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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
I prefer systems that have lots of different crafting materials, and variations in rarity, and complicated recipes. This lets dedicated crafters develop a reputation for themselves, especially if it includes player skill interaction to decide the quality of the final product. The requirement for many varied items also encourages more player interaction, whether that is within guilds or within the commerce of the server. As a crafter would need to source products from many locations and people. However, using this system can also quickly lead to overcomplication. If not executed correctly can be tedious, pointlessly engaging, and overwhelming.
In a game where the best items are supposedly crafted, I think the crafting system should be epic, and a simple system is not epic. If we have to manage ecology, transport materials across nodes, fight others for resources, travel the world of Verra exploring in caves and enemy camps for rare resources, and then all we have to do is click "Craft" with 2 or 3 items to make a piece of armor, that seems kind of anti climactic. If the goal is to not make the crafting system a central focus, then that would be the way to ensure that it is not a main core system, and quickly becomes a sub system hobby.
Then you have other games handle the storage clutter by limiting your proffesions. If you can't gather everything you have less to organize. Personally I prefer this method as it also limits the amount of resource on the market compared to everyone on the server fighting over the same materials.
With the way ashes is planning to work with regionalized storages and everyone able to level every proffesion to a certain extent, It could be an absolute nightmare organizing your materials. In this sense I believe less is more but using the quality selection when crafting would be the best way to go. As well as giving the storage an interface that makes it easy to organize your materials. As even if there were only 5 tiers of materials among every proffesion, you are stuck with A LOT of mats .
Reason for that ^ Is tier 1 items become completely useless or there's no point in going back to previous area's in order to collect resources. I think the drops should be universal they all are continued to be used regardless of level the only requirement is you need more to make more advanced pieces or maybe adding in some more rare materials.
Organization wise I'd like to see a storage system that separates items based on class of item. Such as having herblism bag or mining bag ect this way you aren't just throwing random stuff in a chest and each time you click it you see all sorts of random crap you don't know what its used for. A system that doesn't hurt OCD people's feelings is appreciated.
I like the idea of different seasons = different monster spawns and different materials and I also hope to see the same applied to the new day and night feature for example:
Without listing every flower these are a good example of the ability to make certain things more rare such as only blooming in certain biomes and during certain times / day / night or time of the year. Aside from the collection aspect it adds a dynamic to the games esthetics. Games haven't really messed much with the idea of different things spawning based on these mechanics and it can add to the "explore" aspect because certain area's could change visual prettiness based on these dynamic conditions that cause different things to grow. And monsters could also be attracted to these different types of resources adding to the "new" and exciting things spawning during different times.
Bottom line though all items should never become obsolete cause its really bad for the economy. The economies I've seen work the best is when all items retain usefulness. I'm tired of seeing games utilize systems that items get thrown away after a couple months. Much rather see ashes retain the value in all collectables so we don't get hurt economy wise.
College Lessons
It was simply too much, a lot of materials are only used for very specific things, and they mostly serve no purpose, other than adding unnecessary bloat to the game. + the whole drop system relied on mats, which is just not fun for me, but that's another topic.
On the other hand, having too few materials can be just as bad.
A nice middle ground should be found. Where we have different types of materials, that are used for different types of things. Some tiers should also exist, so a lower level and higher level wood for example, as well as different types of wood. There also should be some special rare materials, that are maybe used for higher tier stuff.
But all of those materials should be useful, and serve a purpose, and that's the main thing.
You have more "themepark" based crafting systems (like SWTOR), which generally have fewer types of crafting materials. However, in these games, crafted items are often significantly inferior to gear found from doing end-game content, so it generally isn't worth spending your time gathering the materials and doing the crafting.
On the other hand, you have more "sandbox" MMO crafting systems (like Albion Online) where nearly all gear in the game has to be crafted. In these games fighting over resources comes naturally, especially for the really rare/high-end mats because everyone wants those.
In AoC, one of the systems that's being touted as a "core" mechanic is the caravan system. In order for this system to actually be utilized by players, materials need to actually be valuable. In order for them to be valuable, they need to be useful. I know Steven has stated in the past that the absolute best gear in the game would come from killing high-end bosses at the highest difficulty, but he may need to re-think that idea if Caravans are to be important. Why bother trying to transport rare goods around if the items crafted from them aren't even that good? Why not spend my time pulling bosses in raids, practicing the mechanics, and getting better at that aspect of the game? I would then get the better loot which is what I want.
That said, if the best gear is crafted, then what reason do players have to try to do the hardest content?
So I think a combination approach is needed, where SOME of the best gear comes from bosses, but some of it is also crafted. Of course, with raids, you can also have added incentives like unique mounts, pets, etc... which are more cosmetic but make you look gangsta. After all, we all know the real meta of the game will be "Ashes of Drip."
As others have said, you also have the issue of materials clogging up your inventory/storage chests and potentially becoming an unmanageable mess. Having more types of materials increases this problem, but does make for more complex/interesting crafting system. Having fewer materials lessens the issue, but makes it less interesting.
Therefore, a balance is needed. I think for lower level crafting, you want fewer materials which are all quite common/easy to get, since nobody's going to want to craft/buy a "powerful" low level weapon that they'll quickly level out of. However, crafted lower level gear could be the "best" gear available at that tier, better than the gear you pick up from mobs and minibosses. As you level up, the amount of materials per "tier" would increase and you would start to introduce uncommon and later rare materials. At the maximum tier (e.g. level 50 gear), you would have the most amount of materials, with some being uncommon, rare, and even ultra rare, which would make them worth transporting in a caravan, and would be used to craft some top-tier, end game gear.
Something that can overwhelm players is that if you have too many materials in one area it can fill up the inventory quite fast and lead to losing track. But many materials bring a big variety that is neccesarry imo to keep the game interesting and to keep farming adventurous.
So a good solution could be: limit the materials per area and make them unique for that certain area. make materials harder to obtain the further you progress in game and explore new areas.
So overall there are enormously many materials to gather/obtain but a manageable number per area that you usually stay in for quite a long time.
Also make it that crafting items is not possible in any area and is rather limited to certain crafting spots (e.g. crafting a lavasword needs fresh lava for the highest temperature possible and that can only be provided by setting that crafting station near an active vulcano, so the lava can be brought into the forge furnance directly.)
I dont know about this point because it could be depending a lot on personal opinions:
If an item is only craftable in a certain crafting spot, players would or wouldnt be frustrated if they had to move across all areas to obtain the required materials.
I think it would be smarter to make it possible obtaining all the materials needed for that crafting spot in the same area but as i said specify that item to that single crafting spot.
So you cant craft everything at every crafting sport but also dont get frustrated because you can get all the materials required in that crafting spot area.
I hope i was able to describe my thoughts clearly ( no native speaker).
Sincerely
On a relevant note: Drops from creatures should never be crafted, ready to equip items such as weapons or armor, even if it's from a humanoid. I'd prefer a general "metal scraps" tag for these items, rather than a plate helmet acquired from a goblin which then the player replaces their current helmet as an upgrade. Metal, cloth, or leather scraps could instead be converted to resources depending on their rarity value.
- A large variety of materials is interesting and adds more depth to the game.
- Storage of a large variety of materials should be convenient. For example:
- Crafting material gathering bags that are separate from the main inventory.
- Crafting material storage in banks/vaults.
Simplifying the variety of materials that can be gathered is a solution if the alternative is a large variety of materials that annoy players by constantly filling up their bags and storage.Those should be a bit harder to get and being rare not something everyone has. So making higher tier of armor or weapons would be much more fulfilling and a goal to work towards.
I do feel that this can get severely out of hand with the shear amount of items that it would create, but if we had specialized storage for crafting materials that were separated from our main inventory that would be a good start. You of course would still need to give items weight if were going to have encumbrance as an issue, but that could be done still with separate bags for storage.
Just my 2 coins.
One of the problems with mmorpgs is running out of "new" things to collect and explore.
Having new things to do EVERY level is ideal.
Played many mmorpgs where you get a new armorset every 10 levels for example, that is so boring.
For example i would like for weapons not to drop as a whole weapon but rather parts that you can combine at a blacksmith.
More is More is even better though XD
I dont just want reskins/color variations of same item.
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2. Few base mats
3. Multitude of substitution mats that can alter outcome
4. Crafting skill progress needs to outpace world drops to maintain relevance throughout leveling process
The reason for making a second post is actually a different point though. While I do think that more is more in these sorts of cases I will say that having too many different resources in a small area is a problem (at least with a classic inventory system where there are a finite number of slots, as opposed to pure weight/volume based systems where this is less of an issue). To call it out specifically: It's incredibly annoying to spend 10 minutes harvesting resources and then need to bank, or drop things, because your inventory has filled up with individual instances of 30 different kinds of flowers, berries, barks, and what have you. There should be that much variation overall, but it shouldn't be encountered all in one location.
1) Same or different kinds of materials should scale tiers depending on the difficulty of the area they came from.
For example: 2 lions, one level 10, the other level 40 will provide blood, fur, claws and fangs; but the tier of those materials from a lion level 40 should be higher than the first one.
2) Same or different kinds of materials should be different depending on the environment of the area they came from: as forest and desert.
For example: cutting trees from a mountain and plain environment, would provide 2 different kinds of woods, as different species of trees grow in different areas.
3) Same or different kinds of materials should be different depending on the season.
Having seasonal-related materials would have a huge impact on both the economy and the crafting, as these materials would be easy to find during that season, with low prices on the market. And hard or impossible to find in different seasons, so the prices would increase, and the craft of items related to those materials would be slower.
The base of the concept is: a material should tell a story: where and when it came from.
I also share the idea of making the low and medium tiers materials meaningful also for the high tier crafting. In this way low level areas will never be abandoned.
This is exactly what I envision but to elaborate: 1. Certain rarer items can replace materials for the crafted item to give a bonus effect. I read this in another post too. These effects can range from +agility to +magic damage etc.
2. These rare items (ores, wood, mob drops) can be region specific. This leads to different areas having a market specific to a certain class type i.e. one town will have many more options for gear with +agility.
3. This would drive economies and increase caravans. Supply and demand. A dagger with +agility in an area with the appropriate resources will be less expensive than in another region where it cannot be made easily. There would be profit simply by transporting and selling elsewhere.
4. It would reduce bloating in trade and inventories. Since there is a small number of required resources with the option of rarer materials, the gathering professions will still have a core role. Too many variations that may be picked up outside of the profession could ruin their purpose, but I think it is important to include them.
Not a lot of varety for normal stuff. BUT if you want specific or rare, there should be a lot of varety.
Exemple : you want an armor or weapon with a specific bonus, you could add a bonus item in a "normal" recipe of a "normal" weapon/armor to give that special bonus, and that bonus item could have multiple variation or rarity and you could have multiple Item that give diferent bonus or mixes of bonus
And so You have "a lot" of different items BUT it's specific to " if you want more you need more" but if you don't care to have normal stuff use the stuff that lie before your eyes everywhere.
If you need Higher zones for higher Materials to craft higher stuff, low materials become usually worthless and new player can't make starting money. so they didn't start farming and just do dungeons/Raids for money.
that means you have to provide a lot of them and regularly get some new every few weeks/month and this is a lot of work (but i would like it) and if the higher farmer quits you need support the new one in it's growth.
if you instead can use low materials to craft an intermediate thats been used for higher crafting you would drain them from the markets (because high player don't farm cheap materials unless its worthy or not selled by anyone). so new players have to work and gather recources to change this to starting equippment. so they can do something to help the settlememt/town and become bedder themself and the crafting players win too.
also if you have diffrend zones (swamp/mountain/Etc.) every region can have there own materials (swamp-wood/mountain-wood/etc.) with diffrend stats ( for example: slow-growing wood is more stable and burns longer) and so you can implement special recipes that requires one exact material. this also pushed traiders
but if there are a Variety of wood that come from one type of tree that have no diffrence except filling your inventory, thats bad and annoys players - because its just force them to buy inventory expansions.
Also, it would be good if you need some materials (that you originally needed to build) to repair. and you need the same manufacturing level again. since not all players want to become crafters, you could create a window (similar to a trading window) in this you add your equipment and the required materials and a manufacturer (with the right level) has to start the repairs.
So that a town with a lot of people benefit the people themself.
so i would prefer the wide variety of materials that can be used for specific things but with some exceptions
1 Make some of the professions more reach than others for example the once that require to craft something ( wearable item or some furniture, part of a ship etc.) make it so players should gather more stuff better quality materials etc. The future like a way of crafting its also very good new thinking and approach that way we can learn how to craft better things with better skills. I also think that if that`s made into the game should be hard I believe should be very cool if its made in a way that for some wouldn`t be possible to craft it that good as some players would like in real life. That way in time people will be known and recognised by the work they can do sounds cool.
2. Other professions must be less rich for example fishing or most afk professions (if there is one) should be easier but for example with fishing you can make less things but also helpful things that will need for everyone for example curtain foods, potions, antidots or even poisons if you may.
3. I think everyone will agree here that if there is many gatherable we all will appreciate separate inventory for all the things we can gather not everything in one as we know what a mess it can be
I think everything that exist into the game should have meaning and should be used if its not used anymore for what ever reason just remove it or update it so it can be used for something.
I`m sorry if I went out of topic but I love MMORPG games as much as I love doing PVP and PVE content I love gathering and crafting what ever, for better team play for friends and people who I don`t even know its fun, but should have some respect to it. People should know and respect that x person put the amount of time and effort to do this and he is selling it to you. Some engraving on the thing you made or something like this was made by ........
As far as on the other end of the system, having a material supply multiple recipes... I do think this is appropriate in some areas. Wood is a great example of this. It can be used in many recipes as a generic material. However some recipes might require that specific type of wood. This can be a good material sink for stuff that is very common, however the more unique materials are obviously the more scarce they are and they are then saved for more powerful items/gear.
Honestly I don't know the right balance here, but I know what is fun. Coming across new areas with interesting things to collect that remain relevant no matter the state of the game is interesting and fun and drives exploration. If I know that across 3 zones I'm gonna find the same type of wood, then why go to the next zone to explore and find new stuff from a gathering perspective.
Can you have both a wide variety in gathering stuff for specific things with a subset of all the various things to gather that are used for a wide variety of things? say that 5 times fast... hope I got that across right.
One thing that I hope AoC does better than any other game is keeping gatherables/recipes/items/gear relevant through updates of the game. Often I see gatherables just become a vehicle to level up your gathering to a certain point, then that component becomes essentially worthless late game or even what comes from that material in crafting becomes irrelevant. At some point, you have so many gatherables, recipes and crafts from those that are worthless and are "old content". Please somehow keep these things relevant so it doesn't flood the game with useless stuff.
I think less items to make more things is the way to go, but I would also like to see a wide variety of rare items that allow the item made to be more powerful then a regular stock item. Example: I don't think I need 20 sticks to make 1 wooden sword, super unrealistic. Now I think I need to find a good quality piece of said wood to make the best wooden sword I can. I think the more I chop wood the better I get at identifying wood within the tree that can be made into a really good sword. On the other hand maybe I don't need super good wood to make matches for a fire (just an example) but because I am able to find better wood within a tree by chopping tree, I can now make more matches from the wood I find vs not having the skill and now having to chop more trees to get the desired quality of wood to make the matches.
This solves two issue, 1)A person only wants or can make things from quality items so there inventory only fills with good quality items so its realistic in that aspect and 2)This rewards the person for harvesting because the better they get at it, the less time it takes to harvest items to use, the faster they can get what they need, as well as maybe allowing them to identify better materials as they build up skill that they would never find unless they spent time harvesting. Kind of like a tier system, the more wood you cut, the better the chance of finding good quality items on top of being able to actually see what is in the wood so the higher tier skill you have the better quality you can identify.
I also think people should be able to cut down whatever tree they see but their skill in cutting determines what they get. Example: a redwood might have 5 tiers of materials but if your skill is only at tier 2, to be able to extract tier 5 quality in that tree will take a really long time, not impossible, but will take a lot longer then someone with tier 5 skill. With the tier 5 tree it will have tier 1 through 5 materials in it. A recipe might just require a tier 1 material so the tier 5 tree could fill that recipe or any other recipe up to a tier 5 recipe that requires wood. This way, along a persons journey they are not having to go here for 1 tier and there for a different tier to get the tier they need, they can just cut a tree and get the tier they need as long as the tree contains that tier level. Not sure if you'd want to do this, but maybe a tier 5 material can make 5 tier 1 materials when at a crafting facility. This would allow inventory to stay small until the material was made into something.
The examples above goes for all materials and not just wood.
Obviously on rare items your skill would need to be really high to have a really good chance of getting the rare item or material, but who knows maybe you get lucky with less skill. Kind of like winning the lottery when you only spent a dollar haha.
i am not bothered by having the same type of material, that has a different name but the same purpose though, so long as it obvious.
like copper, iron, steel. Which are all clearly used for metalworking and can be labeled as metalworking materials. but needing small copper, vs medium, or big copper, these extensions get rather silly and make the game much more difficult to learn, especially since the names of the materials are probably going to be new words not found in other games.
mountain regions throughout the game shouldn't all have their own special materials, like if only mountain area with platinum, steel, zinc drops allow for finding the rare resource PlaSteZin (the local resources natural combined form).
Since Ashes wants us to go out and explore the world, I think it would be best to have a lot of materials that can be found in different locations. This encourages players to look for new interesting materials and go exploring, it would lead to more caravans to distribute these materials from their source throughout Verra and it weakens a possible "meta" establishing by making supply chains more susceptible to local changes which would make specific gear harder to come by, encourage players to move to get those resources themselves and therefore bring about more change.
I really that having a wide range of different materials will be one of the key economic aspects for Ashes.