Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Some Feedback From A Gatherer
BraydenS
Member, Alpha Two
Hello, I am Artisan of the Vyra server. I spent about half of my playtime this weekend gathering and I wanted to provide some feedback based on my experience.
To start, I found gathering to be quite enjoyable. It is an activity that is no so mindless that it can feel tedious, but not so complex that its quickly tiring. I enjoy that it pushes you out into the world. If you stay around your node you will quickly deplete everything nearby and have to venture deeper into the biome.
Resource Scarcity, Population Density:
I think one of the biggest issues with gathering right now has been made quite obvious through the many complaints about finding copper. Some resources are very low in quantity for the amount of players in the space. I'm not sure if respawn times have been adjusted for the population density, but if they haven't they could really benefit from being increased. At release a full server will have ~10 players per square Kilometer. Currently if we're meeting the planned server caps of 3k there are about 54 players per square Kilometer. This means that resources are 5x harder to come by than they would be at release.
This has also lead to the entire biome being stripped bare, which I believe also impacts the visuals of the game quite significantly. As more trees get cut down and more herb patches get picked the world becomes a very bland plain of repeated grass and dirt texture.
Inventory and Storage:
Next, either material gain rates are too high or the resource capacity is too small. With ash trees being the only resource within node plugs it can be quite a walk to reach other materials. Once you reach your desired resource you can fill your bag in only a few minutes. I was primarily after experience personally, so I would only keep the highest value items and drop the rest for the remaining hour or so that I gathered. For players who are after the material itself, the material capacity is far too small. A player after materials will spend as much time, if not more time, running back and forth to store the materials as they do gathering. Initially I thought that it might get better as I get better bags (I have not gotten there yet). But I realized that as my material capacity goes up from bags, so does my gathered quantity from tool upgrades.
Much as our player inventory struggles with gathering, so to does our node storage. Though the storage looks quite large when you first open it, the space fills quite quickly. A few full inventories can completely fill the storage with wood, stone, or large animals. Currently with no marketplace it is difficult to offload those resources quickly, so as soon as I load up my storage I am forced to vendor much of my stock to not completely waste it.
A final small note about inventory is that the novice mining bag (or any other four square bag) is better than the novice herbalists bag even for an herbalist. The mining bag can store a whole 160 herbs, while the herbalist bag can only hold 92.
Gathering Upgrades Will Come Late:
I have not experienced this yet, but I have the expectation that gathering upgrades will come later than their true requirement, at least early in the game's release. As it stands currently, I can get level 10 gathering days before any crafter can craft apprentice level gear, tools, and bags. Crafters have a bottleneck of very specific resources being gathered, as well as the time to process a large quantity of those resources. I fear that this crafting bottleneck will only continue through the tiers until a few weeks or months into the game when crafters can finally catch up with gatherers in level.
A Dangerous World & Material Loss:
Currently a player must invest a large amount of time into their character level before they can focus on gathering, which doesn't feel terribly sandboxy to me. Monsters are so dangerous and so hard to get away from as a solo player that I dedicated my first many hours of playtime to achieving level 10 so that I could survive in most of the biome. Even then as a mage it is easy to die if I accidentally pull a single mob while gathering.
With death coming so easily while out gathering, the material loss is very painful. I don't mind material loss as a mechanic, but it feels very harsh with how equally harsh the world is. Accidentally getting slightly too close to a raven and having it dive one shot you, deleting 25% of your materials is rough. I feel that the material loss should either be reduced to 30% (15% dropped, 15% destroyed) or have all 50% dropped onto the ground. Additionally, it from what I could tell the items dropped are random. I personally would far prefer to lose 50% of each item, rather than a random 50% of my stock. It can feel really rough to lose 100% of my copper and be so fortunate to keep all of my basalt.
Caravans?:
I may have missed something, but I did not see any way for a gatherer to interact with the caravan system. I could not find a way to transport materials via caravan, which I think would be an amazing way to transport all materials from one node to another. With no way to transport materials via caravan and no way to obtain glint while gathering outside of commissions, gatherers have no way to use the really cool system of caravans.
I would love to see a way to convert materials into glint. This would allow gatherers to use the caravan system and have a guaranteed source of income if a resource drops in value on the market. It would help prevent low tier materials from being vendor trash during times of overstock and become another way to take materials out of the economy alongside
crafting, fuel, etc.
Closing:
A final small tip to players. If you see a level 50 GMSteven in the world don't attack him. He will /nuke you very quickly.
Thank you for reading through this feedback, I hope it helps the development. Your gathering loop is going in the right direction! It needs some work but its already very enjoyable. I really enjoyed the weekend test and can't wait to log in next weekend!
To start, I found gathering to be quite enjoyable. It is an activity that is no so mindless that it can feel tedious, but not so complex that its quickly tiring. I enjoy that it pushes you out into the world. If you stay around your node you will quickly deplete everything nearby and have to venture deeper into the biome.
Resource Scarcity, Population Density:
I think one of the biggest issues with gathering right now has been made quite obvious through the many complaints about finding copper. Some resources are very low in quantity for the amount of players in the space. I'm not sure if respawn times have been adjusted for the population density, but if they haven't they could really benefit from being increased. At release a full server will have ~10 players per square Kilometer. Currently if we're meeting the planned server caps of 3k there are about 54 players per square Kilometer. This means that resources are 5x harder to come by than they would be at release.
This has also lead to the entire biome being stripped bare, which I believe also impacts the visuals of the game quite significantly. As more trees get cut down and more herb patches get picked the world becomes a very bland plain of repeated grass and dirt texture.
Inventory and Storage:
Next, either material gain rates are too high or the resource capacity is too small. With ash trees being the only resource within node plugs it can be quite a walk to reach other materials. Once you reach your desired resource you can fill your bag in only a few minutes. I was primarily after experience personally, so I would only keep the highest value items and drop the rest for the remaining hour or so that I gathered. For players who are after the material itself, the material capacity is far too small. A player after materials will spend as much time, if not more time, running back and forth to store the materials as they do gathering. Initially I thought that it might get better as I get better bags (I have not gotten there yet). But I realized that as my material capacity goes up from bags, so does my gathered quantity from tool upgrades.
Much as our player inventory struggles with gathering, so to does our node storage. Though the storage looks quite large when you first open it, the space fills quite quickly. A few full inventories can completely fill the storage with wood, stone, or large animals. Currently with no marketplace it is difficult to offload those resources quickly, so as soon as I load up my storage I am forced to vendor much of my stock to not completely waste it.
A final small note about inventory is that the novice mining bag (or any other four square bag) is better than the novice herbalists bag even for an herbalist. The mining bag can store a whole 160 herbs, while the herbalist bag can only hold 92.
Gathering Upgrades Will Come Late:
I have not experienced this yet, but I have the expectation that gathering upgrades will come later than their true requirement, at least early in the game's release. As it stands currently, I can get level 10 gathering days before any crafter can craft apprentice level gear, tools, and bags. Crafters have a bottleneck of very specific resources being gathered, as well as the time to process a large quantity of those resources. I fear that this crafting bottleneck will only continue through the tiers until a few weeks or months into the game when crafters can finally catch up with gatherers in level.
A Dangerous World & Material Loss:
Currently a player must invest a large amount of time into their character level before they can focus on gathering, which doesn't feel terribly sandboxy to me. Monsters are so dangerous and so hard to get away from as a solo player that I dedicated my first many hours of playtime to achieving level 10 so that I could survive in most of the biome. Even then as a mage it is easy to die if I accidentally pull a single mob while gathering.
With death coming so easily while out gathering, the material loss is very painful. I don't mind material loss as a mechanic, but it feels very harsh with how equally harsh the world is. Accidentally getting slightly too close to a raven and having it dive one shot you, deleting 25% of your materials is rough. I feel that the material loss should either be reduced to 30% (15% dropped, 15% destroyed) or have all 50% dropped onto the ground. Additionally, it from what I could tell the items dropped are random. I personally would far prefer to lose 50% of each item, rather than a random 50% of my stock. It can feel really rough to lose 100% of my copper and be so fortunate to keep all of my basalt.
Caravans?:
I may have missed something, but I did not see any way for a gatherer to interact with the caravan system. I could not find a way to transport materials via caravan, which I think would be an amazing way to transport all materials from one node to another. With no way to transport materials via caravan and no way to obtain glint while gathering outside of commissions, gatherers have no way to use the really cool system of caravans.
I would love to see a way to convert materials into glint. This would allow gatherers to use the caravan system and have a guaranteed source of income if a resource drops in value on the market. It would help prevent low tier materials from being vendor trash during times of overstock and become another way to take materials out of the economy alongside
crafting, fuel, etc.
Closing:
A final small tip to players. If you see a level 50 GMSteven in the world don't attack him. He will /nuke you very quickly.
Thank you for reading through this feedback, I hope it helps the development. Your gathering loop is going in the right direction! It needs some work but its already very enjoyable. I really enjoyed the weekend test and can't wait to log in next weekend!
1
Comments
(cuts tree, 1 min later bear spawns, tree start to grow back, tree mature, bear de-spawns after 5 min)
This will incentivize node land management practices and defense measures...
And lets say for example if all resources are removed in an area a (world boss) spawns and remains untill all resources regenerate and then will leave after a set period or if killed will fertilize* the area with high rarity gathering spawns....hypothetical.
I wrote something like this a few years ago as I saw this issue being a problem and wanted to try and turn it into a boon/positive
Improvements From Last Week:
I did less gathering this weekend than last, but I did see many improvements come from the patches done over the week.
With the artisan bags having increased capacities for their respective material the inventory woes are basically entirely gone. They become even less of an issue once achieving an apprentice bag, which was so powerful that my starter tools would break before filling the bag. Additionally, you fixed the issue with herbalist bags being inferior to mining bags, which is great to see!
Though I see that you increased the respawn rate for tier 1 gatherables, I found it more difficult to gather this weekend than last. I'm unsure if it was the winter snow obscuring many herbs and ores, or if it was the majority of the playerbase reaching a point where they can take a break from leveling and work on artisan skills. With the changes this week also came a bug for me where many trees around Halcyon appeared standing, and could be collided with, but could not be chopped. While this does help to make the world feel a little less barren, it did make gathering confusing and frustrating.
Gathering Tool Progression:
I mentioned last week that I worried about gathering upgrades coming far later than their useable level, at least at the start of the game. Something that I feel could help reduce this slight discomfort would be to allow tools to gather one tier higher than their own. This would allow gatherers to prepare materials for processors and crafters before their buildings are completed. With this change, gatherers would still be restricted by their certificate level but would get a greater freedom to their gathering progression.
This change would also give gatherers a reason to craft the novice level tools in order to gather apprentice gatherables before a building is made. In the current state, I felt that there was no real reason to waste the valuable 10 copper on a tool that was a small upgrade that I would be replacing within the next few days. This change would also allow you to add higher tier gatherables to the crafting recipe for higher tier tools. I felt it was odd that the novice and apprentice tools both used the same materials.
High Tier vs Low Tier Gatherers:
This is more of a worry than an observed issue, but I fear that low tier gatherers will be left behind in many ways once high tier gatherers are able to get their gear. Intrepid has often claimed that Ashes will keep high level and low level players together by maintaining somewhat of an interdependence; high level crafts still require low level gatherables to maintain and craft, giving a new player value. While this is great in theory, I fear that with stats like gathering quantity and gathering quality being available, this will lead to a high level gatherer still gathering low tier materials and making a low level gatherer's work essentially null. I don't have a specific solution to this at the moment, but I feel it is important to keep an eye on.
Gathering Bloat:
On a similar vein to what was just mentioned, I have a fear that gathering bloat may get excessive depending on how powerful the gathering quantity stat is. Currently it is already possible to fill a storage up with materials quite quickly with 0 stats. I have over 800 wood in my storage and have been struggling to find people in my guild to give it away to. As a gatherer with no source of income, I am too poor to process the materials myself and very few people want to process the goods themselves.
As stats increase, I worry that eventually we will see gatherers obtaining thousands of material in a day, but the amount of processors and the demand for materials will not be able to keep up. This will only further devalue the work of early level gatherers and artisans who gather as a tertiary or lower priority.
Weeping Willow Typo:
The weeping willow wood obtained from chopping a tree is misspelled as Weeping Williow.
Mount Dash Keybind:
Finally, while this isn't entirely related to gathering, this is a big piece of feedback I would like to give. I feel that the dash ability on mounts would benefit from being bound to the player sprint button (C by default) from the start. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to dash by pressing C while mounted.
That definitely seems like an interesting solution, but I fear that it could become too gamified. Grinding parties could have a dedicated gatherer running around preparing things to spawn, for instance (I would actually enjoy that role but I don't think it would be good for the game). I fear it would lead to a great inconsistency in monster density and location, and would be very difficult to balance.
I do really like the idea of spawning a world boss by resource gathering though! Summoning some kind of protector of the forest by deforesting an area could be a really cool community event!
Rocks are common in Miraeth
Flowers common in winstead
Animals common in Hyclone
Ore common joeva
Gems common in New aela
This would promote resource trade moving common resources from one area to another area via caravans which seems to be how that want resources to work when game finished so this would help simulate this on a much smaller scale for testing however that being said there a bug current where resources that have been placed in creates for caravaning become unusable when you pull them out of crates (basicly the resources gets bricked and an only be vendored for some reason.