Artisan and Gathering Progress bar style gameplay. MMO's need to stop doing this. (Manual Crafting)

TL:DR Gathering System (Chopping Tree) Progress Bars are old the staple and a boring staple! Most MMO's use it and no one innovates on it. Can we try something new and interactive? What are the design efforts and limitations for development to add interactive gameplay to Gathering and Artisan systems in game on par with combat? Also!!! If Crafting was more like captcha tests, then we'd actually have less bots.

Like if you agree!

Comment below if you Do not and tell us why.

Full summary:
Just watched the Alpha video today and it was great. However something stood out that has always been on my mind but i never called it out.

What are the challenges and design efforts needed to improve upon the existing Gathering and Artisan system so that it is more than just a click and a progress bar. Also to be clear I DO NOT mean to do the whole God of War: Kratos style action cut scene thing. While it's better than a progress bar I think we can do better. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kEE911zaf-k

We all love combat and in addition we all know that every MMO has an abundance of Gathering and Artisan Style Systems in addition to the base combat gameplay. And 90% of MMO's have you approach a resource, Click the resource and watch the progress bar go from left to right as the activity completes. The game puts the item in your bag and repeat. Chopping Trees or making swords. its all the same. You watch progress bars from the tree to the iron to the shield.

To be clear I do not mean the leveling bar. Leveling your gathering and artisan progress is a good thing! I mean the literal bar that floats across the screen as your character animates a tree chop....

What is the limitation that makes it so Artisan and Gathering is never as involved as combat. Sure fishing from time to time can be engaging in some MMO's but the buck stops there on 90% of games. Why is it just a progress bar and how can ashes potentially set themselves apart. aside from cool visuals for bouncy tree falling? Love the bouncy tree fall by the way!

P.S.: I'd love to be a crafter/gatherer primary and combat secondary. If crafting was more interactive I'd probably go for it but it never is.

Edit: Steven did confirm in the Artisan full video that manual crafting is being worked on and is also being thought about and approached carefully so as not to make a "minigame" but a meaningful gameplay layer.
Would still love folks thoughts on the post and "manual gathering"

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Comments

TheDarkSorcerer

Definitely not. I absolutely cannot stand games that add these "interactive" and quite unnecessary elements to basic gameplay. A lot of RPG's do this and why i stay far away from them. It's dumbing down the game, in my opinion

Trob

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Definitely not. I absolutely cannot stand games that add these "interactive" and quite unnecessary elements to basic gameplay. A lot of RPG's do this and why i stay far away from them. It's dumbing down the game, in my opinion

Maybe you could share an example RPG to help us understand.
Even Old School Harvest Moon had you hold the X key down long enough to wind up a strong swing. and improved Axes could be held down longer for stronger faster swings. This is super minimal but more engaging than a progress bar. Nothing convoluted need but a little effort. Is this what you mean?

I could be wrong and I get that you "don't like it" but can you clarify how it's "dumbing it down" and "unnecessary?" If fighting a mob was a progress bar, I don't know about you but that feels like dumbing something down.

Also again. because a progress bar is so minimal and dumbed down it's why bots get away with it so easily. So help us understand why interactive gathering and/or artisan is unnecessary?

Depraved

Trob wrote: »

TL:DR Gathering System (Chopping Tree) Progress Bars are old the staple and a boring staple! Most MMO's use it and no one innovates on it. Can we try something new and interactive? What are the design efforts and limitations for development to add interactive gameplay to Gathering and Artisan systems in game on par with combat? Also!!! If Crafting was more like captcha tests, then we'd actually have less bots.

Like if you agree! Comment below if you Do not and tell us why.

Full summary:
Just watched the Alpha video today and it was great. However something stood out that has always been on my mind but i never called it out.

What are the challenges and design efforts needed to improve upon the existing Gathering and Artisan system so that it is more than just a click and a progress bar. Also to be clear I DO NOT mean to do the whole God of War: Kratos style action cut scene thing. While it's better than a progress bar I think we can do better. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kEE911zaf-k

We all love combat and in addition we all know that every MMO has an abundance of Gathering and Artisan Style Systems in addition to the base combat gameplay. And 90% of MMO's have you approach a resource, Click the resource and watch the progress bar go from left to right as the activity completes. The game puts the item in your bag and repeat. Chopping Trees or making swords. its all the same. You watch progress bars from the tree to the iron to the shield.

To be clear I do not mean the leveling bar. Leveling your gathering and artisan progress is a good thing! I mean the literal bar that floats across the screen as your character animates a tree chop....

What is the limitation that makes it so Artisan and Gathering is never as involved as combat. Sure fishing from time to time can be engaging in some MMO's but the buck stops there on 90% of games. Why is it just a progress bar and how can ashes potentially set themselves apart. aside from cool visuals for bouncy tree falling? Love the bouncy tree fall by the way!

P.S.: I'd love to be a crafter/gatherer primary and combat secondary. If crafting was more interactive I'd probably go for it but it never is.

bots would still press the right buttons and do it better than humans

anyways the progress bar is a pattern. you have alternatives for sure, but it depends what kind of game you are making. you can have a progress bar, you can press buttons while you gather, or maybe you can run around the tree hitting it (which is pressing buttons anyways).

i personally find the whole artisan stuff boring. just press e and wait, but at the same time, ive played games where you have to press buttons and it can get quite annoying. a lot of of people like gathering or fishing, etc because they find it relaxing. its cool in god of war because you arent doing it 1000 times in a row. im probably going to choose boring over annoying.

Azherae

Trob wrote: »

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Definitely not. I absolutely cannot stand games that add these "interactive" and quite unnecessary elements to basic gameplay. A lot of RPG's do this and why i stay far away from them. It's dumbing down the game, in my opinion

Maybe you could share an example RPG to help us understand.
Even Old School Harvest Moon had you hold the X key down long enough to wind up a strong swing. and improved Axes could be held down longer for stronger faster swings. This is super minimal but more engaging than a progress bar. Nothing convoluted need but a little effort. Is this what you mean?

I could be wrong and I get that you "don't like it" but can you clarify how it's "dumbing it down" and "unnecessary?" If fighting a mob was a progress bar, I don't know about you but that feels like dumbing something down.

Also again. because a progress bar is so minimal and dumbed down it's why bots get away with it so easily. So help us understand why interactive gathering and/or artisan is unnecessary?

Perhaps a better way to say it would be that a lot of developers, for a certain period in MMO history, added little interactive elements as a replacement for the parts of gathering that are interactive (finding the resource points, avoiding danger, managing your plans, payoffs for your knowledge of an area, etc).

Since many bots can do the little interactive parts better than humans easily, and bots for that specific type of thing are difficult to distinguish from really practiced players, this result can be 'dumbing down'. The game added X instead of Y, when X is a negative for many people and doesn't really enhance anything related to Y.

Even if the interaction minigame has a component where you 'do something to avoid a loss or take less time', many people will just find it tedious, and bots would still do it better. There may be some designs where it helps, but many people would never have seen one.

Trob

Depraved wrote: »

bots would still press the right buttons and do it better than humans .

Love it Haha

I am a little facetious when i suggest you walk up to a tree in game and a bot catcha appears for the user to solve. haha. But deterrents are good and changing the gathering gameplay every so often like a captcha may be a healthy way to keep bots out and increase value of items in the economy.

Azherae wrote: »

Perhaps a better way to say it would be that a lot of developers, for a certain period in MMO history, added little interactive elements as a replacement for the parts of gathering that are interactive (finding the resource points, avoiding danger, managing your plans, payoffs for your knowledge of an area, etc).

Since many bots can do the little interactive parts better than humans easily, and bots for that specific type of thing are difficult to distinguish from really practiced players, this result can be 'dumbing down'. The game added X instead of Y, when X is a negative for many people and doesn't really enhance anything related to Y.

Even if the interaction minigame has a component where you 'do something to avoid a loss or take less time', many people will just find it tedious, and bots would still do it better. There may be some designs where it helps, but many people would never have seen one.

I agree with a lot of what you point out here. There is some interaction in knowing where to find the specific resource or how it spawns. I like that Ashes is adding dynamic event related spawn rates to the resources. a great bot deterrent and great overall fun way for players to stay on their toes and be rewarded for knowing when and where to go get the item.

I can see how turning it into a "minigame" can be negative also especially if there is a reward or risk for doing it right or wrong. But for example. generally the punishment for missing a skill shot on a mob is minimal. you still get the full loot when it's dead right? I think this is what i mean comparatively to gathering. I don't even engage with the tree other than a single click. The reward should not change but the gameplay is dull.

Depraved

Trob wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

bots would still press the right buttons and do it better than humans .

Love it Haha

I am a little facetious when i suggest you walk up to a tree in game and a bot catcha appears for the user to solve. haha. But deterrents are good and changing the gathering gameplay every so often like a captcha may be a healthy way to keep bots out and increase value of items in the economy.

Azherae wrote: »

Perhaps a better way to say it would be that a lot of developers, for a certain period in MMO history, added little interactive elements as a replacement for the parts of gathering that are interactive (finding the resource points, avoiding danger, managing your plans, payoffs for your knowledge of an area, etc).

Since many bots can do the little interactive parts better than humans easily, and bots for that specific type of thing are difficult to distinguish from really practiced players, this result can be 'dumbing down'. The game added X instead of Y, when X is a negative for many people and doesn't really enhance anything related to Y.

Even if the interaction minigame has a component where you 'do something to avoid a loss or take less time', many people will just find it tedious, and bots would still do it better. There may be some designs where it helps, but many people would never have seen one.

I agree with a lot of what you point out here. There is some interaction in knowing where to find the specific resource or how it spawns. I like that Ashes is adding dynamic event related spawn rates to the resources. a great bot deterrent and great overall fun way for players to stay on their toes and be rewarded for knowing when and where to go get the item.

I can see how turning it into a "minigame" can be negative also especially if there is a reward or risk for doing it right or wrong. But for example. generally the punishment for missing a skill shot on a mob is minimal. you still get the full loot when it's dead right? I think this is what i mean comparatively to gathering. I don't even engage with the tree other than a single click. The reward should not change but the gameplay is dull.

bruh bots can solve captchas better and faster than humans. i cant imagine how annoying it would be to solve a stupid captcha everytime you click a tree or a mining node...and on top of that, if you miss, not just you dont get what you wanted, you also lose something. you might get kicked or temp banned...

Dygz

I don't want chopping a tree or picking flowers or mining minerals to be as involved as combat.
But... combat also has progress bars in the form of Health meters.
Including a hotbar for "Chopping Skills" would be horrible and unnecessarily tedious.

Trob

Depraved wrote: »

bruh bots can solve captchas better and faster than humans. i cant imagine how annoying it would be to solve a stupid captcha everytime you click a tree or a mining node...and on top of that, if you miss, not just you dont get what you wanted, you also lose something. you might get kicked or temp banned...

HAHAH. So extreme. There's a middle ground here somewhere lol I don't have the answer by any means. But A captcha that that boots you if you don't solve it is not what I'm suggesting. Something more involved than a progress bar is.

Dygz wrote: »

I don't want chopping a tree or picking flowers or mining minerals to be as involved as combat.
But... combat also has progress bars in the form of Health meters.
Including a hotbar for "Chopping Skills" would be horrible and unnecessarily tedious.

A health bar is a sort of progress bar I agree. Again there is a healthy medium somewhere between a single click and the mob/tree dies and a full raid combat sequence with mechanics for a single mob/tree. I'm not at all suggesting a hot bar or a raid fight for the tree in any way shape or form. haha But something more than the loading screen of the tree going down....No? Starting to feel like it's just me? I do appreciate everyone adding perspective!

Azherae

Trob wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

bruh bots can solve captchas better and faster than humans. i cant imagine how annoying it would be to solve a stupid captcha everytime you click a tree or a mining node...and on top of that, if you miss, not just you dont get what you wanted, you also lose something. you might get kicked or temp banned...

HAHAH. So extreme. There's a middle ground here somewhere lol I don't have the answer by any means. But A captcha that that boots you if you don't solve it is not what I'm suggesting. Something more involved than a progress bar is.

Dygz wrote: »

I don't want chopping a tree or picking flowers or mining minerals to be as involved as combat.
But... combat also has progress bars in the form of Health meters.
Including a hotbar for "Chopping Skills" would be horrible and unnecessarily tedious.

A health bar is a sort of progress bar I agree. Again there is a healthy medium somewhere between a single click and the mob/tree dies and a full raid combat sequence with mechanics for a single mob/tree. I'm not at all suggesting a hot bar or a raid fight for the tree in any way shape or form. haha But something more than the loading screen of the tree going down....? Starting to feel like it's just me?

It might not be that it's just you, so I'll give you some background (arrogance incoming).

I can write bots. Bots that don't use memory packets, they just use visual histograms to check certain parts of the screen in a similar way to a human and react to the color and configuration changes. Those bots can play entire 2010s-era FaceBook-tier games on their own without my intervention, better than I can do it physically.

So, to a few people on this forum that I've explained this to, I've tried to inform them that 'anything less complicated than that' isn't going to do anything against bots. It's not 'just you', it's a 'matter of degrees' as they say.

I can't think of a Gathering type Minigame that I've ever seen in an MMO that wouldn't be easier to handle than the games I have already written stuff for. Note this is 'writing from scratch', so base detection of it is difficult.

I'd rather that Intrepid not focus on this method as a way of preventing bots.

Kilion

I get that this might feel like "been there, done that", but I seriously wonder: What exactly could be done to make it more fun? I mean saying "make it more engaging" - fine. But HOW? I honestly have no answer for this and never had, so maybe you can provide an example on how you imagine this to be more interesting?

Ludullu

Kilion wrote: »

I get that this might feel like "been there, done that", but I seriously wonder: What exactly could be done to make it more fun? I mean saying "make it more engaging" - fine. But HOW? I honestly have no answer for this and never had, so maybe you can provide an example on how you imagine this to be more interesting?

I'd be ok with a set of abilities for each method of artisanry and those abilities can be used to do the "thing". They all do the base lvl of progress, so they can be spammable if desired, but if you wanted to have a better chance of getting a rare drop or smth - you wanna use the proper ability after your target shows a specific effect or plays a specific sound. And any ability can lead to any of said effects, so it's not some specific combo every time.

So say you have 3 abilities that cut trees. Say the tree needs 4 hits to cut down, considering your current gear. You use ability 1 once and see that the tree got hit from the top, so you wanna use ability 3 now. You see that the hit wasn't deep enough so you wanna use ability 3 again. Your animation shows that the axe got stuck for a bit (the time of the hit is the same, but the animation is a bit different), so you now need to use ability 2.

This combo gives you 5 "well-cut" logs.

On another tree you hit it with 1 again, but now you hear a dull sound instead of a proper hit feedback. So you wanna use 1 again. The hit was still not deep enough so you gotta use 1 yet again. Now the axe gets "stuck", so you gotta use 2.

This also gives 5 wellcuts.

You hit the next tree 4 times with 1 regardless of what the feedback was and you get 4 or 5 normal logs.

I feel like this would be similar to fighting a mob, where you gotta react to the change in feedback. But you ultimately don't have to do that, if you're fine with a lower result.

Though I agree with Azherae that this kind of system would definitely do nothing against bots. It just might have some potential as being "better" for people who're interested in a more involved artisanry mechanic.

tautau

I anticipate that when I click on a rock to mine it, as my character is hitting the rock with the pick, I will be scanning around to my right and left and behind me to look for a potential PKer. That is where my excitement will be coming from, not the mining.

I would not want to have to do other mining stuff that would prevent me from protecting myself.

WHIT3ROS3

When it comes to gathering, I don't want it to be complicated, but I do want to it be satisfying. The breaking apart of the ruby gatherable in the most recent live stream and the "loot-box" style plain rock (that when cracked open reveals a more precious material) as seen in the previous gathering stream, are good examples of a satisfying gathering experience. The sound design, character animations and a large variety of interesting (and useful materials) all contribute toward that feeling.

With a bit more polish the mining experience is almost at launch quality IMO. (Perhaps a few sparks from the tool on impact)

The lumberjacking is almost there as well, just a bit more work on the tree physics so they don't spin out like they are possessed and the cut point being more in line where the axe makes contact and we are good to go.

The herbalism could have a couple more "cutting" animations thrown in so that you aren't doing the exact same movement each time (to mix it up a little)

The two gathering professions we haven't seen are fishing and hunting, both could offer a lot of dynamism in how they are implemented.

I would like to see animals that could be killed and skinned (providing a range of hide/meat) that leave a corpse or skeleton behind for a duration. It would allow other players to know that there is someone in the area hunting, you could have tracking skills that allow players to track down and kill rare types of animals. Taming as a sub-task of Hunting could also provide some more "in-depth" gameplay, having several stages necessary to tame different types of creatures.

For fishing, it could be interesting to have different types. Have the standard fishing rod and also spear fishing (using action targeting) or net fishing that needs to be cast off boats somehow. Perhaps even introduce traps that could be placed in areas.

Not every single aspect of the game needs to be an innovation. Mining Ore or Chopping wood just needs to be really good examples of what already exists as a concept IMO. Use hunting/fishing to innovate and introduce some new cool ideas and gameplay options.

Raven016

Trob wrote: »

TL:DR Gathering System (Chopping Tree) Progress Bars are old the staple and a boring staple! Most MMO's use it and no one innovates on it. Can we try something new and interactive? What are the design efforts and limitations for development to add interactive gameplay to Gathering and Artisan systems in game on par with combat? Also!!! If Crafting was more like captcha tests, then we'd actually have less bots.

Like if you agree! Comment below if you Do not and tell us why.

Progress indicators (bars or circles) are needed for cases where the server does not respond instantly.
Also to avoid making the player to click click click for every tree hit animation.

But if this progress is very long, if crafting something can take 2 minutes, then I don't like this kind of activity automation because it makes the life of players with multiple accounts easier and encourage them to do jobs in background. Basically it is an incentive to pay two subscriptions.
And Steven reinforced his attitude that he has nothing against that.
While the reason can be that they cannot detect those who cheat using scripts, I think the game should not help them and IS should not give up and just allow them.

Dygz

Trob wrote: »

A health bar is a sort of progress bar I agree. Again there is a healthy medium somewhere between a single click and the mob/tree dies and a full raid combat sequence with mechanics for a single mob/tree. I'm not at all suggesting a hot bar or a raid fight for the tree in any way shape or form. haha But something more than the loading screen of the tree going down....No? Starting to feel like it's just me? I do appreciate everyone adding perspective!

I wasn't thinking about a Raid. I was thinking about defeating any mob that has more than just 1xp total.
Typically chopping a tree takes a few hits with an ax. Just as mining typically requires a few swings with a pickaxe.
Even in the Artisanship demo, I think Steven hit that one tree twice and someone else hit the tree at least once.
The progress bar is basically an indicator of how much damage has been done to the tree or to the mineral.
And it's there so you can gauge how long you have to stand there attacking the tree or attacking the mineral deposit.

If I'm playing an Artisan/Crafting Sim, rather than an RPG, sure... maybe I would want the Gathering to be more involved since the only thing to do in the game would be Gathering and Crafting. I think even in Palia it's pretty much the same as it is in New World.

In Pax Dei, there is a progress bar for cutting the tree down to the ground. And then another progress bar for chopping the fallen tree into pieces that go into your inventory. The 2nd progress bar just seems like an unnecessary timesink, even though it is a step closer to real life.

ClintHardwood

The problem with 'interactive' gathering is that it encourages macroing for perfect 'scores' or once you get bored doing the same mini-game the ten-thousandth time. Off-line games that you play for twenty hours can get away with it because by the novelty wears off you've already beat the story and moved on with your life.

Edit: Interestingly, the games I've played with the best gathering and artisan systems had simple/automatic mechanisms (OSRS, Albion Online, New World) except in designated mini-game modes that entailed a lot more than 'click in rhythm'. For example, Wintertodt and Fishing Trawler in OSRS. Those are fun ways to switch it up once in a while, but I'd dislike it if firemaking and fishing always worked like in those mini-games.

Voeltz

Never been a fan of progress bar crafting and gathering that's in nearly every MMO. It's boring, It's lazy on the developers part because they don't want to spend time making a more interesting system and also on the players who advocate for it because they just wanna click a button and go afk or stop paying attention. Anybody who advocates for automated afk crafting/gathering is not a real crafter to begin with and they probably won't even use the system anyways.

Gathering is not necessarily something that needs its own mini game like crafting and processing does because searching the world for the resource is part of it, surveying will be another, then actually gathering it and returning it to the node. The one exception being Fishing. I would suggest something simple like how it is done in Survival games, Sons of the Forest for example. To me it really doesn't matter how its done as long as its something more than a single click of a button and waiting for the progress bar. Click and hold for continued swings, Continued clicks for each swing with an option of click and hold to charge a more powerful swing, click once and move the mouse to aim your swings in the right spots. This plus the visual feedback of the resource breaking apart/being collected, depending on what it is, would be enough. Here's a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxuCFpM9BGI

Dygz

Sons of the Forest is a Survival Game; not an RPG.

WHIT3ROS3

Dygz wrote: »

Sons of the Forest is a Survival Game; not an RPG.

So? There is absolutely nothing stopping different genres from taking inspiration from other genres.

Dygz

You should expect Crafting in a Survival Game to be Significantly different than Craftiung in an RPG.
Same with the Economy. Same with Leveling. And... no surprise if the combat mechanics are significantly different.
It's like Football, Kickball, Soccer and Rugby. Expect the gameplay to be signifcantly different.
When I want to play Soccer, I play Soccer. When I want to play Rugby, I play Rugby.
When I want to play a Survival GAme, I play a Survival Game. When I want to play an RPG, I play an RPG.
So, no... I don't want the Tree Chopping in Ashes to be like the Tree Chopping in Sons of the Forest because I'm not interested in playing Ashes as if it's a Survival Game.

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