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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.
Comments
The devs are probably also considering that not everyone have young, sharp eyes on perfectly color calibrated 4K monitors. Slightly bad vision, different types of color blindness, and low graphics settings are all factors the devs are likely to consider.
Finally, as this game is an RPG and not a competitive First Person Flower Picker (FPFP), the player skill has to take a backseat to character skills. I think there should be a bonus to spotting flowers at high character skill levels, because of the genre of the game.
Personally, my FPPM (flower picks per minute) game is pretty strong. Decent hardware, decent vision, 4K monitor. I'll be ok without sparkles. But as I said before, this is not an FPFP game, it's first and foremost an MMORPG.
I'd prefer a glow or something more toned down than loud sparkles though. Or do like in some games where you hold down a key and gatherables light up.
As you progress in the gathering skill, the various nodes start to show up on your compass (they don't have a mini map, its more like Elder Scrolls).
When resources initially become available to be visible on your compass, you have to be really close for it to point you. As you progress more and more, you start getting them added to the compass from further away.
It's immersive since it's not a glowy cluster of sparkles in the open world, and it ties into the player's progression through the skill.
As others have said, having stuff on your minimap, takes away from the immersion and makes you able to ignore looking at the world. I'd rather be forced to be attentive than just running aimlessly until my compass/minimap shows something.
1. If a player enjoys that exploration and testing of the "gather" skill on random foliage (assuming it is implemented) to give them sparkles is a strange reward as it changes the experience they enjoyed in the first place to invest in the gathering tree. At least speaking for myself personally, I would be unlikely to invest as much time and effort in gathering if there are sparkles, so to give me sparkles as a reward feels very strange and I'd feel obligated to use it for efficiency but would enjoy the thing I'm investing into less. In general I think it is a bad idea to reward investment in some skill/action by completely changing the experience or gameplay loop of that skill/action.
2. My investment in the gathering tree should reward me with bonuses to gathering that those who did not invest cannot gain. If someone does indeed have "sharp eyes on perfectly color calibrated 4K monitors" as @Nerror put it, perhaps they would operate nearly as efficient as me without investing into the gathering artisan tree's sparkles or they would see little gain from doing so. I am much more in favor of investment in the gathering artisan tree to reward you with bonuses to gaining extra gatherables from nodes, chance to proc rare gathering mats, even unlocking the capacity to gather things otherwise not gatherable (maybe some herbs are too delicate to remove from the ground if you don't have the right training/skill).
3. Investment in the gathering artisan tree will likely require some time investment doing the actual gathering. If people are already doing a lot of gathering, their eyes will get trained to be sensitive to the gatherable resources on screen (sparkle or not) which is easy to prove, just think about the first hour vs the 100th hour you played an elderscrolls game. On top of that, they would start to catch on to where some resources are more likely to be, like mushrooms that grow on tree trunks may be more likely to be on the trunk of fallen trees. So wether you like it or not, you will gain player skill (as opposed to character skill) in gathering by sheer virtue of investing time in it. To then 'reward' you for your investment that gained you the player skill already by removing the need for it is very strange indeed. Normally you have to find ways to get people to want to invest in something and gain a player skill, so why would you take the player-base that already invested in gathering and already developed those skills and negate their earned skill? It would remove some of the satisfaction and pride of learning to be a good gatherer (training your eyes and understanding of spawn probabilities).
*bonus reason: I think it will be harder for bots to gather without sparkles.
As I have said, it's not a mini-map
The argument still stands, a compass is still part of the HUD and just like a minimap, takes away the focus from looking at the actual world. Also having the player automatically track nearby resources takes away from the sense of exploration in the game. I'd rather be encouraged to look in every nook and cranny without some waypoint on a compass or minimap showing me the way.
I think subtlety is key, such that your minimap and/or hub isn't a massacre of glowing spots. I'm really hoping the professions are well done though, regardless - Getting lost in artisanship is so underrated.
(I'm aiming to be a crafter after all, and gathering prob~ably shouldn't be my concern, but I remember how annoying the Sungrasses back in WoW are - it's a tiny little yellow herb that blend in extremely well with regular grasses, that I could be standing exactly on the spot as suggested by "track herbs" skill and still not able to find it.)
Sparkles -> gathering made easier / more efficient -> more supply
no Sparkles -> the opposite
The nightmare scenario for me would be:
1. Resources have no sparkles and blend in soooooo well with the environment that only highly experienced players (or a well-trained convolutional neural network) can spot it quickly without having to wave the mouse pointer blindly around the screen hoping to trigger a mouseover effect/tooltip that reveals the resource.
2. Low supplies coz gathering is hard.
3. Crafting recipes are tuned under the assumption of abundant resources. Demand is high.
4. Low supplies + high demands = sky high prices.
5. ppl who DON'T enjoy playing "spot the herb" have to go out into the woods and play exactly that game, coz they can't find the resource they want on market for a reasonable price.
Well said, You understand the topic perfectly when it comes to supply and demand.
I would just say that your nightmare scenario is my dream scenario. I want gathering to be hard, and things to be expensive. For me that makes gathering seem like a rewarding use of my time. Gathering is so easy in some games yes so valueless I don't want to do it. There is just such little return for my efforts.
I am not say one of our preferences is right or wrong. Hopefully there is a sweet spot that satisfies both of us.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Except, in real life, it makes sense that as you progress in a skill, you become more adept at it, and might even get some specialized tools to help you.
An RPG finds for different ways to represent/approximate those skills... usually through numbers.
Having a compass that shows resources only to those who have progressed highly enough to see them... it represents in an "RPG" fashion your improvement at this particular skill... you aren't wandering around aimlessly in tall brush looking for a flower anymore, you have a general sense of the direction if you are close.
So it not only makes sense... its *better* and *more immersive* than not having anything because it tangibly ties to the player's effort and progression.
Often have you heard that told.
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold.
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscrolled
Fare you well. Your suit is cold—
— William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 7
New World did their gathering a little more subtly, and great sounds to compliment!
Right, but you don't need to emulate becoming more adept, players will literally get better as they invest time and advance in the gathering artisan tree anyways. People's eyes will sensitize to the resources they gather, and just like skyrim, you'll recognize things a lot easier, but I've already explained all of that.
I think all of this ties into what @Voidwalkers said in the 5th point they brought up:
I think it really depends on AoC's gathering+crafting philosophy. If they expect, or even want players to treat gathering as a purely economic activity, i.e. collecting resources to feed the crafting supply chain OR if they decide to make the act and mechanics of the gathering and crafting to be enjoyable and skill-based themselves. If it is the former, we would expect a lot of players to engage with gathering who will likely want to be as efficient in their economic activity as possible which means the sparkles will be a good reward for the progression, as much as I hate the idea.
If however, they want to make the gathering + crafting stand on their own and have merit, I do think not having sparkles is the right move. People will get better through engagement and time investment and will be engaging with crafting because of how it feels, so if gathering doesn't start off with sparkles, it should not gain sparkles as you get better.
I do understand a sizable population will only be used to and expecting the spot the herb on your minimap and gather the sparkling plant, but a sizable population who will try this game will also not want OW-PVP. I do hope they stick to their vision, which they initially described as no sparkles with the aoe 'gather' skill.
I'm not at all worried about low supply, I think if they include gathering even once in the alphas or betas, they will get a reasonable gauge of how much people will gather. I am actually more worried about too much supply if some visual settings can make gatherable items way too obvious.
In general, the whole sparkle problem is only applicable to plants. Ores will likely be visually distinct and occur in veins, trees... well trees are big and obvious and look silly with sparkles. Just to give you an idea of how things look with sparkles in terms of density of gatherable plants etc, this is the pre-alpha footage (
Seeing it now I am a little disgusted by it. I have no immersion argument here, it just looks too easy for my taste.
It's actually less risk vs reward. If every gatherable on the map is that easy to spot than I don't risk wasting much time gathering. Not having them sparkle means I might miss some which is a more risky way to spend my time. The sparkles do seem to go against the philosophy of the game in this way.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Good design by color, shape, type alone should be sufficient.
I think from memory there were a couple of unique types in NW & ESO that even made a distinct sound when in near proximity.
Sparkles is a bit of blunt solution, quite easily tackled other ways.
That argument though, is debatable imo.
In any rpg, your character's capabilities and skills has to be abstracted & modelled in some way - swordsmanship skills as damage multiplier, critical chance, hit chance; craftsmanship skills as ... skill level and stats (coz iirc crafting is likely to be one-click in Ashes, unless they change their mind and implement crafting mini games); and I think the character's ability to locate & identify resource is just yet another such aspect that could be abstracted and emulated.
This might sound like strawman but, we'd expect high level / skill mage characters to have a shorter casting time, but we'd probably never expect the actual players to become skilled at tongue twisters (coz that's what spell chanting is) to play high level mages. Player-skill-wise we'd only expect high level mage players to know the effects & restrictions of their spells better, and be able to cast the right spell at the right time.
And the similar argument could be applied to other combat classes & crafting professions as well.
I would question what makes "gatherable resource identification" an exception, that it should remain a purely player-skill?
Speaking of sweetspot & supply-demand.
Most mmos would have "common" (iron etc.) resources and "rare" (fantasy magical metals & gems etc.) resources. I'd imagine they could make common resources easy to spot & gather, while making the rare resources hard to find and/or even require a trick or two to gather.
That should help contribute towards the sweetspot.
I also wonder how would rare resources be used in Ashes.
imo the bad way to use rare resources would be making them a requirement in too many recipes, e.g. making an iron sword require 10 iron bars & 1 gem to craft.
I'd rather see rare resources being used as "enhancements" that significantly boosts the quality of crafted items (e.g. 10 iron bars = iron sword, 10 iron bars + 1 gem = better iron sword, key being the gem is optional), and only used as requirements in the highest level of recipes.
Ohhh man, there was one particular dungeon in ESO that had about 300 tiny urns in it, that may or not may not have contained something like 1gp or a bone. I spent hours in there....
I would see that as a fair compromise.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=B8HT8aUb5q4
Later health bars became common as a solution to show how much health a mob had.
As a result of many games over many years doing this, that approach became the norm.
I will go out on a limb here and suggest the original intention to show the health remaining of a mob has become somewhat lost as back when that approach first started it was a solution likely driven but what was possible, not what was desirable.
Nowadays, were the games a much more visually sophisticated and capable, it is a shame that those health bars and the like cannot be dispensed for design that evolves to encompass more current technical capabilities rather than the norm of compromised past design decisions.
From the 9:50 mark
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9YFJEMyPyHA&t=593s
Reminds me of alllllllllllllll those destroyable, mostly useless urns / jars that I came across in diablo 3 ...
They very very very rarely drop something useful, but yet I couldn't stop wasting time breaking / opening them whenever I saw them ........
Please, Ashes, no pointless urns in dungeons.
Going a bit off on a tangent, I find it completely immersion-breakingly stupid that not all trees are choppable, with the possible exception of those inside nodes that are mainly there to look good.
Well, not all wood is good for use as a building material, so maybe you're just finding out the ones that are.
Some of these Immersion guys would chop down a cactus and build a painful house out of that just to feel the sweet sweet feelings of immersion.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Rather, it is - to people that plan to spend most of their time harvesting - a Third Person Flower Picker (TPFP).
No self respecting flower picker would pick flowers in a first person view.
You know that isn't allowed on these forums!
If you can pick at least 15 FPM you can't be in my top gathering guild.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I defy anyone to find a thread that I've been a part of that didn't go off on a tangent!
Now, which is better: Pie or Cake?!
Well, not necessarily an exception but here are 2 reasons:
1. Your dps, crit chance and hit chance don't fundamentally change your gameplay loop in combat while having sparkles or things showing up on your minimap/compass when there was no such indicators before does change the gathering gameplay loop. Now if you enjoyed the initial gameplay loop it would not be good for it change (while admittedly if you didn't, you may welcome the change).
2. You don't need to increase damage, attack speed, crit chance, hit chance, weapon range and every other way of showing character's growth in combat every time you level up. You can pick a few and let the rest be dependent on gear, or buffs or other sources. Similarly, you don't need to increase gathering yield, detection range, detection ease etc and can pick one or two. You can simply choose to omit "gatherable resource identification" for reason 1 above and abstract gathering skill by enhancing another aspect of gathering (e.g. yield) instead.