Gathering: to sparkle or not to sparkle

So I've tried asking this in a few of the Q&As to no avail so far but I was very excited by the original proposal to have a "gather" skill that you had to use and learn to recognize gatherable resources (e.g. plants). Most of the recent footage however shows the WoW like design of sparkling resources with a "press E to collect" sort of mechanic which I find very bland and boring. Now I thought I was in the majority who was excited by the gather skill but Jahlon did some stream on the Q&A forum questions and seemed very confident the majority of players would prefer the sparkles (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1001871414?filter=archives&sort=time @2:09:40). So I'm just curious how people feel, would you prefer the originally proposed gather skill where you identify resources by sight and trial&error? Or do you prefer the sparkles with "press E to gather" mechanic?

To me, learning to identify things by sight and lack of sparkles promotes exploration and makes me want to check every nook and cranny of the world, especially underwater and in caves. It would make the slower, exploration heavy play-style more rewarding and increase yield if you are attentive and not a sleep deprived zombie on the fastest mount possible running around until you see sparkles. Curious to see how people feel and if the majority (on the forums) prefer sparkles or no sparkles :P.

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Noaani

I always liked the way Elder Scrolls did harvesting, or at least harvest identification. Right back to Morrowind.

So, no sparkles gets my vote.

BigRamble

I'd like a brief sparkle to draw the eye like your character has noticed this thing.

Gathering can be a tedious activity so adding a search step hardly seams fun.

Perhaps a 'search' skill button which would cause all in vision and range to sparkle flag would keep emmersion vs function

Recluse74

Gathering is such a funny thing to me... I hate having to do it... but my OCD kicks in and I have to gather everything I see. Which is why I hate sparkles lol... Id rather not know it was there.

TriggerTec

Noaani wrote: »

I always liked the way Elder Scrolls did harvesting, or at least harvest identification. Right back to Morrowind.

So, no sparkles gets my vote.

I'm with you. That "Ah ha!" moment is always rewarding when finding a rare harvestable.

Vhaeyne

I don't need no sparkles. I got diamond eyes. I am a treasure seeking missile.
It is not about immersion for me. It is about being rewarded for paying attention vs being a mindless zombie.
Sparkles devalue the efforts people put into being good at gathering. They are bad for the games economy because they make it that much easier to gather. Which increases supply of materials and lowers their value.
Big time not a fan.

neuroguy

BigRamble wrote: »

I'd like a brief sparkle to draw the eye like your character has noticed this thing.

Gathering can be a tedious activity so adding a search step hardly seams fun.

Perhaps a 'search' skill button which would cause all in vision and range to sparkle flag would keep emmersion vs function

But you don't need to gather if you find it tedious. People will have the option to specialize in gathering, processing or production, and yes for sure you can dabble in all 3 but I don't see why gathering should come free (with sparkles). If someone invests time and resources in any of those 3 artisan trees, they should be better at it than someone who engages with it casually, if I see sparkles when I'm not even trying to gather and pick up resources for free, then gathering is by far the lowest barrier to entry of the 3 artisan trees and likely the least valuable in terms of investment to return ratio.

This is on top of a % of gatherable resources dropping/being lootable on death. This is on top of requiring transport caravans to move large stock piles of gatherables. I think if people invest in gathering, they should get a noticeable difference in return to someone who gathers what they happen upon by chance while just playing. Even without sparkles players can find/gather abundant and easy to find resources. I think many people treat gathering as a free or low/no investment process given experience in other games and I was excited that ashes might break away from that. I really hope they at least try it in alpha/beta.

The only issue I can see with lack of sparkles is that if you are going to rely on sight to identify resources you have to make sure that graphics settings (e.g. foliage) does not make a big impact on identifying said resources. I don't want to feel like I need to play on low graphics just to be optimal in finding gatherables.

Voidwalkers

Technically sparkles can be a way to model your character's gathering / resource identifying skills.

e.g.
At low level, you get no or little sparkles. Coz your character is a gathering noob and isn't very good at spotting things.
At a higher level, enable sparkles. Your character is now a gathering pro and should be able to identify useful herbs among a bush quickly.

Vhaeyne

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Technically sparkles can be a way to model your character's gathering / resource identifying skills.

e.g.
At low level, you get no or little sparkles. Coz your character is a gathering noob and isn't very good at spotting things.
At a higher level, enable sparkles. Your character is now a gathering pro and should be able to identify useful herbs among a bush quickly.

You could apply the same logic to action combat moves and have a increasingly more effective aim asset applied to your moves...

To me the more avenues for player skill to flourish the better.

Not saying one way is right or wrong. I just have a preference.

Noaani

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Technically sparkles can be a way to model your character's gathering / resource identifying skills.

e.g.
At low level, you get no or little sparkles. Coz your character is a gathering noob and isn't very good at spotting things.
At a higher level, enable sparkles. Your character is now a gathering pro and should be able to identify useful herbs among a bush quickly.

While this is true, I personally prefer to reward player observation and knowledge rather than character observation and knowledge - at least in harvesting.

Shoelid

count me in for team no sparkles. Or, at least, minimal sparkles. I think sparkles and minimap make you really not pay attention to the world around you.

Skyrim has loads of harvestables, no sparkles, and I find it fun. It engages you in the environment and gets you really involved in the environments you're exploring. Once you start noticing all the things around you, and how valuable they are, it's hard to stop collecting. It is a single player with no real incentive to grind for hours upon hours, but I think that difficulty in harvesting could be the friction and difficulty that the profession needs.

I hope they DONT do something like WoW with the minimap markers. That leads to me focusing only on the minimap, and not the environments & world I'm exploring.

tautau

Perhaps sparkles on lowest level mats, like wheat. But the gatherer who advances to level 2 also gets a sparkle on corn, level 3 sees walnuts, lvl 4 will spot a blueberry. If lvl 4 is a ranger then they can see strawberries, too. If they are a cleric, they can see herbs, like mint, with healing properties. If they are undead, they can see nordwort, which heightens undead vision. If they are a tank+wizard and lvl 4, they can spot the sparkle on Queen Anne's Lace, which makes the tank feel less pain. While an archer lvl 4 can spot a bodark tree, which makes better bows than anything else.

Sathrago

I didn't sit in front of a computer for years on end, ultimately requiring glasses for my far-sight, to have a game treat me like a blind fool.

Khronus

No sparkles would be my hope. I like the idea that someone (or even myself) can miss a gatherable because it looks like the surrounding area. I would like a pop up to tell me to gather when I am on the plant itself. Whatever would make looting the easiest for kills and gathering but yeah...without the "HEY COME OVER HERE I AM SHIIIINNNYYYYY".

neuroguy

I hesitate to agree on the "higher level gatherer = more sparkle" idea as a compromise proposed by some here. Personally I'd just rather have no sparkle ever but I understand there may need to be some compromise. If anything I think that sparkles should be resource specific. So higher level gatherers should have the capacity to get the sparkles if they farm the same thing enough. Similar to how other games do an intel/info system where the more you kill a monster the more you learn about it (e.g. its health pool etc), I think the more you gather mint or w.e, the more likely you are to get your sparkles granted some level of gathering expertise is reached. This would mean gatherables would only get sparkles if 1) you invest the gathering artisan tree and 2) you gather that particular resource enough times so master gatherers are ones who've invested the time to gather enough rare materials to get sparkles. Again, I'd like to emphasize that personally I'd rather no sparkles period.

I do think an interesting point is coming up in the thread too: do you want artisan tree specialization to make it "easier" to gather, or what I always assumed, make it more efficient/rewarding. I'd rather specialization in the artisan tree increase my yield, have some proc chance of bonus this or that or simply unlock new resources to gather but not really make it "easier" to find gatherable resources.

mcstackerson

I also really liked the original method of gathering with the cursor ability and would prefer us go back to something like that.

I think specialization and tools should allow you to gather more thing and improve yields. I think looking for resources should mostly be a player skill. Maybe gathering skill cold help you know where on the map to find certain resources.

Dygz

Really depends on how easy it is to spot the resources without sparkles.
I think Valheim does not have sparkles and hunting resources typically feels fine.

One concern I have is how to realize whether the spot just isn't the normal place to hunt or whether the spot has been recently harvested.
The other is... dedicated Crafters are not going to want to be spending "extra" time out where there is OWPvP searching every nook and cranny for something that is challenging to find.

I love exploration and look in nooks and crannies anyways. But...having to hunt nooks and crannies for something that is challenging to see is the height of boring.
I don't mind the sparkles.

Khronus

I think it would be pretty unique to allow a profession to craft a head piece that creates that sparkle. It would add more items to craft as well as allow you to recognize who is out farming like a dingus with farming gear. Easy pickings for the pvpers + quicker farming for the risk.

Shoelid

Khronus wrote: »

I think it would be pretty unique to allow a profession to craft a head piece that creates that sparkle. It would add more items to craft as well as allow you to recognize who is out farming like a dingus with farming gear. Easy pickings for the pvpers + quicker farming for the risk.

That, or a potion that creates sparkles. Spending money to gather things easier for a short amount of time seems like an interesting choice.

Oceiris

I know that at one point I really enjoyed them as I was able to quickly go out and gather what I needed, but I think between that and all of the other "quality of life" improvements made to WoW over the years just ends up making you feel like you're a zombie just running around and not putting any thought into...well, anything.

So now I've hit the other extreme of getting annoyed with it. I want to have to immerse myself in quests to figure out where to go, and if I'm gathering I want to have to actually pay attention (gasp!) to my surroundings and be on the lookout for things I need to gather.

neuroguy

Lmao @Khronus & @Shoelid , I actually would be ok with that. The potion, only if you sparkle yourself. If it puts you at more risk in order to identify gatherable resources more, I'd be down for that.

latisullivan

I've played Kingdom Come Deliverance long enough to know that I want you to sparkle like the shiniest brightest star. Lmao. That said, it makes it "unimportant". I like what you said about being a dum dum and missing the gatherable and someone else comes and it's like "joke's on you, see ya".
I'd say, make the models/colors of gatherable items pop more, so you notice it's something you can gather and not plain grass for example, but no sparkles. Perhaps carcasses and bodies can have "odor effect" around. I would also like it to be tied to the level of gathering you have.
But I also played Rohan (yes, I know) and the gatherables didn't really have anything going on for them, just was obvious positioning/models. If there were no sparkles at all, I would also be ok it with it as long as you have means to know how to look for it. For example, let's say you need sapphire. Well, you grab your "book of stones" where it tells you in what zones it MIGHT be, and what rocks can have some of it and how it looks. So you explore, and if you see a rock with blue shiny crystals, bingo.

George_Black

I give eso lots of shit because they deserve it, but I like the glow on gatherable materials. In all other games the signal is way too much and ruins immersion.

For trees however, I dont think they should have a glow. If you see a birch or a pine tree, just cut it down and get what you need.

adeluna13

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Technically sparkles can be a way to model your character's gathering / resource identifying skills.

e.g.
At low level, you get no or little sparkles. Coz your character is a gathering noob and isn't very good at spotting things.
At a higher level, enable sparkles. Your character is now a gathering pro and should be able to identify useful herbs among a bush quickly.

i really like this idea the more experienced you get at gathering naturally the better you will be at spotting gatherable items. great idea

Enigmatic Sage

No sparkles

Visual appearance should be enough to identify what you're harvesting.

Ravudha

No sparkles for two reasons:

1) The resource art (plants and ore we've seen so far) look good and unique enough to stand out to a trained eye on their own.

2) If I come across a cluster of some resource, like a field of herbs, I wouldn't want to see multiple sparkles cluttering the scene or even a few sparkles scattered around, which would look inconsistent.

Larryfine

No Sparkles - It takes away from the immersion and makes gathering too easy. Same with quest items or pick ups. No Sparkles!

neuroguy

Larryfine wrote: »

No Sparkles - It takes away from the immersion and makes gathering too easy. Same with quest items or pick ups. No Sparkles!

That's a good point, if we the questing requires us to pay attention, why wouldn't gathering?

Saedu

I'm pro-sparkles, but that's because I'd want this part of the game to go as fast as possible so I can spend more time in other more enjoyable aspects.

Sum12hate

no sparkle but possibly after reaching a certain point in one of the gathering profession highlight corresponding resource with a soft glow?

Khronus

Sum12hate wrote: »

no sparkle but possibly after reaching a certain point in one of the gathering profession highlight corresponding resource with a soft glow?

I do like the idea that each profession should have a better chance of seeing resources from their own path. They have mastered the profession after all. All trees look the same to me IRL but a lumberjack would be able to see which trees are easier/harder to cut down, spot rot or imperfections. They don't see a sparkle but they do have that built expertise. A glow would be awesome.

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