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
My only comment is to polish the tree falling animation. The trees cut is in a different place than where the player animation is cutting and the lims of the tree after falling need a smoother transition from the collision phase to the settling phase.
That being said i do have some questions regarding your Gathering.
1) How do you plan to keep Gathering engaging for players long term?
In most MMOs, you level a Gathering job, in order to gather the highest tier materials for end game content. Doing so means long term you end up just Gathering the same 5-10 items all day long everyday because they yeild the highest ROI. Rusulting in lower level Gathering items not able to hold any value long-term because no one really uses them anymore.
2) competition is always fierce and can sometimes be frustrating when dealing with Bots, over saturating or monopolizing specific gatherables.
What is your plan to combat this, allowing for a more stable economy?
3) Will there be drematic leveling caps in place if a player tries to specialize in multiple Gathering or crafting professions? I find it horrible for an economy when everyone can fully cap all trade and Gathering skills on a single toon. Like why craft anything when after 5 years everyone just makes anything they need themselves.
4) Do you plan on making leveling painstaking hard to fully level? Iv always enjoyed MMOs that make crafting or Gathering jobs very tediously long to level. It gives more value to those who spent the long months truly putting in the work vs those that just power level themselves with gold/coin.
Cheers,
The lower tier materials always will stay relevant to the end game materials, you will need T1 and T2 materials to craft T3 mats.
Picture from https://www.ashes101.com/artisan
Currently it's being said that you can specialize in one of the three path and in that path you can specialize 2-3 professions. But becoming a "Master Artisan" is very time consuming. Additionaly you can G-P-C (Gather,Process,Craft) as I like to shorten it, the low-mid Tier in each Profession.
Probably this comes in with "But becoming a "Master Artisan" is very time consuming"
Balance, often reflected through realism, by avoiding 100 pieces of wood to make 1 hilt. Develop gathering around realistic numbers, and crafting will feel good.
Considering player side effects that arise out of land management, and that players may hack everything down far too quickly, I'd suggest:
1. making gathering take longer - some more so than others by adding additional steps, such as hauling of large trees, requiring special equipment to haul to the desired location.
2. give less. i.e. bushes could have individual apples or berries to pick or whatever it is that you gather, so you'd have to be there quite awhile to get them all. That could be visibly represented so the gatherer knows. Yes, you'd have to add spawn points on each growth version of the animation. Similarly, with a tree, after being cut down, you could cut off the branches for smaller pieces of wood, which don't require as much to transport. Achieved in a similar fashion as the berries or apples on a bush. Hack a few times, off goes a branch, tree alters appearance. Keep doing so until its a massive log....haul log away on a sled.
3. Since there was mention of invasive species, instead of the trees dissolving into the landscape, it would have an extra layer of integration if animal life, insect species or another plant, began to accumulate around fallen trees, if they are left on the ground and not removed from the area.
That's a good question
Loved everything from the video, good job!
Q: What aspects of the gathering system are important to you?
A: The rocks being loot boxes is awesome, being somewhat random is awesome. Would be great having occasional meteorites falling from the sky so everybody can see and then people could try to find it and mine it all frantically, just like a hunt for minerals.
Having seasonal materials is truly awesome, people shouldn't take for granted they will have to trade with other players or stockpile them.
Q: How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
A: I like visually finding the materials.
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
A: Truly loved it and I expected this from many games, no game develired it yet.
I hope that there are policies for rewarding people who erradicate invasive species or weed or else.
I expect prohibitive policies that prohibitis harvesting something for a period of time, everybody shoul follow the policy even the citizens. If someone harvest something prohibited then the guy should be flagged as purple for 5 minutes, including citizens. If people want to prohibit something then they should be serious about it, otherwise people will prohibit only for non-citizens and this could discourage travelling.
Nothing should be permanently prohibited, it's just for hours or days so stuff can regrow.
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
A: Mostly excited with a slight concern if we have no policy that lets us kill people for a few days if they are overharvesting.
Would be cool having big quarries where rocks spawn faster and open mines and underground mines where minerals spawn faster. Having such landmarks will also attract thieves and people trying to gank the miners, there's more risk reward if you go mine in such places and more player driven content
That being said, I want to focus on gathering and crafting gear for my guild. So worst case scenario that I don't want to see is this: if I log in one day, and suddenly there are no rocks and trees, everything is on a 24 hour timer before they grow back, and my guild has to suddenly create some type of raid against other people to protect a portion of land we are next to, just to get mats. Some of us go red, we get angry...and a bad time ensues. And end up only able to craft a single chestpiece because we got screwed.
So if land management would balance situations like that from happening, then great! I'd like the OPTION of being able to gather with 2 people to speed things up or maybe increase luck to get more quantities, but there shouldn't be a requirement on any resources.
The survey system sounds really engaging and that it's something we could plan out as a group. I like that kind of opportunity, so I'm interested to learn more.
Yasss. I was one of the people during the live stream hoping the tree would fall on a mob and they would take damage. But if they did have special lines, or sound effects, that could be as equally satisfying
I think the gather animations needs some kind of small mini-game to it (like moving the mouse in an arc) so that gathering isn’t just mindless right clicking. I also think gathering from a resource should take longer but give more resources. I understand that there will be larger resources in the world that give much more rewards, but I feel that having to go pick a hundred flowers to make one potion makes individual nodes in the world feel worthless and a waste of time. If everything is gatherable then nothing feels special.
I really liked how the trees being cut in game had real physics and impacted the ground (although the limbs / branch physics could use some work so they aren’t so rubbery, and obviously the perfectly cut tree stump needs some work). However I really do not like how you just quickly cut a tree, the wood pops into your inventory, and off you go to the next tree. I don’t like how so many games have you cut an entire massive tree in 5 seconds and you get 3 or 4 logs. I think cutting a tree should be more impactful, especially since it will remove that tree from the game for some time for everyone.
I think trees should take significantly longer to cut down, and should give significantly more resources. I think you should get some wood for initially cutting down the tree, but once the tree is down you have to actually go and collect the wood from the downed tree. This way the falling tree physics actually have a purpose, and the tree can despawn while you cut it up to make it look more realistic. Since the trees give significantly more wood, the respawn timer on trees can be turned way down so players can feel like they really have the ability to cut down a forest if they want (Steven said in the video regrowth time was sped up, but the actual regrowth time needs to be slow enough so players can visually change the world and you don’t notice a massive tree sprouting up).
As for the negative impacts from gathering too much in a node, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I like the idea in theory, but in practice I think most players aren’t going to understand or care enough to keep that in mind and this will just create drama from players simply trying to play the game.
What aspects of the gathering system are important to you?
I think the best answer is the desire for AoC to have the best of ArcheAge and the best of NewWorld, that is, to offer a superior experience to what is already known.
How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
This is an answer that can only be given after the in-game experience is ready and optimized.
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
I think the ideas are very good and attractive, but a real opinion is to see how it all works out with thousands of players in action.
Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
As said before, ArcheAge and NewWorld are the best references at the moment, the mission is to surpass them for the better.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
My concern is that the animations finish will not be satisfied, nullifying the immersion. We expect a realistic game without truncated, ugly animations or no visual sense of applied physics. Gathering moves and tall tree stumps are bad design decisions. Okay, still in alpha stage, but at least the demos should be close to perfection, better than the existing references (ArcheAge and NewWorld).
PS.: I miss presentation animations, trailers revealing the final intent of the game. Concept art animated with game lore.
A concern for me has also been put to rest, where I was wondering why people would want to be members of smaller nodes. Now I can see that larger nodes will experience greater resource strain, and that the majority of gathered resources will actually come from less populated Nodes. So, as a gatherer, it is better to live in a villages where resources are spawning closer to drop-off points.
Villages - Hubs for gatherers. Resource-rich areas with little competition and nearby drop-off points
Towns - Hub for gathering sites. Gatherables can be aggregated, processed, and sent to cities. Crafters of simple items can live here too.
Cities - Hubs for crafters and consumers. Crafters receive processed goods and can meet the needs of the local market. Can find all the resources they need for more advanced recipes. Consumers travel here to access the best and most advanced goods.
I would have liked to actually seen the survey system in action but from the description it sounded like systems Ive played with. I enjoyed FireFall's survey system they had for finding resource to mine for. Of course this was a futuristic game where you could call down from space a thumper that would mine while you defended it. The survey system allowed you to look for resources in an area which replenished over time and not always in the same place. Its easy to do this kind of interface in a futuristic game so I'm kinda interested in seeing how you make that work in fantasy world.
A system that was a bit overboard for me was New World. They have a really intricate crafting system but basically like everything is harvest-able everywhere. I always felt it was too much interactive objects around me. Like I needed to be getting it all the time too, maybe I'm weird. Then something like WoW is too limited where the spans are fixed and limited and basically uninteresting. something in the middle of everything like new world and few nodes like WoW.
Can I mention though on a different note.. I hope crafting results in a lot of randomization. Like crafting the same some high end weapon that ends up being exactly like every other one that everyone else crafted is kind of boring. For example, better if it would like a combination of skill, luck, many combination of material possibilities, to make a sword( for example) come out with a random set of stats procs and whatever that might be unlike anyone has every crafted. Giving the market some excitement.. I mean I realize there has to be some boundary... such randomness is always just a sense of randomness.. But where the top tier rarity combos are very hard to achieve and become very rare and sought after.... and could require even multiple skills like enchanter skills in conjunction with smithing to achieve. I just like that sort of thing. Gives a sand boxy vibe.. And myself I also prefer that kind of random nature to adventure drops. I do believe that end game adventure drops should be superior to anything you can craft because I think these games are really about the adventure and exploring and that's where the fun is really. But you could have that randomness even in top tier drops making even the top 1% of those top tier drops even more rare. Like for example you might have an a very rate proc to find in the wild on a weapon, life steal.. But in most cases if you are lucky enough to find life steal.. It ends up being 1-10 life steal.. (given a character with 500 to 1000 life) where as the soft cap might 1-20 the real cap might be 1-100 however the curve is so steep getting between 20-30 might happen only occasionally , getting like 30-40 is already extremely rare. and over 40 especially over 50 are like crazy outliers that you might see once a year..
The apples fell to the ground in one go...all I can think of is all those bruised apples! I think it would be better if some disappeared with each sickle swing. Anyone for cinnamon apple pie? Mmmm mmm
I LOVE the mining, would be cool to find rare geodes inside. I think rocks should only respawn when a player is outside visual range.
All in all I LOVE it
- when resource nodes give additional resources occasionally (the slot machine effect) and we can use tools that make it more probable to get certain secondary resources (for example picks that give a chance for gems, or picks that give more stone/ore but no gems at all, picks that give some completely unusual resources like gathering elemental mana from different nodes etc., this is partially realised in GW2 where you have tools that might give you additional resources that work like a currency for stuff for certain NPC's), grinding "iron nodes" with no way to modify the outcomes is just tedious
- when resource nodes change locations (If all we get is just running between hardcoded nodes that always give the same results, why wouldnt I write a bot for it rather than doing it manually?) for the sense of wonder and achievement when finding one rather than grinding the same spots for ever
- when lower tier resources dont stop being relevant because they are needed for alloys, intermediate parts or the can be used to upgrade other resources into higher tiers (guild wars 2 mystic forge)
- when I can employ skills/potions/foods that increase yield or rare results, letting me add some complexity to the action of harvesting or for example focus on one type of resource for a session
- minigames for better results (Crowfall had a nice idea with "weakspots" which were random points on the node that if hit, dealt more damage to the node ergo made you harves it faster + you could switch to "adventure hotbar" with some additional skills you could use when harvesting to buff yourself and pick between more stamina vs more damage dealt to the nodes)
- nodes that might need cooperation (Crowfall had "mothernodes" that needed several people or you couldnt harves it otherwise as it's hp was regenerating too fast)
- time based nodes in PvP zones being creatures or nodes that require a time frame or a completion of a meta event where players can compete for the resources at certain times rather than getting ganked randomly
2. How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
This system makes sense only if the resources will change spots (finding wormholes in EvE, planting harvesters in old SWG) and/or they will get depleted and replenish over time (so it takes more than waiting for the rock to just appear on the screen, you have to make effort to come at the right time and make it show up for someone to be able to harvest it).
I'd say the concept of generating and finding gatherable nodes is very underwhelming in current MMO's and lazy. I believe EVE does it best among the current MMO's where one person can just focus on finding those spots and give the locations to a 3rd party. That might be the biggest area next to interactions between nodes where you can show off some creativity
3. What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
Mentioning "depleting wildlife" or sth by overharvesting is an immediate no. You probably just haven't thought about it too much. They already tested this concept in Ultima Online, check its story
What would be cool though would be some meta events like "the forest is plagued by wolfs" so the community needs to clean the forest or no more game will spawn until its done and we fight an "Alpha Wolf" for some additional rewards at the end or "earthe elementals ate all iron around, no mining nodes for you until you clean them out" (guild wars 2 does it well when parts of the map might be blocked or NPC's not available until an event is completed, see Silverwastes region for example).
4. Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
EVE Online - resources spawn in different locations (gas clouds, ice, wormholes) making it fun to seek for them and creates a niche for players that enjoy scanning, basic ores are split between parts of the space, so you eventually have to trade/put yourself in danger as you need all of them.
GW2 - nodes give additional resources (gems and such)
Crowfall - the idea of minigame (weakpoints) while harvesting a node + skills that let you cast rotations while gathering for different results, also mothernodes requireing groups of players
5. Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
I'm excited you are asking the community about it, hoping You will invest some creativity into that are of the game rather than just creating another hardcoded map of hardcoded nodes ran by bots.
I'm concerned with the concept of "player actions having visible effect on the world an its economy". It might look interesting on paper but when you get 1000's of players into the game it will quickly become either annoying, griefing-friendly or discouraging for newer players running around bare lands.
Could I suggest starting from the other end? Having the "world manager" spawn events that can be countered by players (or helped by competition?) for some lasting effects rather than players starting off t he changes in world manager?
It could be stuff like:
- infestation of XYZ stops ABC from spawning until locals clear it, but maybe some competeing faction can complete a ritual to corrupt XYZ, making it even harder to stop and giving some additional negative effects (lets bind it to nodes, so if city A gets a negative event around it, maybe city B can invest some time and resources for a ritual or employ some additional mercenaries to aid bandits around city A etc)
- pirates siege node ABC, no fishing for you, but if you fight them back, there will be debree floating on the water for some time that you can gather while sailing, or maybe you will fish for some treasure those ships carried for some time after the event? Unless city B pays more pirates and a siege becomes a long lasting blockade until city A gathers enough forces to beat the event.
Comments for improvement:
- Having an Echo sound when gathering. Like New World. So I can hear an echo of someone mining far away.
- Improve the fall animation maybe have the brancher break a little... Have some breaking points
- When the tree is cut let it be very rough.
- Have the tree stump stay for a while. So you can see a clearing of stumps
Cool Idea:
- The dissolving animation: maybe make the resource turn into ashes instead of dissolving. So then you have a tree that turns into ashe except for the stump then eventually the stump turns into ashe and a little sprout comes out of the ashe pile??
Cutting down trees and Mining looked great and with bit of polish like cuts in the tree and other such effects I see absolutely no issues with this. Picking up berries or apples from bushes could have different animations than slashing with sickle. All in all harvesting needs more polish and collision seems bit out of place especially for flowers.
What aspects of the gathering system are important to you?
Ability to gather almost anything that I see and those things having meaning. There must be good feedback to gathering stuff and that is quite well represented here.
I also really like idea with mining that you don't know what is inside the rocks but there should be some high value veins available as well. The rush of getting something more rare is important.
Sometimes you don't have much time and want to go for some gathering so being able to do that alone and for little while is important.
I'm also looking forward to fishing how its done in Ashes.
How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
On first glance idea seems amazing but I am bit reserved how it actually works and is that going to be too important or not important enough to warrant extra step?
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
Excited but reserved as well. On paper it seems really fun but in real game it could be horrible or great. There needs to be enough reasons to have people engage with that system and "punish" people who disregard it.
If people don't care as long as they get what they need I'm worried it will just be hindering people who care.
Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
I think New World has had best gathering system I've experienced and I think you've took some great inspiration from it. Everything you pick up in New World has some value in all points of the game and there are a lot of stuff to gather. For some reason gathering in New World was really fun but I can't put my finger on the reason for it.
Only thing I really disliked was the ratio of value in New world where everything needed huge amounts of low level materials and only little higher end materials. I think its important that you need all tiers of materials for high end crafting but main focus should be on materials of your level.
For example when making high end breastplate you could need rivets or nails from lower materials but main parts would need higher end materials creating more demand on higher end materials but still leaving value for lower end materials.
In WoW you basicly only need highest level materials to do anything which isn't good either making gathering lower materials meaningless.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
Hidden mining, seasonal availability and being able to gather nearly everything you see are all great things I am excited.
Some concerns I've already talked about which were more of which was told than shown. But regrowing and lack of "stump" phase could count as slight worries.
Animations
Regrow of trees
A zone can have difficulty to have new resources because of over gathering
Sound effects.
I'm concerned by:
Branches when the tree fall is moving too much. Branches are supposed to be stiff
Tree cut is too perfect and does not look like it was cut with an axe.
very nice, however shouldn't the tree turn into a pile of ash rather then disolving (lore)
* What aspects of the gathering system are important to you?
- abundance (no problem here i suppose) not to much friction over common resources
- diversity (more then just 3 different resources to gather
- must be rewarding and difficult or time consuming to master
* How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
- don't know enough about it
* What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
- difficult to balance, every random player will just pillage every resource.
it seems we aren't even capable of ballancing this in the real world
harvesting every resource we come across is what everyone will do
I think your overdoing it a little with the land management system
a better example would be:
* Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
- not realy, this is among the best i've ever seen keep it up
* Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
excited:
- I'm excited about all of it
i love your community interaction and that you listen to feedback
i love that your not just some empty suits thinking of howmuch money you can get from us and doing this(mostly) out of love for the game
concerned:
- random trash mobs dropping the same thing over and over again (hunting certificates i belief) could
become borring real quick
- as explained above
I can see how surveying will play a big part in the game. Putting in the time and effort to survey and learn the land so you don't have to survey every time you go to gather will feel more rewarding in the long run. One aspect that could possibly frustrate players is if they survey land, it reveals a location of some resources they want, then by the time they travel to that location, someone else has already gathered them. Perhaps this is by design, as there is constant talk of limiting availablity of resources.
It was mentioned that multiple people gathering the same target would share resources and speed up gathering times. Working together also adds some safety in numbers aspect. If understood correctly, it sounds like both people would not get the full yield from the resources, which means that working seperately could be more benficial.
Steven talked about a broadening of resources that would be available. In terms of rarer resources, I think this offers an opportunity to utilize the the multi person gather system. Perhaps while gathering a resource it could do a skill check for the players that are gathering. I.E. a single player max gather skill might be like 400. Perhaps at a total of 1000 when adding up the skill of all participants it offers a chance to give an otherwise unattainable resource. At 1500 skill, and while gathering a "rich" node it is guaranteed. This would also incentivize players to craft and equip gear that adds to gathering/crafting skill in hopes of helping toward the goal of that chance, or encourage gatherers to work in groups, which in turn helps with being eco friendly. This would open up a new tier of items that is ONLY attainable while cooperating with other players. Crafting professions are usually single player occupations. Adding an incentive for multiple craftsman of a similar trade to work together towards the goal of a unique or rare product seems conducive to promoting player interaction.
In terms of environment health. This is an area that is concerning, both early and end game. Early game because everyone will be out in force trying to level gather/craft skills and just going ham with it. End game because players will congregate to areas that have the end game resources. There will always be those players who don't care about environmental health as long as "I'm gettin mine for me". I don't expect that this line of reasoning hasn't been considered by the dev team, so I am curious to see what the solution is. I know that a limited amount of resources helps to encourage good server economy with trade and material transportation, but it also opens up areas for bots and price gouging. So this will be an aspect of the game I will probably be more observant and critical about than other areas.
Balance between harvestable quantity (supply) and processing needs (demand), so that the economy does not value low tier mats more than high tier (as in New World).
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
Sounds like a great mechanic, with potential for conflict as node A depletes Node B resources to hobble them. I have no idea how node B can resist this 'attack on the land' though!? The mechanics needs to be clear to players what is going on, and what they can do about it. The more complex the game mechanics, the more needs to be spelled out to players.
Discord
Forum
How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
Yours Truly,
Poipoi
Regarding knowledge of what a resource node might yield before harvesting, this could be another form of meaningful character advancement. This could be based on the level of the relevant skill, but it would be more meaningful if it were based on region and type of resource as a parallel progression. For example, when first encountering stone in the riverlands region, approaching the resource node simply displays a contextual "Mine" prompt. However, after gathering 10 stone nodes in the riverlands, perhaps being within interaction range might reveal "Basalt" (or another stone type, as applicable) next to "Mine" under the character - thus the tooltip would become "Mine Basalt" since it is now known what stones in this region yield. Gathering 100 such nodes might reveal when another uncommon resource such as iron is present, but only when within the very small interaction range. As such, approaching one of the nodes under the ruins in this demo might make the tooltip "Mine Iron" instead. Gathering 1000 of mining nodes in the same region might reveal tooltips for even rarer resources like mithril or precious gems. Moving to a new and unexplored area would mean a lack of this knowledge, underscoring the theme of "putting down roots" as a citizen, but would also over time be very rewarding for those who choose to explore and harvest from all over the world. This could make choices matter regarding where players choose to gather, while offering long-term progression in the form of gathering this knowledge. This sort of knowledge could interact with the surveying system by increasing the range or accuracy of surveying tools, or perhaps providing some long-range visual indicator of "known" resources when surveying - there are many options!
What aspects of the gathering system are important to you?
Interesting animations, and audio help make gathering rise above the terrible monotony many MMOs are plagued by. The outstanding audio design of mining in a major title released roughly one year ago is a great example of this - you probably know the one. Particle effects like sparks and chips of stone flying up from a rock or chunks of wood being chopped out of a tree help sell these animations as well. Swinging a pick against stone or an axe against a tree should feel impactful, and both audio and video play into this.
How do you feel about the interaction between the surveying and gathering system?
I'm not sure enough has been shared yet about the surveying system to really form a strong opinion, but I do think the idea I outlined above could greatly benefit the interaction between them. I do hope that we don't end up suffering from "tool bloat" when it comes to these aspects - carrying around both gathering and surveying equipment could quickly become bothersome if these do not have dedicated equipment slots for them.
What are your thoughts regarding the land management system?
This strikes me as a possible major point of cognitive dissonance. We need to gather to increase our skill and contribute XP to nodes, but if we gather too much then it negatively impacts the node's yield? There is an obvious gameplay conflict here. The idea of over-harvesting causing negative impacts is interesting, but it opens up opportunities for abuse. One guild could swarm another rival guild's node and clear-cut their forests to harm them, and there would be no counter-play to this. We all know that players will take such actions if it creates a gameplay advantage/disadvantage. Should gathering from a node you are not a citizen of flag you for PvP temporarily to allow for a counter to this strategy? I'm not sure that is the best solution, but these things need to be worked out or land management will quickly become a despised system due to widespread exploitation.
Are there examples of gathering systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
As alluded to earlier, New World does an amazing job when it comes to the audio and visual aspects of gathering, but on the flip side their resource processing scheme is absolutely atrocious. Please do not fall down the "resource pyramid" trap - if I mine mithril ore then I should be able to smelt it into mithril without needing "lower tier" resources in mass quantities. From a gameplay perspective, FFXIV's gathering is interesting because it incorporates actual gathering-specific abilities and rotations. There may not be room in AoC for a full ability set like that for gathering, but something beyond "press E to gather" might have merit.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the gathering system?
As mentioned in the beginning of my post, the design change to allow every visible tree, stone, etc to be gathered is an outstanding one. My biggest concern relates to the negative aspects of the land management system and the seemingly conflicting goals between gathering to increase skill and node level versus the consequences of over-gathering. I really do think that how this is handled could make or break the gathering system, especially if it can (and we know it will) be used to grief other player groups by figuratively "salting the earth." Another minor concern is how storage of resources will be handled. Gathering and crafting in most MMOs typically requires a monumentally vast number of resources to be harvested in order to level up, and many games fail when it comes to providing adequate storage options for those materials. This is of particular note with the understanding that it may take significant time for resource processing to occur - being able to stockpile materials in order to keep the smelters burning 24/7 should be possible.
It makes much more sense than the old way that feelt really outdated.
I'm concerned about the visuals and animations.
I really don't like how the flower falls apart in pieces when harvested, it doesn't make any sense at all. It looks really off and unnatural. When harvesting plants and herbs, one would like to make a nice clean cut on the stem near the ground and gather the plant intact. It is in the processing stage that one would cut the plant into pieces.
Another thing that doesn't make sense is how the fruit is harvested with a sickle and falls to the ground. One would pick fruit and berries with the hands and put them directly to the inventory, not let them fall to the ground. It looks unnatural.
The straight cut on the trees also looks weird and unnatural. It's suposed to be choped with an axe but it looks like it was cut down with a chainsaw by someone who have no idea how cut down a tree safe and properly.
I think the team on this should do some more proper research on the process and visuals of harvesting plants, fruits and trees.
Also, apples on bushes feels weird. Maybe call them appleberries or something instead?
Since it's an MMO and in most cases group effort should be rewarded/incentivized(to certain extent), I feel like in gathering there should not be a huge difference between solo and group gathering. For example only a ~10% increase in yield or overall productivity(since there is synergy in a group) I think would be enough to incentivize group gathering and give it meaning, but not making it "meta" or "OP". Also group gathering is good for protection purposes as well as just being more fun and different due to the different animations there could be such as a Two-Man Saw for cutting down trees.
This way solos are not discouraged or feel punished for doing solo gathering while those who want to gather as a group have a more meaningful way to do so.
Land management
Lang management is a very player driven system. This means a lot of the system is effected/influenced by players behaviors. For that reason, players should've multiple ways of taking care or ruin the lands besides of (not) overfarming. AoC can provide tools to players in order to achieve that. We've mentioned things like poachers and mayors assigning node policies. Here are a few other things that could help players:
- Quests. You could've quests to pick materials from another places in order to fertilize the ground, seedlings to regrow the forest, setting out fish/animals to regrow the population. OR to spread out species that eat your plants, set out wolves to kill lifestock, posion the water that leads to less fish.
- Land management UI. People could see/track the management of their land by going to a specific building/board. This could be kept more vague by using high, medium, low, etc. This could also be something for the Mayor only.
- Laws. People who don't obey the law can become outlaws within that specific node in order to protect your resources as a citizen.
There could be many more ideas that could be added to help players both help and ruin the land that revolves around other systems like causing node wars.