Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
1.
Pls dont show an clean cut or an cut on the wrong hight compared to your character.
2.
pls let an tree make damage to enemys or players that depends on how big the tree is when its falling on someone.
3.
To avoid bot using better, just let the plants/trees regrowth in an specific "area" not exactly on the same coordinates. so no one can use in his bot program this coordinates AND the visuals are changing a little every time people have cut down things.
4.
Pls let us see where the player has hit the tree, when an gun in other games makes an bullet decal texture we can have an decal cut texture where the axe is hitting the trees.
5.
when an tree was cut down it is very unpleasant to see it just disappear,
a) we must cut it in smaller pieces
b) or we see the tree molders really fast, like fist all leaves fall down than small branches fall down than the trunk falls apart, the stump needs more time than the other parts, first he gets grey,than moss and mushrooms grow over it and than he shrinks to nothing, but the mushrooms and green moss/grass textures stay. this can happen in like 30min and it can be animations not physic like.
6.
Some kind of Plants/trees should be only cut able on higher levels, you need an higher level skill,tool and you need to find this kind of plants and trees.
7.
When an tree falls it needs an deep brooom sound, more dust/dirt that gets tossed away AND when some kind of tree fall in water pls let us see some waves AND splash effects.
Mining:
1.
there should also be some "rocks" that are so loaded with resources you can literary see what kind of resources are in them, BUT they are more rare AND you also need higher skill and tool level to broke them open.
rest was ok.
Stuff:
1.
Heavy fighting should have an effect on trees/plans and rocks to the can be cut down or be broken but give very far less resources this way.
2.
Specific animals/monsters should mine and harvest too, why ? because its immersive AND it would be logical to find some resources at the bodys of an animal/monster that you kill.
To add to this thought, how will citizens of a particular node be able to "defend" their nodes environmental health from players who are not citizens of that node if they are not flagged for pvp?
Simply put get off my land or I will murder you... This should not result in corruption.
For example, I can go harvest from other nodes resources but while doing so I am flagged purple, and players can attempt to stop me without getting corruption debuff's. IE: I am trespassing of foreign lands and as a result the citizens of that node and npcs can kill me without repercussions. Case in point I am stealing from their resource pool, and I am in fact a criminal, so they have to right to kill me...
Speed of gather seemed a little fast, having it a bit slower may allow a bit more interruptions/contesting over a node and allow surveying be useful. Also just looks weird cutting down a massive tree in a few swings.
Have dynamic respawn placement of nodes if possible.
Surveying:
Good idea but comes down to tuning. If gathering speed is to quick, no point just surveying just gather everything.
Land management:
Needs controls by the mayor to force a poaching control state. Two level of poaching control, one for non-node citizens, another one for any citizen.
Poachers could be flagged for free for all pvp for a very short time after initiating a illegal harvest. Should not know it’s happening unless you are in visual range.
Poaching should not contribute tax to the nearest node so there’s a deterrent to enabling it.
-For me gathering should provide the foundation for pretty much the entire economy of the game and thus a huge emphasis needs to be placed on making sure certain basic resources are readily available to meet the high demands of systems such as repairing, caravans, node sieges, and ship building. At the same time rare resources should be just that, sought after and fought over. These rare resources should be able to spawn all over the map in many random locations so no one entity can totally monopolize the resource across the whole server. EVE online does this very well because the world is so incredibly vast in EVE that it makes trying to control the whole server a logistical nightmare which means logistics in general are important.
-I appreciate the detail and hard work put in to make the sounds, animations, and overall visuals of gathering more satisfying, if this can be done and further improved upon without impacting performance too heavily then that is awesome.
-I like the idea of not knowing what is inside of rocks before you crack them open however I can see this becoming tedious. I recommend weighting spawns in specific locations to be more likely to contain certain types of ore rather than a completely random distribution which in addition to the surveying mechanic would give players enough agency to effectively locate the types of ore they want to gather while putting in just that little bit of extra effort.
-Regarding the land/ecosystem management system this is where most of my concerns lie, I imagine all players running across the land like a swarm of locusts and I seriously doubt any player is going to think. "Well I wanted to chop down that tree for gathering experience, material, etc but instead I won't because of the land score." I just don't see any player doing this, all I see is every zone having its score effectively reduced to zero at all times. This may be mitigated by having many more ways to improve the score through quests or other means, but these means must also be rewarding in of themselves to incentivize doing them frequently and continually. I see the potential for this to create the sort of "soft friction" that is sought after by Steven however I wonder if there is a better way without punishing players for playing how they would naturally.I had heard Ultima tried to implement a system like this, I imagine the team is examining what happened and learning from it. In any case I look forward to testing this system.
-One thing I really liked about Final Fantasy 14's gathering system is how being a gatherer felt like a class of its own, you had unique abilities, quests and characters all focused on "being a miner" or "being an herbalist" etc. World of Warcraft also had softer examples of this in the past where having a certain level in herbalism for example could give you a unique heal over time spell. I appreciate things like that even if they are just superficial or situationally useful. I also really enjoy when gatherers (and processors/crafters) can work together to unlock PVE events, such as the gates of AQ in World of Warcraft. Obviously these are examples from theme park style MMO's but I think they can be adapted to fit into Ashes of Creation's design.
Thanks for taking the time to read my feedback and thank the dev team for working so hard to make this game.
Maybe it would be fun to include gold panning? Maybe for a Team of 2 Players?
Have a good time and so long
Would there be environmental griefers? How would we deal with them? And, how can players help restore an environment if it has been “destroyed” such as deforestation? It would also be nice to have information on how we can help an environment flourish in general, and how would we know the status of an environment and what that environment needs specifically in order to remain healthy.
Something else that would be neat is to have something like fissures gradually increasing every time you hit a rock, so it shows you are actively mining it. Same with trees: it would be nice if there would be indents or something along those lines that increase every time you hit a tree with an axe until it falls down.
Another thing I would like to touch on is the trees themselves. It would be nice to have more variation with trees, as I noticed they all look very similar with the exception being the size. Now, I am sure there will be more variety with trees down the line, but I wanted to throw it out there just in case.
The last thing I wanted to discuss is the transition animations such as when the character starts and stops gathering, as well as going onto the mount. Something that would help with the immersion is having a smooth and more realistic transition such as an animation between these actions, instead of the character snapping back into the default stance. An example for the mount would be having an animation to get on the mount, as well as get off the mount (dismounting). I am sure this will also be a thing in the future since everything is still in progress, but again, I just wanted to bring it up.
Overall, things are looking truly amazing and I am looking forward to seeing the gem that this game will undoubtedly become.
Ofcourse needs some tweaking with the "clear cut"
Also the "THUMP" sound when the tree is landing should also be louder (louder based on size)
Same with the cracking sound
One problem i can see with the mining node system is that hacks.
If anyone that played EverQuest remembers "Odins Eye"
A hack that showed what every enemy in the area was carrying and their location.
I can see some "X-Ray" hack beeing made to find the rarest minerals.
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- I want gathering to have that deep analogous feeling of playing lottery. Cutting down lowest level trees, you know they're the lowest level trees that drop the lowest level materials, BUT... There is that addictive glimmer of hope it might drop something godly. Now, instead of cutting down the lowest level tree for lowest level materials, there's that burning desire, a hope it might drop the thing that makes you feel something you rarely get to feel in life. On top of that, once it happens and it does miraculously drop, you feel like everything all of a sudden came together, you hit the jackpot, after cutting and cutting, all that effort, it now feels it was for something greater. And now you have to pretend you only cut the lowest level trees and got the lowest level materials, and make your way back to the storage, again, hoping nobody will bother you and steal it. The thrill of that. That feeling on top of that other feeling. So many games miss this. What gives, right? Well, they put that feeling in the cash shop instead. What a shame.
- If surveying means that it locates the tree, it locates the rock node, then fine, but if it also identifies what's hidden in that tree, in that rock, then there's a risk that it feels almost the same as using a cheat in a singleplayer game on your first playthrough. It feels like it takes away from the mystery, the aforementioned hope. If cutting down a tree, if mining that rock, itself felt satisfying, surveying renders that activity now almost meaningless, a mundane task. It's like having an oracle nearby who can tell you exactly what's going to happen in your future. If you don't go, the need to know will eat away at you. If you go and find out eeverything, life itself might lose all purpose ...Very dramatic, yes.
- I read that one mmorpg already did that and it failed miserably. But then I saw this. That means, if you did it right, it can work. If it works, me likes.
- Rust gathering felt amazing. The sensation you get from exploring and coming across the good stuff almost randomly. The thrill of harvesting it while hoping nobody sees you before you're done. Not to mention, the gathering act itself was done well, impactful. That feeling of being on the edge when you run with all that good stuff back to your safe space (base) and gloriously put it inside your storage box. You do it over and over, and it feels like you're working towards something as it accumulates in your boxes. You have more and more options as it accumulates. At that point that imagination itself becomes a part of that whole experience, only feeding into it. And the fact that you now feel it's something you must protect or risk starting all over should you fail to protect it. You could store as much as you like, whenever you liked... And the more you did, the more you wanted and needed to protec (in this analogy, you'd feel more inclined to protect the node city your valuables are stored in).
- Cut on the tree trunk was too clean (a work in progress, I assume).
- Animations were expectedly unpolished (needs more feeling of force behind it).
- Tree cutting, falling, and rock mining sounds didn't feel nearly as godly as in New World (again, I know...).
- Kind of off topic, but I've noticed it more and more... The overall colors were dim and depressing. I wish the game had more vibrant-colored exotic environments. A good healthy mix to choose from. Maybe a time of weather where no clouds, no fog, just sunshine is there that makes the world come alive for a brief moment at the very least. It's literally a wet soggy mess of a dull British weather 24/7 by the looks of it, every single time there's a showcase as of late, where sunny is not sunny and winter is only the black one, not wintery enough, with maybe only an extra thin layer of snow at most...
Some ramblings of a brainstorm splattered against the wall before bedtime. Enjoy, I guess.
One thing that I keep thinking about though is that visual fidelity doesn't necessarily make a beautiful game. Guild Wars 2 for example has relatively very low system requirements but is just a stunning game because of the incredible painterly art style. When you're going for hyper-realism you really have to nail it or it quickly starts to look dated. There are a few things I noticed in the gathering stream in particular. The tree felling looks amazing, kudos on that. I did notice though, that as soon as the tree begins to fall in the winter season it instantly gains a dusting of snow on one side of the tree, which looks cool while it's on the ground but given how quickly the tree decays it's not at all realistic unless you're in a heavy blizzard. Also the harvesting of flowers really triggered my OCD, while the inclusion of petal physics is cool it seems really unnecessary and even jarring. If I'm gathering petals I don't hack at them til they scatter across the ground, I would be a lot more careful. It kinda looks like you've just destroyed the flower and left it there to rot. Just my 2 cents, I know this is all very early stage and I'm sure there's a lot you want to refine anyway. As I said, love what you guys are doing. Keep up the amazing work!
• I'd love to see the tree stumps remain for about a few days (or a week) before the new tree begins to grow.
• The randomness to the mining is wonderful! Hopefully we'll also have actual mines that can be found (or created?) to tap into ore veins.
• Harvesting plants: Looks good. I love the idea of seasonal harvests as well (this is something I also recommended for "rare" hunting targets such as deer or bears)
Things I'd like to see improved:
• Dropping the tree should be one half of the lumber harvesting process. The second half should be to "chop up" the grounded tree. I understand this would take additional time to harvest, but the yields could be tweaked accordingly AND it could work beautifully in a co-op scenario of friends helping to slay the tree. I think this extra time is important considering the environmental impact that tree clearing can have (as mentioned on stream).
• It looked like there were a lot of other flora items (like mushrooms) that did not appear to be harvest-friendly... can that be changed? It would be incredible to walk around and if you see something you can "collect" it.
• Are the "large" rock formations able to be mined? I hope so!
I'm still eagerly awaiting the animal hunting/harvesting, but so far I think you're all on the right track.
Many thanks for sharing [monthly] with us!
~Ark
Look and feel. In the end you are simply collecting pixels but I want to feel like I'm actually performing the task (ie mining a rock, chopping a tree).
How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
Surveying should do two things:
1) Allow those with the skills and time invested to pinpoint exact resources (meaning common).
2) Be a gate-keeper to high end material access. Surveying should be required to get the best harvestable materials.
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
Love it. I'm sure it will need testing and iteration but having resource location and quantity change with seasons and player activity is the perfect way to go.
Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online. Both had resources that took effort or planning to gather, with more common stuff easy to acquire. SWG had the added feature of resources varying in value and location over time. This seem to be the direction you are taking so I'm excited to test it.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
I'm excited about the node physics shown in the video. I want to make a visible impact on the world at all times.
I'm concerned with the short amount of time it took for the resource "corpses" to disappear. I know it was said that they were speeding things up for the demo but it was not clear if that meant everything or just the regrowth cycle. I would definitely want the fallen trees and spent rock piles to stay visible in the game for several minutes after the node is harvested.
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
The above is an important point, there is a tension created between node progression via gathering Xp and over use of the land through the land management system. Does this lead to mob grinding being the optimal way to gain Xp for your zone?
Nodes need both XP and materials to build out / develop a node is my understanding.
So in the situation of competeing neighbouring nodes, citizens might want to overfarm resources in the opposing node, inadvertently boosting the xp of the opposing node but reducing the opposing nodes easy access to materials. So what will be the bottleneck to progression: materials or xp?
Which it is might determine the player behaviour.
What recourse do players have if their node is being overfarmed by an opposing suedo faction? Is their only choice to flag up and corrupt themselves?
Furthermore considering vassal nodes sitting at the borders of larger 'nations' have their XP capped or it simply flows up towards their leige node, wont they become a prime target for overfarming. As both the leige node isnt worried about xp boosting a competitor, but they also have an interest in denying vulnerable border resources from enemy incursion by opposing 'nations'. Maybe that would be an intended function of conflict.
Given resources are intended to be regionalised (and follow some aspect of supply and demand?) Becoming more valuable when sold in far away lands. Would the landmanagement system simply be used by players to create further artificial scarcity of resources which they are looking to control by over extracting them, further reducing their supply and opportunites for other to sneak through and break their monopoly.
In general there is a huge risk of the tragedy of the commons playing out, particularly for less organised player nodes. (Without the predominants of a large guild disciplining against over extraction for example). Does this become a dimension of 'win more' for the organised and is that desirable? What in game systems would enable suedo factions not inside a discord call together to coordinate or enforce land management?
How will over extraction be determined given player populations on a server particularly in regards to peak and non peak times of day? Will peak time always threaten over extraction while off peak never effects it? Is it determined by activity over a 24 hour period?
In a vaccuum I think I like the land management system, particularly where it may enable players to make choices around cultivating certain resources to the detriment of others, such as in the predator vs. prey animal example.
I just have concerns about this added layer of varriance and complexity when it come to the balancing of the world economy. Keeping materials production somewhat in line with the resources destruction through sinks, an already difficult thing to balance given unpredictable player behaviour, just became even more difficult.
This untop of seasons already adding to that varriance.
Making all of these chase items horizontally or vertically useful aswell and not redundant.
There is a somewhat exponential nature to the complexities of these intersecting systems.
I love hearing from the intrepid team - it just shows the game is in good hands when we can hear what you guys are thinking about!
- "see a tree, chop a tree" - makes the world more interactable
- trees have growth stages - creates sense of anticipation
- swapping the static mesh for a skele one is so simple but so genius and the overall effect with the canopy collisions is quite believable! Great job - can't wait to see it after polish
- sfx so juicy!
Are there any benefits in letting a tree grow old? (Are there any rare animals that only spawn in dead tree hollows? Or are there specific uses for chopping down dead trees? ((high quality firewood?))) Will an old tree "fall over" of its own accord if left for too long?(Can we have a "tree of life" PoI? Could it have a magical effect on local trees/plants?)
Tree chopping duration - what is the base "chopping time" going to be compared to 2 maxxed out lumberjacks with a dual saw? I'm worried because the demo'd chop time was shorter than what I expected - I fear deforestation could become an easy "node offense" strategy?
An alternative to faster chopping animation could be increased stacking limit in your inventories - so that specialized harvesters can stay in the forest longer, spending less time on the round trip?
Fallen Trees creating road-blockages - yes or no?
I love that we don't know what's inside the rock until it's cracked open - it induces curiosity (and low-key triggers the dopamine cycle).
When you create different types of rocks, please design the visuals in a way that intuitively communicates the "hardness" of a rock - e.g. brown clayish rocks are easy to break, black crystaline rocks can only be cracked open by specialists. This kind of visual progression is really good for teasing young harvesters with later-game content - if you do this, can we have a set of animations for the harvester's pick bouncing off a rock that is beyond their league? A similar "try again when you're stronger" animation would be great for the other gathering professions too.
OR ALTERNATIVELY:
consider designing rock variety depending on specializations. E.g. some materials that can only be found in softer clays that require gentle expertise to extract with care, vs extremely hard rocks that require a different type of expertise just to crack it open. This would give you room to have subspecialties within gathering professions - e.g. some miners who specialize in extraction from veins, others who specialize in extraction from geodes.
I really like the idea of a buffer system that changes in response to player activity. I REALLY want it to work, despite what UO tried.
I BELIEVE IN YOU INTREPID - With a little testing, you can be the "young whippersnapper who comes along and proves [Richard] wrong"!
However - an observation, using Richard's analogy:
- High level players who want to fight wolves will need to protect rabbit population
- Low level players who cannot fight wolves want to murder rabbits
- this means vets and newbies will not mingle well
My suggestion is to step away from hierarchical buffer systems, and toward cyclic buffer systems.
e.g.
Hierarchical:
Harvest Vegetation => Less rabbits (consequently => Less wolves)
Kill rabbits => Less wolves, more vegetation
Kill wolves => more rabbits (consequently => less vegetation)
SUM EFFECT: no wolves
Cyclic:
Harvest Vegetation => More wolves
Kill wolves => More rabbits
Kill rabbits => more harvestable vegetation
SUM EFFECT: net 0, perfectly balanced, as all things should be. It would mean that the ecosystem goes through phases of overpopulation, which ideally cycles the types of players in the area, but it also means the ecosystem can never be truly barren.
Another suggestion - invert the order of interaction with land-score (landscore becomes a bonus incentive system, rather than a deteriorating punishment system):
- Assume land score is always 0 by default - (set to whatever base state you decide)
- Players pay the local node gold/materials (or participate in some other game system such as a group quest) to boost the landscore ++ BEFORE they start using it
- Players consume the landscore until it returns to 0
This way, ecological warfare doesn't really work because landscore is already at 0 if it isn't being used. It also means citizenless hobos can leave a trail of destruction without impacting local land score.I like that surveying is intended for advanced gatherers.
Is surveying an individual activity? Would you consider making it a group activity? (socialization ++)
Useless Materials - we will inevitably run into issues of oversupply of certain types of materials (probably rabbit pelts) which means rabbits will become ignored. Can I suggest designing recipes not just with specific item requirements but also general categories? E.g. Winter Earmuff recipe: 20 leather[any] + 2 wood [any] + 12 Berrynut Husks. The resulting item could have its stats adjusted according to whether it was made with rabbit leather or wolf leather or aligator leather. This would allow flexibility with "high production" recipes so they can take advantage of over-supplies in the market as substitute materials.
Gathering vs Farming - given there are seasonal wildflowers/berries/applebushes, how do you expect this to influence farming practices? Will we derive/refine new crops from the wild? Will farmers be able to grow wildflowers with greater efficiency to compete directly with wild gatherers (Or even indirectly, such as applebushes vs peach trees)? Could farmers grow trees for more lumber?
Main thing I would wish to change, is the sound of falling tree hitting the ground, which ever recorded sound of a falling tree hitting the ground, does not even get close to the real life sound. When a huge falling tree hits the ground in real life, its almost like a thunderclap, it is incredibly loud, and very impactful. I feel like the current sound we have, needs to be changed drastically.
Say if you have a VERA which is being overrun by the same enemies, what's to say the dev's could slow down the growth rate of their land they control & speed up the growth rate of the struggling ones.
Very little
Now for visual fidelity and this thought: YES, Red dead redemption 2 :
From two aspects:
- Sound and Physics (especially for huge trees that hit and bounce to the ground and the sound of creaking when falling), video example:
- Tree cutting and the random shape of the trunk after cutting, video example:
(straight shape when cut with a saw by two people), and ( Oblique shape if cut by one person with the axe)
Only Cons i have is it looked like there were alot of rocks about, now i know it may be just for the demo and is subject to change but looked like every 3 feet you had something to smack, trees i know are abundant and dont look out of place but random rock piles seemed to stick out to me while watching. Also, i would like to see a balanced approach with all the other crafting and processing skills. What i mean is I dont want to see a Jack of all trades being able to gather, process, and craft at high/end game levels. Meaning that they are able to gather themselves, process, and graft all the best things. This would take away from the MMO "feel" of needing people in all three skills trees to be around and active.
What i mean by Balanced is, if i want to master crafting, but also want to gather i should be able to focus most of my points/efforts into my master tree but also still be able to go out and gather either for fun or some base income. Now that does foster a "stealing" of recourses from those master gathers, but sometimes being able to go out and smack a tree would be a nice way to vibe out for a bit.
What aspects of the gathering system are important to you? Sounds, sights, feeling. these are all important with gathering as they allow you to really feel alive and part of the game as you gather up everything you need. Balance of how many rocks are in a given area. Not over crowding the landscape with gathering node placement that takes away from the great game you have made. Love the season impact on items.
How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system? THIS is such a cool idea and love it. It is making me re think what id like to master from a skills tree perspective. It also promotes social gathering as you could maybe have a gathering master buddy with a surveying master buddy working together to map out and gather in the most effective way. I could see it now, Master surveyor spots out and area, 3 master gathers go to work, while 3 PVP protectors wait for anyone who would think to ambush the workers.
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system? This is a great idea but, could lead to people mis using it also. I like the idea of going to an area where a rival guild is before a guild war and strip mining the rocks and trees from their area to impact deff capabilities, but also can see how this could quickly become toxic. I would like to see a system in place that would allow a mayor or lord to see a ECO report for their area and be able to notify people that "trees" are at a low level and need to pause all harvesting of lumber for 1 hr. OR a public board that shows you what is being harvest at a higher rate than other items so if your going out you know not to touch them.
Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways? NW had it very well done as i explained above.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system? All of this is in the above.
The Wolves of Verra
are recruiting: https://discord.gg/4bFySwxS
The physics of the trees/branches hitting an obstacle still looks a bit wobbly but it already looks incredibly awesome. The idea that you do not know beforehand what is contained in a rock I find very interesting. And I am already very curious about the Survey system.
What I have asked myself, however:
that now extremely many things are gatherable, which respawn times of trees, rocks and co can be expected. Will it be more about minutes or hours? that is to find out so that the economy does not go down the drain.
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The mining is also looking brilliant but I would love there to be certain caverns, caves or mines whatever you want to call it that are full of places to mine precious metals out of. You would only go in these for that purpose. I could spend hours in one of these places.
Gold is an excellent resource to find but perhaps we could have ultra rare materials like the Arkenstone from the hobbit. 😁
I want to feel immersed in what I’m doing and like the idea of surveying but I would like to be rewarded for just spending a long time doing something like chopping trees and mining I don’t want to be forced to always have to survey something.
The land management system would be interesting but the only thing I would be concerned about is to many areas being exhausted of resources and literally not being able to chop trees or mine somewhere anymore.
All in all great!
Some polishing thoughts, Tree cut needs to be rougher and more accurate to the chopping location. looks really weird being so high at face level.
Rubber limbs could use some work on falling trees, less movement after the first .5 second of impact.
Would be nice to see a random chance applied for a limb to break off on hitting the ground,
Random Gacha for trees was also horrible..... i understand it with the rocks, but trees having a random chance to give either wood or red wood is bad design... you can clearly see the tree you are harvesting unlike a rock.........
tree de-spawn was hella fast but i assume that was due to everything else being sped up.
Not being able to mine at the massive stones is a major let down, they are the most OBVIOUS thing people will try to mine, it would be completely ok if their loot is absolute crap, but it should be possible to chip away at it. Add a chunking system to those massive stones please.
if those where Redwoods, then this game is delusional, Redwoods can/should be up to 10 feet wide...... those where baby trees smaller than average maples or pines......... Scale please... SCALE....... AOC is struggling with player scale with the environment. everything seems small.
Trees SHOULD damage players and creatures around them when they fall. even if its only 5% hp damage it should still exist, its just laughable and immersion breaking when nothing happens. a minor push back as well.
hopeful that surveying wont be a tedious and annoying system that creates negative gameplay mechanics.
Watching and listening to the latest video from the AOC on gathering I am very pleased with the state of things and are very much looking forward to seeing additional improvements.
To me gathering is it important aspect of MMO's, it is sadly often overlooked and often is a choir to do rather than something that is enjoyed, so to me the visual aspects and sound design are key to ensuring that nodes and trees remain relevant in the future. And i love the idea of exploration and that every gatherable is gatherable.
That being said, I would like to see a feature were the larger trees taking longer time chopping down, so small tress maybe take 3-4 hits and largest take maybe 7-8, but also yield wood amount according the time invested.
The idea of land management is interesting mechanic as it forces people to understand the environment they live in and that oversaturating the land will yield less resources, this would also serve moving people away from the starting zones and these will be emptied fast. Will nodes in the starting areas be giving a window where land management is paused?
My main hope for the gathering system as a whole is that the supply chain from starting zone resources to end game resources remain relevant throughout the whole game, incentivizing people to master the gathering tree, this will also help to balance the economy and enable communication between players.
It can be fun to run around looking for gatherables. But sometimes the run around gets boring.
And I hope that gathering a rock , especially bigger ones takes more than one go at it.
It is nice that the first crack you make can give you an idea of what is there, so you can choose to continue or not.
It would be awesome if falling trees did damage to players and npc.
Plant gathering animation is weird. If you are gathering petals , you should have a few petals and leaves, sticks left on the spot. It looks like you are gathering plants with a baseball bat as it is.
I like the idea of over-deforestation having an impact.
Also it could be made that gathering trees that are not old enough takes the same amount of time but with much less gains. So it is worth for payers to go and look for mature trees. might prevent over-deforestation in the first place.
Or maybe over-deforestation has an impact on the other plants, or nodes could set a quota for trees gathered per hour/player , with a karma penalty.
One other cool thing would be that gathering wood is not just chopping down the tree , but you also have to further chop the fallen trunk. Maybe get 2 different resources out of it.
You could be able to transport the tree as log resource for construction with a sort of caravan, or further chop down the fallen tree trunk to get wood resource for crafting.
it would be nice if falling a tree is slightly faster with 2 people.
Or if there are old big trees that would give a lot of resources but where it would take an insane amount of time with 1 player.
While with 2 players you could use a saw and do it faster.
Same can apply to rocks , or tough mineral nodes where you could have 2 players , one holding a metal spike on a stick and the other using a hammer to hit it , so you can split the node faster.
See New World and what that did for the economy. If you do that you take away the niche low level gatherers have in the economy.
If a high level gatherer can gather low lvl resources more or faster that a low level gatherer than you take away the income source for said gatherers.
Otherwise you need to make high lvl crafting always be dependent on low level resources. But then you can end up having the other problem of new world where low level resources cost more than the high end ones.
Maybe the other way around would work.
Have a loss of yield because of lack of proficiency. So you can gather anything at lvl 1, but you don't get full yield until you have enough proficiency. I think that would be much easier to balance.
Of if playing with yield is detrimental because of the waste generated, then gathering times can be used.
You have a penalty to gathering speed until you reach a proficiency. I think Albion Online has the system with the yield and a lot of people are upset with ninja gatherers that just waste the rare nodes.
So if a low lvl player finds a diamond, he can choose to hammer at it 15 minutes or not. It might not be time efficient, but if he really wants the diamond have at it.
- To me, the most important thing while gathering is the feeling of having my chance to gather nodes in an area with other players despite lvl diversity.
It feels so frustrating to lose most of the nodes around you to a higher lvl player only because he gathers 50% faster than you do.
I would prefer them to have a 10% bonus speed and 40% more resources per node than losing my chance to gather some of the nodes.
- From what you shared about the surveying system it sounds like it will be a system where we need to place sticks ( 3 a first ? ) and we'll be able survey the area within the triangle so made.
If so, it would be a great addition, to be able to share those "sticks" with other players giving 2 players the possibility to create 3 triangles with their 6 sticks.
It would be a great risk vs reward add if the players only need to agree to share their survey area and could do it by interacting with the stick a other players.
- I'm excited to learn more about the land manager and if you need to look to a other mmo that has on , Wakfu has it to and had to make it less radical for the health of the game.
Hope you will be able to manage everything that is in Steven head.
Much love to the whole IS team.