Land management system feedback and questions

With the new gathering update, one developer talked about the land management system in which if you harvest too much of the land's resources, the land will suffer and probably yield less.

I’d like to start off by saying the concept of land management presented is interesting but I fear that if not implemented perfectly it would be just an annoyance to the players.
e.g. a lot of players will only play in the weekend and thanks to this surge of players in the weekend, during those 2 days all the lands become less fertile and produce less materials thus a large portion of the playerbase will always experience an annoying experience as gathering goes...

What about players gathering too much cause they don’t understand the system or maybe players gathering too much to grief the rest of the players in the area (if it's possible too gather that much alone or with a small group of griefers...)
How are you gonna mitigate this?

I could see Guild A declaring war to Guild B if players from Guild B are seen gathering/harvesting too much materials… I’m talking about guild wars here because otherwise killing a player without being at war would apply corruption to the killer right?

Can you gather while being stealthy? By stealthy I mean using invisibility spells of the rouge or avoiding populated areas (given that the resource you’re looking for is gatherable in those desolated areas).

Another concern: what if in a sever there are more crafters/gatherers than combat players. Will the gameplay balancing be need to be adjusted by devs from server to server? I know this might be a far fetched example but better to be prepared...

Say that there is a portion of the map where all players/citizens of the same zone of influence/node want to be nice and cooperative among themselves: what tools, UI/GUI interfaces, will be available to players to know how much they can harvest while maintaining the land fertile?
Might it be the job of a Major (or someone similar elected into the political system) to prospect the land to assess it’s condition, what materials are in abundance and which are in scarcity?

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Comments

Songcaller

It sounds like the ecology once put into UO. The UO ecology had to be scrapped because it didn't survive when faced with players.

Voxtrium

Well they want guild v guild wars to pop up naturally, one of the ways naturally may occur is over node resources being over farmed.

Also just because resources deplete doesn't mean that there aren't resources. For land management there is no realistic level of resource spawn that will match the level players will grind for those resources, so assuming they made it so a resource used didn't grow back for 10-30 minutes depending on the land score then yes the system would likely struggle. However if they make the system have a cause and affect, like you mine an iron node and as a result the number of trees in that area increases then most of the time land management will instead be natural and mean that 90% of the time players can farm their hearts out and the landscape will change but usually not necessarily worse, for example it might just go from trees to rocks to trees again etc.

Example -> zone A, zone B, zone C.
A has mostly trees, B mostly shrubs and mineral nodes and C mostly bandits. Over farm A and B expands, over farm B and C expands over farm C and A expands -> Loop.

Now the reason the system is a great addition if done well is that it will allow for targeted resource depletion like before a node siege a guild removes all nearby trees making the siege defense efforts much more difficult in accruing the wood needed for the wall ballista and mangonel.

Many people have voiced the concern that if not implemented perfectly the system will brutalize the casual player, but IMO if implemented intelligently most of the time it will only mean that resource groups move around and the need for the balance to be "perfect" will not be there.

However I will say expect that on launch a few areas get over farmed since players will exit the gates and start farming, but it will likely spread and settle down a few weeks in.

WavesOfTime

Voxtrium wrote: »

Well they want guild v guild wars to pop up naturally, one of the ways naturally may occur is over node resources being over farmed.

Also just because resources deplete doesn't mean that there aren't resources. For land management there is no realistic level of resource spawn that will match the level players will grind for those resources, so assuming they made it so a resource used didn't grow back for 10-30 minutes depending on the land score then yes the system would likely struggle. However if they make the system have a cause and affect, like you mine an iron node and as a result the number of trees in that area increases then most of the time land management will instead be natural and mean that 90% of the time players can farm their hearts out and the landscape will change but usually not necessarily worse, for example it might just go from trees to rocks to trees again etc.

Example -> zone A, zone B, zone C.
A has mostly trees, B mostly shrubs and mineral nodes and C mostly bandits. Over farm A and B expands, over farm B and C expands over farm C and A expands -> Loop.

Now the reason the system is a great addition if done well is that it will allow for targeted resource depletion like before a node siege a guild removes all nearby trees making the siege defense efforts much more difficult in accruing the wood needed for the wall ballista and mangonel.

Many people have voiced the concern that if not implemented perfectly the system will brutalize the casual player, but IMO if implemented intelligently most of the time it will only mean that resource groups move around and the need for the balance to be "perfect" will not be there.

However I will say expect that on launch a few areas get over farmed since players will exit the gates and start farming, but it will likely spread and settle down a few weeks in.

You make some interesting points and indeed if it'll end up working somewhere along the lines of what you suggest it would work and be quite interesting.

My worry always goes to the meta that inevitably develops in games like these and thus certain resources migh end up always be "depleted".

The node siege thing is very cool, i wonder how it worked during previous tests...

Voxtrium

WavesOfTime wrote: »

You make some interesting points and indeed if it'll end up working somewhere along the lines of what you suggest it would work and be quite interesting.

My worry always goes to the meta that inevitably develops in games like these and thus certain resources migh end up always be "depleted".

The node siege thing is very cool, i wonder how it worked during previous tests...

Land management systems were not implemented in A1 and the siege they tested was only for testing their current network capabilitiies.

WHIT3ROS3

From what we saw of the new Journal Menu. I hope they use that same kind of UI style to give a stat breakdown of the area you are in. Perhaps even a pie chart that shows the areas present gatherable's as a percentage. As you learn more about the area you can learn the area's enchanted spawn rates and reveal hidden resources.

It seems as though the world will be divided into areas with defined borders. I wonder if Node "plugs" are placed within a relatively central location within these areas? As I understand, a Nodes ZOI increases as the node develops. Will Nodes only ever expand within the boundaries of one area? Or will there be Nodes with ZOIs that expand beyond the region the Nodes "plug" is located?

Voxtrium

I would wager surveying will provide the opportunity to learn about the resources in a given area. Hopefully they have a way to share surveying knowledge so everyone doesn't have to constantly survey.

Strevi

WavesOfTime wrote: »

What about players gathering too much cause they don’t understand the system or maybe players gathering too much to grief the rest of the players in the area (if it's possible too gather that much alone or with a small group of griefers...)
How are you gonna mitigate this?

Guild wars and node wars.

WavesOfTime

Strevi wrote: »

WavesOfTime wrote: »

What about players gathering too much cause they don’t understand the system or maybe players gathering too much to grief the rest of the players in the area (if it's possible too gather that much alone or with a small group of griefers...)
How are you gonna mitigate this?

Guild wars and node wars.

Ok, but what if those people are not in a guild or citizens of a node? (if that's possible)

Strevi

WavesOfTime wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

WavesOfTime wrote: »

What about players gathering too much cause they don’t understand the system or maybe players gathering too much to grief the rest of the players in the area (if it's possible too gather that much alone or with a small group of griefers...)
How are you gonna mitigate this?

Guild wars and node wars.

Ok, but what if those people are not in a guild or citizens of a node? (if that's possible)

Like bots?
I don't know how the game will feel for them, without apartment, less storage, no node benefits...

WavesOfTime

Strevi wrote: »

WavesOfTime wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

WavesOfTime wrote: »

What about players gathering too much cause they don’t understand the system or maybe players gathering too much to grief the rest of the players in the area (if it's possible too gather that much alone or with a small group of griefers...)
How are you gonna mitigate this?

Guild wars and node wars.

Ok, but what if those people are not in a guild or citizens of a node? (if that's possible)

Like bots?
I don't know how the game will feel for them, without apartment, less storage, no node benefits...

No, not bots, griefers.
Yes it would be a pain for them but they'd do it just to annoy other ppl, that's why i'm making a point about griefers.
Another scenario is: they are citizen of the node in which they are griefing but part of no guild so unless you can revoke their citizenship you can't attack them without getting corrupted.

Strevi

WavesOfTime wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

WavesOfTime wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

WavesOfTime wrote: »

What about players gathering too much cause they don’t understand the system or maybe players gathering too much to grief the rest of the players in the area (if it's possible too gather that much alone or with a small group of griefers...)
How are you gonna mitigate this?

Guild wars and node wars.

Ok, but what if those people are not in a guild or citizens of a node? (if that's possible)

Like bots?
I don't know how the game will feel for them, without apartment, less storage, no node benefits...

No, not bots, griefers.
Yes it would be a pain for them but they'd do it just to annoy other ppl, that's why i'm making a point about griefers.
Another scenario is: they are citizen of the node in which they are griefing but part of no guild so unless you can revoke their citizenship you can't attack them without getting corrupted.

The mayor will have the possibility to enact policies.
Players were suggesting a few months ago the game to add policies for resource management too.
I would not like a straight denial to harvest or setting them flagged but something inbetween, a state like reputation which would still facilitate fight if they are caught harvesting with purpose to harm the node.
Anyway, nodes with such self harming citizens will fall fast unless all nodes have such players.

Could be that all players will actually ignore this mechanic and harvest everything and deal with the consequences.
Or they will protect the corrupted who hunt such griefers.

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