost none will make a refiner because it's an underwhelming step in the item creation process, and almost all players interested in crafting (myself included) will do so with an alt character since it will be mechanically more beneficial to leave the crafter at home base.
Some players, myself included in other games, actually enjoy the mundane task of gathering or even processing materials. It is a type of task that is calming if not soothing. For players like us, we love to turn on our favorite song or playlist and hit the road searching for our next ore to mine or tree to cut. There is no need to add a mini game to a system that is mundane. I don’t want to complicate a simple system just because it isn’t flashy enough for some players. There is a level of enjoyment in every system of a game and sadly there is zero ways to make each one a 10/10 on the enjoyment level for every single person. If you don’t like to gather materials because it isn’t visually stimulating enough, hire a player who likes doing it for you.
I totally get that mindset, just putting on music and doing stuff that by itself isn't all that interesting. I do it all the time for punching trees in minecraft. I zen out and take down half a forest.
But, at the same time, something like "E" just feels so damn unsatisfying. The whole aligning yourself for the prompt to show up, like a car doing parallel parking, feels like bad design. Or doing a back-and-forth dance because you're too far away, now you're too close, now you're too far again, now it works, nope was turned too far left, it's just too much. Some real deep frustrations coming up here, lol.
I would never want to take away the simplicity, the ability to just zone out and go for gathering, I just think other games did it better.
That part I do agree with you on. I would prefer something like Ark where you have to have the tool equipped in your hand to gather. Maybe a small change like that would turn more people onto the gathering process. You can't accidentally gather a material if you don't have that tool equipped and it adds a small element of risk v.s. reward because you no longer have your main weapon in your hand in case someone jumps you.
Processing/crafting will lend themselves to some sort of mini game/process that can be concentrated on as both of these will take place in freeholds and or towns/cities. Freeholds I don't think you can be attacked thus are safe and towns/cities there will be guards other players who would be quite the deterrent to someone attacking you.
IS said several months ago in a live stream that gathering was going to be kept simple as they realised that many people use or view gathering as more of a relaxing time to not fully concentrate.
Most gatherers (hopefully) will not be crafters. Most gatherers are just wanting to make a quick easy buck while adventuring, something to supplement their income. Add a mini game, you will alienate those peeps who don't want to play that style, and less gatherables will be collected.
Keep your mini games in your pants. 😜
I can't help but wonder if animal husbandry will be just a mount breeding system or will you be able to breed beasts of burden and livestock for consumption?
Cow = meat, milk, leather. Goats = milk meat. Sheep= wool, meat ect.
A minigame to catch a horse or a griffin would be fine. Breeding them eh... Not so much.
Gathering is basically Easter egg hunting. Don't need any meta games added to that. Especially in a pvp setting.
Enchanting will have a risk of destroying an item. Slap a wonky quick time event in the mix things would get toxic real fast.
I would rather be able to acquire better tools and crafting stations for enhanced effects over wondering if I didn't get the proc cause I didn't minigame hard enough.