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Hunting / Animal Husbandry balance discussion

TaiisienTaiisien Member, Alpha Two
I love to gather and craft in nearly every MMO, and Ashes offers more than most games. Currently I am attempting to play / test as many artisan classes as possible and I feel that the Hunting and Animal Husbandry classes are out of balance compared to others. Here is a list of what I have seen that seems off...

Hunting - Spawns are much more spread out compared to other gathering skills such as Mining, Lumberjacking, and Herbalism.
Hunting - Collection grants the same xp per harvest as other gathering skills despite having less spawn locations.
Hunting - Collection grants 1 harvested item per spawn compared to other skills giving 2-5 per harvest.
Hunting - Selling harvested items sell for the same price per item to a vendor as other gathering skills, despite less spawn points and less harvested items per collection.
Hunting - Collection has unknown resource produced, you can gather either an animal used in husbandry or a carcass used in cooking and leatherworking, but you don't know which you will get until it has been gathered. No other gathering skill does this. If I mine granite, I know I will get granite, If I collect daffodils I know I will get daffodils.

Husbandry - Processing gives a 50% / 50% chance at receiving a Beast of Burden or a Mount. Lets be honest, most people that are attempting AH are trying for mounts 99% of the time.
Husbandry - Processing takes 30 mins and grants 500xp compared to other skills roughly 2600xp (@Roshen did talk with the team and this should be adjusted).
Husbandry - Processing takes a minimum of 55s for one 30 minute process, this greatly exceeds other 30 minute processes and again only in husbandry this can still result in an unwanted item.
Husbandry - Processing does not take into account animal rarity. If I process rare (blue) wolf into a mount, I would expect different stats on the mount because the resource was rare.
Husbandry - Processing grants only one item for the 30 minute process, other skills take far less time for a single process, 30 mins is only when batch processing.
Husbandry - Processing is one and done, the end result of the process cannot be used in any other process to allow for continued xp, this is the only skill like this. For example, If I collect a wolf carcass I can use the tanning station to process this into wolf hide, process again into tanned wolf hide, process again into wolf leather, each time gaining xp for the tanning process.

Currently, my only form of Husbandry xp has a 30 minute timer attached, I would really like to see this at 10 - 20 minutes max. At current xp levels (getting to level 10 skill takes 40,000 xp) that's 80 processes which equals 40 real life hours and at the lowest cost of 55s per process equals 440 GOLD. If the xp gets raised to say 3000xp per process, level 10 skill still takes 14 processes or 7 hours or 77 gold minimum. If the xp gets raised say to 3000xp per process AND the timer were reduced to ten minutes, level 10 skill would be 14 processes, 2.5 hours (5 hours if time was lowered to 20 mins) and 77 gold minimum. Now this may sound too quick, but the xp required per level is drastic, at level 20 it looks like this (xp needed is 160,000) that's 54 processes, 9 hours (18 hours if 20 min processing time), and 297 gold, it only goes up from there.

Overall I am enjoying the process of finding animals, collecting the animal or carcass and then turning that into useful things, I just think that there needs to be a balance pass to bring everything in line with other gathering and processing skills. As it stands right now, Hunting and Husbandry receive the least xp and the least coin, will take the longest to level, and cost ~10 times as much or more. I want to continue to enjoy the process and continue with these two skills, at the moment though, its rough. @Roshen could you please have your team look into these other issues as well.

Comments

  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    Gonna takeb100to 200g to hit lvl 10 in animal husbandry imo. Honostly should be able to study the animal too and just gain xp when you do it to allow for burning excess mount crafting item and allow for cheaper way to level, unless the devs want that skill to be expensive to level
  • UrkgothUrkgoth Member, Alpha Two
    Another issue specifically with hunting, is there doesn't seem to be a tool for apprentice. No place to buy, and uncraftable, unless I've missed a specific location. I've checked everywhere....
  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    Urkgoth wrote: »
    Another issue specifically with hunting, is there doesn't seem to be a tool for apprentice. No place to buy, and uncraftable, unless I've missed a specific location. I've checked everywhere....

    You need a mayor to build specific building for the spexific craft to make apprentices tools from my understsnding
  • TaiisienTaiisien Member, Alpha Two
    Urkgoth wrote: »
    Another issue specifically with hunting, is there doesn't seem to be a tool for apprentice. No place to buy, and uncraftable, unless I've missed a specific location. I've checked everywhere....

    The apprentice hunting tool comes from the node building for cooking. on my server the New Aela node is currently building our cookhouse.
  • NiralysNiralys Member, Alpha Two
    Also the 50% / 50% chance presents another issue: if I find a buyer usually they want a mount, if you are particularly unlucky you could potentially get a mount after 3-4 trials (happened to me many times) and you can't really ask a buyer of a mount to pay the money that will allow to cover these many trials just because of bad luck.

    Also it makes no sense in the perspective of being an expert of AH: why there is RNG on this profession? Am I an expert or just a random that is trying their luck? In all the other professions every product costs much less and is not attached to dumb luck, hoping to not get bankrupt.

    Lastly, the mechanic of needing to travel the map constantly to level up in the fastest way AH is not really something I consider enjoyable gameplay and again no other profession requires this much travel.

    TL;DR: Hunting and Animal Husbandry need to have a rework on the yields and xp gained, randomness should be removed entirely, if I wanted to gamble I would play poker.
  • UrkgothUrkgoth Member, Alpha Two
    I agree the randomness should be within pools of: im training/breeding a mount vs I'm training/breeding a beast of burden. Seprate choices with random stat/appearance outcomes
  • RocketFarmerRocketFarmer Member, Alpha Two
    Animal Husbandry is the Tank of the artisans. Grindy, expensive and punishing when you RNG the beast of burden. But when things go great everyone wishes they were you.
  • redhorn70redhorn70 Member, Alpha Two
    100% agree!
  • okolookolo Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Animal Husbandry is definitely in need of a balance pass in regards to cost/per xp. Also agree on the 50/50 chance of coming out the other side with what you wanted isn't fun and just feels like a second kick. Some RNG is fine, such as visuals and possibly more, but you know exactly what you're getting when you start the "crafting" process in every other profession, I don't think Animal Husbandry should be such a gamble.
  • LordPaxLordPax Member, Alpha Two
    I would also like to say, unless the Phase 2 'breeding' process consumes a mount, the market will eventually be "full". What do I mean? Unlike gear that can be tempered/broken down for scraps to re-use for crafts, food that gets consumed for buffs, or potions and scrolls that are consumed when used too, the mounts are... well, they last forever. Its a lot of gold to fund animal husbandry, but in reality, 5 people could supply the entire server with mounts. Once you get the fabled mount as a result of your processing, thats it - you won't be able to sell that same mount to that customer ever again. If everyone gets the few mounts they want(unless Intrepid plan on having 'collections' like in other MMOs for completionists) then they will never need to purchase additional mounts. I will be curious to see how that affects players investing the most time and money into an artisan skill with a shelf life of usability.
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  • AquinasAquinas Member, Alpha Two
    My thoughts on AH:

    It's absolutely stupid right now, despite that I still got to journeyman hunting in order to test taming the turtles. I honestly regret that time spent especially with servers being wiped in a few weekends. Unfortunately the 2 professions that I am most interested in (farming and AH) are total placeholders. I am not planning to return to AH until maybe P3 to retest it. As you said there are so many things wrong with it, unbalanced, and such insane RNG.

    Not to mention that when you say find a heroic wolf or an epic bear and you go through the AH skill - you have no idea what you are going to create at the end. If you open the window sometimes it shows BoB, if you close it and open it again, sometimes it will show the mount. I want to know exactly what I am getting so I do not waste the material. If I have an epic bear and I click the RNG button and it shows BoB I want to be able to cancel, lose the gold and fuel but get my epic bear back. Again, no other profession has you play this guessing game about what you will actually receive at the end of the processing time.

    The whole artisan feels bad. Everything about it.

    In the future, I would love if you as the AH journeyman could ride your mounts around the world to 'train them' to improve their stats before you go to sell them. For example, each mount has 5 stars for riding, combat, and storage. Novice AH can acquire the 1st star and improve the riding speed of the mount through experience of riding it. Apprentice can fill in 2/5 stars (journeyman 3/5, master 4/5, grandmaster 5/5). These stars would only be unlocked by someone with AH.

    Perhaps you buy an Epic bear mount from someone but you are not an AH and it only has 1/5 stars in riding and 0/5 in combat and storage. It would be cool if you could give the mount to your master AH guild mate and pay them to increase the stars from 1/5 riding to 4/5 riding thus increasing the speed, jump distance, agility, etc.
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