Greetings, glorious testers!
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
[Feedback Request] Alpha Two Artisanship Preview Shown in November Livestream
Hello glorious community,
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Artisanship Preview shown during the November 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, December 15, 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
---
Here's the gameplay video
https://youtu.be/W6dhCycYAJQ
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Artisanship Preview shown during the November 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
- What excites you about playing and interacting with the Artisanship system?
- Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
- How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
- What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
- What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, December 15, 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
---
Here's the gameplay video
https://youtu.be/W6dhCycYAJQ 
6
Comments
Better rock animations look amazing.
The "rarer mats make better things" is great.
Recipe XP sounds interesting, but I'd need to see it in practice, cause crafting the same thing over and over doesn't sound as good on paper (even if I'm totally used to and ok with that).
Artisan gear bonuses looked a bit basic, so I hope there's a deeper variety there. Maybe it's simply on higher lvls, but I don't think that was mentioned.
Profession storylines sound nice and I trust the writers to make them interesting.
Processing fuel stuff looked a bit too passive, but I'd chuck that up to "WIP alpha". Just as it was explained about the active crafting part.
Currently, the node processing workstations send the wrong message to the player. And that message is "You are not the skilled artisan. This NPC is the artisan." It's not even symbolic, it is physically demonstrated by the game. The player character walks up to the workstation NPC, provides the materials and outlines the order, and the NPC works the station. The player is very clearly not helping as he doesn't have any animation. The game rules out any possibility that the player would feel that they are doing the work. The NPC even starts and stops the animation based on the timing of the player's order. This gives the impression that the player is just a customer conducting some type of business transaction.
Before people react prematurely, I am not suggesting the processing system change in any way besides how it is visualized. There are any number of solutions, but one is an easy fix: delete the NPC and have the workstation animate by itself. The player still walks up and presses E, the player still fills out the job UI, and the player still walks away while the job is processing. This is very similar to popular crafting games like Valheim, where the player fills up the smelter and, over time, it creates perfectly made ingots. The symbolism works great because the player still feels like they did the processing, even though they walked away and came back later.
This solution is simple without changing the system in any functional way. And it sends the message that the player character is the artisan, which is clearly important for player engagement.
To drive this point home, I don't think I've seen any game where the player character's personal crafting skill is expressed separately by a surrogate NPC worker. This doesn't make sense in Ashes, either.
Thanks for reading!
Tools durability feels bad.
When you die and fight your armor degradation feels like a consequence of your death and ideally, it simply cost some money. Hopefully, those same tools can be repaired for money because farming the same tools over and over again forces resources to be spent on a previous milestone that as a player you feel you shouldn't need to care about anymore.
Having a recipe exp is a waste of resources and makes the item and the resources needed for it less valuable
Forcing people to spam create 1 item to raise expertise on a recipe sounds like a mistake hopefully this path isn't taken because this forces people to farm a lot of resources, and creates a huge demeand for resources on the market which lowers the value of every gatherable. the market will be flooded with useless sub-par items or they will simply be vendor-ed instead of sold to a player. the grind of recipe exp makes lower level characters trying to sell a good recipe item fall behind higher grade resulting in new players having a harder time joining the market.
Adding extra legendary items for extra stats or specific stats sounds amazing ! and its great.
I hope that the items crafted will be helpful to characters leveling up!
Can there be a profession that focuses on breaking down magical items and using those residuals to improve equipment? like enchanting ?
https://Twitch.tv/Eradal
https://Twitter.com/Eradal_
I know in the chat it was asked if multiple people can use the same stations at the same time? Or if they have to wait in line as it were? I thought it was a nice touch of needing specific fuels to craft items... or simply changing some of the materials like the "type of wood" to adjust the weapons slightly in like stats.
Job well done intrepid!
What I was afraid of was the tetris inventory. But you seemed to manage to make an automatic system so the ressources goes exactly where they should be, and optimised. Tetris is fine if I don't have to micromanage my inventory the whole time. And with the previous management system of ressource inside a bag, I felt like choosing the correct bag is not so much an hassle and can optimise what you do in the world (reward for choose the correct equipement/bag).
I like the fact that allies can help you chop down ressource together (if I saw correctly). So you can go 2-3 friends and don't eat each other to get ressources.
What bothered me however, if I understood correctly, is something about the queue system.
I my queue is 10, and I want 12 items, I should manualy create a 10 queue item and another 2 queue items.
I should be more automatic. It feel a bit anoying if I have to manualy do that.
I might have not understand correctly.
The fact we can help our guildies gather by not being locked into one or two artisan professions. I think the aspect of being able to further perfect a recipe is wonderful as well.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
I am concerned about the farting rock smasher. He really should lay off the beans.
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
Looks solid look forward to seeing other artisan professions especially the animal taming/breeding. I hope the min max between guilds can be efficient when helping farm at higher levels.
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
A wonderful addition. The corrupt area at night looked amazing as well.
- About that nighttime...
Although i thought the night was kind of bright but the size of the moon says otherwise… To the people endlessly complaining about the night "darkness" i do not see it at all. I watched it in 4k on my 4k oled and my LED screen and it looks the same. Still bright. I think its perfect where it is, its definitely not too dark, its like a really bright night. I would even go as far as to say the moon has not gone up fully yet like a last 15-30 minute sundown just with a different hue from the moon not sun. The shadows do not seem too dark as i originally suggested for tactics. While they are a bit obscure this is night time behind shadows it seems correct. Like i've also said before however no matter what you do people will complain about darkness levels. Too much is too little, too little is too much. I used to make maps for a fps game and this was always a thing as i'm sure you are all well aware. personally i thought the corrupt area was way more harsh on the eyes. Looks great, just harsh if that makes sense.What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
It’s early but AI TTS for all speech that isn’t voice acted professionally would be easy to implement and an amazing feature. There is a WoW voiceover mod that does this and it helps with immersion immensely.
Need an animation for reading recipe scroll, with learning sound chime.
You should be able to learn any recipe that is in your current certification cap regardless of if you have the skill yet.
Interaction UI should be floating by the interactable not centred down at the bottom of the screen
When the horror could see you from the top of the hill a system of stealth and visibility like zero horizon dawn would be awesome to see so that mobs would either flee from you or pursue you instead of remaining static.
Love the nighttime darkness update and the resource dependencies on world states.
Fuel sink makes sense to keep the economy from inflating.
I like that you can upgrade the quality of items based on the type of materials used. Additionally I think it would be interesting if common uncommon rare epic legendary, etc. affects how many attribute slots the item has. Then another layer could be that the level of the crafter affects the range of each of those stats that are rolled on creation. So you could have 2 3 4 5 6 stat types like durability, phys dam, magic dam, etc. but the rolls are random that would incentivize people to try to make the same item over and over to make the highest level version of it to give it an overall item level based on the combined numerical value of all the stats on it. This would encourage more gathering and crafting to make the most optimal build of each item to use or sell.
I don’t like that you can only accept 5 apprenticeships. This ties into the only can level 1 archetype per character. It forces people to redo an immense amount of content to experience all the aspects of the game. Unless you can level them and swap them without losing progress than that would be okay.
Artisan Menu
I like how all the slots are on the right hand side clearly displayed.
I like how all the gathering processing and crafting are all in one easy to read menu.
I love the term skivvies and that it was incorporated lol
I like the tetris bags system.
Would be nice to have some information at top of the menu to show any bonuses that you are getting from your currently equipped artisan gear for each profession. Noticed this when Steven equipped the new lumberjacking gear.
The new skybox while looking amazing I'm worried about. In Ark: Survival Ascended, r.Volumetricclouds was a massive fps sink. If what Intrepid is using is completely different, stellar. Just something I was worried about.
Great stuff, can't wait to jump into A2 next year and get to grinding rocks at my node
Certification gating your ability to mine a rock also makes no sense, use terms like knowledge or experience. No government in the node is stopping you from gathering, it is your lack of ability. Certifications come from regulating bodies or standardized testing. No one in the wild is going to tell you to put down that axe from your node unless you have certification police.
Certifications also imply continuing education and upkeep in many trades; consider this is if that is truly the system you are aiming for.
The UI and naming/tiering systems reminds me of Everquest 2 and I'm sure you have some developers on your team from there, so that makes sense, and is pretty nostalgic for me (actually a plus for me).
I like the scalability of recipes, but it is unclear if you could make weapons, like the nightsword in the showcase for example, have stats for physical builds instead of magical. I see a lot of ability for build diversity and player choice in the granularity of the crafting system.
Since you are stuck into narrowing player options on the class design side for whatever reason, consider expanding player options on the gearing side. I would have some builds in mind overall for endgame, but maybe the players come up with some you didn't expect and that's okay as long as you are okay with iterating on the design to find balance in the metas.
Day/Night and seasonal gatherable materials are fine. It overall looks gorgeous. The sound for the ruby breaking was kind of wet. I'm not sure if this was intended.
For example, say a basic shortsword has a potential to craft between say 10 to 20 damage at base would a grand master crafting that recipe get a higher table like say 15 to 25 damage vs an apprentice getting the 10 to 20?
Also I swear everytime I see this game it looks better. Truly gorgeous.
Fantastic stream.
I am so excited to see more and look forward to being able to craft a amazing experience with my guild!
(In the livestream, both screenshots were taken when Steven could craft the item, but the one at the top is greyed out because the cursor isn't on it)
Still on the UI, I don't like that the interaction UI looks a LOT like New World's one. It doesn't feel like AoC is different :
On the recipe side, I really like the concept. However, right clicking the recipe should feel more rewarding than that in regards to pop-ups that show us that we've learned a new recipe. Guild Wars 2 example of visual effects when we successfully learn a new recipe : and AoC little pop-up :
Plus, it would be cool if a book page appears that explains a little story behind the recipe we learned and when we close the page, the visual effect appears. A page something like in Hogwarts Legacy :
The night time looks INCREDIBLE ! However, I think there were too many fireflies. It's a visual apocalypse imo.
Last thing. Tools shouldn't lose durability, they should lose effectiveness the more we use it until we sharpen them. How we sharpen them ? We collect materials and craft a blade sharpener (rocks, diamond, ceramic, stainless steel, etc). After a long use they shouldn't be sharpeneable and we should craft another one.
The rest of the stream looks amazing ! The Night Blade and all systems behind it looks promising. Keep that good work and we'll see you one day on Verra.
It looks great, it reminds me of the good old days of high economic activity in FFXI, obviously. All the little details are exactly what I expected from a team so dedicated and passionate about this. I look forward to playing the greatest MMO ever, as always.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
No concerns except the leftover ones from Caravans in the last feedback I gave. This is absolutely hitting all the right notes for me. Though I end up feeling as if it's just the obvious/minimum, I tend to focus on games that already do this really well, so I hope it's not too arrogant to say that even clearing my minimum bar is a great achievement.
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
Looks great, obviously the nitty-gritty details are important if you're going this hard, but that's what Alphas are for. The solid base (excluding Caravans, I feel like I need to say this for various reasons) is making me really look forward to it, as of now. Everything is at least 'how I'd have assumed it would be done' except maybe the Processing aspect in-Node, but 'being personally involved' vs 'running around doing other things' isn't really that big a gameplay difference. If nodes generally don't have a lot of other things to be doing at other specific locations that lead to big progression, then I don't think even pattern-matching optimizers will become a problem here.
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
Basically normal/what I'd expect from this game type? Even BDO has a small amount of this. I'm glad to see it going a little further, but I also sort of expect it to be dialed back, since FFXI, BDO, and even Throne and Liberty seem to be dialing it back a bit. That said, it could be that the team has already set it to the 'commonly accepted value' and we just don't know the details.
What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
Exactly what I was hoping for/expecting. We were preparing to send a lot of feedback to NCSoft on the specifics of this due to ... certain things, and similarly expect to have lots of similar feedback for the itemization team come Alpha-2.
I might as well throw in here, two things that my team members might expand on. The first is that none of us want the 'Take ten of this White Grade and make one Green Grade' thing, as a direct play flow, particularly not if it is a 'processing job', however would accept and possibly even love it if it were related to a 'trade relationship', a limited quest, etc.
The second is that we would like the bag system to only advance a bit. Basically, the 'best bag' shouldn't be too much better than the 'average bag' for any given task. This is even more true if Artisanship has been changed in such a way to bring it closer to what we are used to from FFXI, which it somewhat seems to have been.
Basically, if I can be GrandMaster Alchemist, Grandmaster Animal Husbandry, Master Smelter, Master Cook, Master Farmer, Journeyman Fisherwoman, Journeyman Leatherworker, Journeyman Herbalist, Apprentice of most other things (this is my approximate FFXI spread converted to Ashes) then the bag system specifics matter a lot more, because despite having mostly Processing skills, I would still want good Herb/Farm Produce bags.
I feel like I didn't explain the second point as well, so I may leave it to teammates who have more complex Crafting Skill configurations on their FFXI characters, to describe their playloops, and just try to support them with clarifications (I might post a lot in this thread...)
Once again thanks as always to Intrepid staff for all their hard work, another really great and clear presentation, and their vision, to truly revive what I want to play and bring the genre forward. From Vana'diel to Verra, we appreciate you.
Why would it ? It's alpha and they're showing you artisanship content. What game polishes animations in alpha?
SIGH
Another sidenote. I am just so impressed by the team and watching these livestreams every month. It takes me back to when I was in my early 20's and watching new WoodenPotatoes episodes before Guild Wars 2 released. Same feeling of excitement. Thank you Intrepid team for everything you do!
Night time is looking better but after re-watching It's still pretty bright in the open areas. I would say it could go even darker to the point where it effects view distance far from your character. Some of the shadows behind objects, under trees, and indoors do need to be toned down. I like the idea of certain resources only being available at night like night blossoms, moon rocks etc. and would like to see that expanded on. I think darkness could make for some interesting gameplay, like going in caves, certain dungeons or dense forests requires light sources such as lanterns, torches, or a spell in order to see. You could then build on that even more by having mobs that benefit from the darkness and use it to hide and leap out at you. There could be rare mobs that are nocturnal that only appear during that time such as Werewolves, Vampires, Specters, or other evil creatures.
Was really hoping to see the gameplay loop of manually creating items/mini-games as that's what I'm most excited about when it comes to crafting, but it's understandable if they're not ready for a showcase. Please do not have manual crafting only for when you're getting certified, this is a bad idea. It should be required for EVERY craft with no option of automated crafting. If you allow people to do it the easy way they will, and the mini games will be pointless and ignored.
I was thinking Processing would be the player actually doing it. Kinda odd that it's just an NPC doing all the work and you somehow get the experience for it. I feel like the player should be doing the work unless they've hired a worker on their Freehold or unlocked a higher level upgrade at the building within the node that provides the worker to assist. I get that it could be tedious, but to me this is just as bad as having a single craft button with a timer poof items into existence. Gathering and Crafting will both have their own unique gameplay layer but Processing is fully automated? Yeah.. you definitely missed the mark there. Processing should have its own gameplay layer that involves the player such as debarking the tree, turning it over and debarking the other sides, sawing it in half, cutting them down into boards/smaller pieces, etc etc. What if you had 2 player Processing or up to 4 to speed things up? You know, like a sawmill all working together to process the same logs or a refinery for metals. I think that would be really cool. You're already planning on having multi person Gathering, why not Processing too?
Please stick with the concept of animations telling what's going on in the world as much as possible instead of overloading the screen with UI elements. It breathes life into a game when every activity has a matching animation and you can see/hear what other people are crafting. If everyone can have crafting stations in their housing, and it's required to be a citizen to use the stations within the Node anyways, I don't see how there could be a shortage. There's more than enough space in the game to make that happen too between Node Buildings, Player Housing and Freeholds. Add more Artisan Stations if necessary and/or give that as an option through upgrades.
Gathering is pretty much unchanged from the last time. I would like to reiterate it would be great to see Gathering progress visually. Making an ore vein progressively fall apart chunk by chunk as you mine it rather than it remaining in tact until the last swing, then exploding. When cutting trees you could see the cut deepening until it gets weak and falls. For Trees it would also be great to have a second step of cutting the trunk into smaller pieces once its on the ground like Velheim.
I also think professions should be more restricted than they are, otherwise there will be an overabundance of items for trade inflating prices and reducing the value of specialization. Keep in mind the more professions you allow players to utilize, the harder it will be to find those resources since pretty much anybody can gather them. I think it should be as follows:
22 Novice < 5 Apprentice < 3 Journeyman < 1 Master < 1 Grand Master
Inventory, Crafting and Trade windows look nice and functional. Really like what you've done with the Resource Bags. It's a unique solution to Resource storage that makes sense.
I expect that the resource acquisition system will be the one that matches this design, and I really hope it is. I hate having to convert my White materials into Green ones into Blue ones, only then to then finally make my item. This method looks like instead we'll be spending our time locating rarer resources, getting them from bosses or the like. Maybe questing them up in an occasional or situational manner. I love that sort of system. Putting this type of 'grade variance' on the end product, and making it be a question of quality over quantity brings me into the world, rather than taking me out of it with tedious grind. It gives me rewards for investment of my time, energy, or skills, and combined with the above crafting system, lets me use those rewards exactly how I want to.
It's perfect.
Also, that Night Blade looks sweet.
As long as the processing and gathering support this design, as I've mentioned above, (and so far, no bad signs) I don't think I have any complaints with this crafting system. By focusing on the processing as conversion or combination of various materials, rather than adjusting grade or quantity, everyone is relevant, there's plenty of room for specialization and thematics, without throwing anyone under the grinding-wheel.
This type of system works even better when weather, time, and environment come into play for gathering. In a world where it's 'grind for quantity', or 'everyone needs a ton of X or Y item', these sorts of things become painful bottlenecks, but when you're using them as components of at least somewhat specialized or differentiated final products, rather than 'base requirement for staple goods', you get shifting availability without losing out on personal specialization or varied personal adventures, and without economically forcing people into the unspecialized types of grind you get when the likes of BDO pressures everyone into the same niches. I'm glad to see that Ashes is likely to avoid that particular trap, particularly in a way that keeps things interesting, and prevents low to mid level gathering from getting too stale.
As long as the environmentally-limited items are primarily niches rather than staples (even if they are important ones), I think that this type of system can only be a benefit to the artisanship experience, and market diversity. If you can find reasonably immersive explanations for why or how any given item is environmentally limited, I'm all for it.
I'm quite happy to see the direction artisanship has taken overall. Good work, Itemization Team! Keep it up!
I don't mind the bags with the Tetris style system personally. As long as there is space or a way for me to upgrade to get more space is all I care about and it seems that larger bags will be able to be made in some type of regard. I love going out for a while, I don't like having someone who grinds all day and all night, but if I go out I don't want to go 2 ft. from town and already be full. Alpha will allow us to really see how well this inventory works I think.
I do not enjoy the squeaky cat meow of the mining stone grinder machine.... I don't know about listening to that regularly if I am processing. I also found it a bit emersion breaking to see an NPC doing the processing as my character is the one to level, I assume story might make this make a bit more sense potentially. I also understand processing can take a LONG time for some of the higher level stuff so I get being able to que something and walk away to do something else in game. Personally as someone who will be an artisan crafter, I would rather sit there and do the work myself. Maybe allowing a progress bar that I can walk away from and come back to if I want or need to step away. Or "hire" and NPC to preform the same task but make my progress faster but still require me to do the processing.
My issue is the bags, you saw Steven fail with them live on stream, showing 1 of the issues that will still be an issue after balance pass. You need to remember like Stevens fails Processors need to use those bags to take materials TO & FROM processing stations.
Real talk non negotiable Fuel needs it own bag slot if you are dead set on using the meme fuel & meme showcased bags going forward even though knowing they are pointless. As I said not Negotiable, this is a NEED to combat the pointlessness forced onto players.
Night-time looked much better. Especially the corrupted area was amazing.
I really like the bit about using rare mats for higher quality craft result. I think Steven said something about different materials also changing the stats? I hope that's true, so that for the Nightblade, if we exchange the wood or the crushed zinc/copper with crushed iron/silver, we can get different stats than magic pen and damage, for example. Or some other system that does that.
I really like the idea of being able to level up recipes, so a grandmaster weaponsmith that puts in the required time and effort on a specific dagger recipe can make an amazing level 10 dagger that is better than what a fresh journeyman can make, even given the exact same materials. I would like to see proportionally more recipe XP given to higher quality crafts of said item, in order to make it so it's better to make 10 heroic daggers than to just grind out 100 green daggers.
The overall processing system looked ok. Pretty close to what I expected in terms of the mechanics, even though the visuals were a bit of a surprise
I am still not thrilled about master and grand master processing being locked behind the freehold system, but I'll await more information about the acquisition and upkeep of those.
The limits to how many artisan skills that can be grand mastered and mastered etc. seem fine.
1. I think it would be better if the player used the crafting machines since they are the ones leveling up their skill. Doesn't make sense that an NPC does the work at the level of the character. Although that also means you can't do other things while your item is crafting. Curious if others have some ideas on this.
2. Would love to see animations (which are amazing by the way) change some more so that when it's spending 1 minute (ie shaving a log) into final product, the look of the product changes during that 1 minute as well. So that it shows visible progression during that 1 minute (or whatever crafting time it takes)
3. Looking for maybe a little more balance on inventory space. (Potentially a little more) The bags are awesome but wondering if inventory space is going to fill way too fast, especially with the fuel requirements of the stations. Maybe a fuel bag??
Overall, AoC is looking to be a game to be remembered and played for decades with many rewards in its future.
Looking forward to release. Kudos to the amazing devs and management team that brought this game to life!!!
Regarding Processing; I get that it would be nice to have player freedom to not be locked into an extended duration processing animation oneself, but it seems odd to raise your Processing level by not actually doing the work yourself as the character, and instead having an NPC do so. I see the pro's and con's but it feels a little odd. I lean towards liking New World's style.
I mainly came here to comment on the updated night time lighting changes making the visuals significantly darker at night time. I'm personally not a big fan of these lighting changes darkening the game to this magnitude for a few reasons.
a) I couldn't see anything on half my screen it was so black.
b) While somewhat immersive, I don't think MMO's should try to be a Survival type game. Going full pitch black at night obscures the landscapes too much. I personally wouldn't want to explore at night time as it's not as scenic. The game loses a lot of its appeal when you're walking through black empty space and can't see what's around you.
c) For pvp a lot of the player base will shift their video card settings to potato mode and adjust the lighting to full day time brightness to see enemies at all times. I don't think the game should create an environment where players who circumvent the game design have a dramatic advantage over those that play the game within ToS. If the game released with the screen as pitch black as was demonstrated there would be a large incentive for players to try to brighten their screen in-game settings or default; and if those didn't work, use NVIDIA overrides to counter the pitch black night time in game.
d) Also, if wanting to be immersive as a reason for the dark black lighting, I don't think its necessarily logical from what was shown in today's stream. A large reflective moon at the near proximity to the game's planet surface would reflect much more light than Earth's moon and adventuring out at night would be well lit, but with a different shade (moon light). It wouldn't be pitch black unless thick overhead obstructions that provided shade.
I'd suggest striking some form of balance or adding a settings adjustment for night time black color palette preferences.
But please make the shadows brighter. The current shadows are not realistic/fun to watch/easy on the eyes. THey should be!!!!
Also with "fuel" being generic and not station specific, I think it would make more sense if you added a way to break down items into a generic fuel essence. This way you are basically fueling things with magic and not fueling a wood stripping NPC with a log or coal.
Also I like when there is a cast time to learning a recipe. Gives it a bit more impact. An animation would not hurt either.
Another concern is about information that you can "max" out the passive tree for a grandmaster profession. I am not a fan of systems where there is no choices to make like this. It changes the passive tree into a passive list. The idea of a tree is to make branching and meaningful choices. Getting everything lacks any choice beside the initial one you make to max that profession.
First thing i thought about was despawn timers on loot. I imagined some rare dragon being killed and no one having the right bag to pick up his massive scale. Maybe the dragon body sits there for weeks before despawning and there is plenty of opportunity for people to try and get the right bag to loot. Or in PVP maybe your body lasts like 12 hours or a day before the loot despawns. Or if you just throw an item on the floor (if that's possible) it despawns in an hour. At any rate, despawn timers on items could be a big part of how this actually plays out during game play and what incentives there are for players to try and go back to get stuff they couldn't get earlier.
Interacting with stations all over verra would be pretty cool, I am also interested in creating items with some freedom, so I can change the color or something.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Artisanship Preview?
I am not sure if the process is too slow or is necessary to have a balance system.
How do you feel about the full-cycle of Artisanship shown during the November livestream?
I still need to understand better the bag system but in general I feel I like how is done.
What is your impression of the dynamics shown with gathering? (E.g. Nightstone being invisible during the day, and visible at night)
Stuff like that is very vey cool, I love it
What is your impression of the crafting portion of the livestream? (E.g. Using fragments of various rarities to affect the stats of the item)
I like this idea aswell, but idk about how to balance this...
btw I love the night/day cycle.