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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.
Game has to get more solo friendly by design.
RedLeader1
Member, Alpha Two
The reasons why, and why on release particularly, the game will not lend itself to widespread group levelling, or gathering, at least for the vast majority of players, should be obvious to everyone. I started to articulate them all and it got TLDR too fast.
So, There are a few Christmas wishes I would appreciate being granted with levelling/Artisanship:
1. Node levelling is far too fast during testing. When we have 80 nodes this won't be a problem, but the min/maxers, just charge through zerging the content before the rest of us have had a chance to test what it will be like for 90% of players. Can we have a realm that is regularly wiped, so when we have a short amount of time to play, we can go somewhere to test and not see a world where everything is max level, and full of max level players, gathering all of the few accessible low-level resources. I think we may need that to test artisanship and levelling properly in a way you cant on the PTR, and then you won't need to wipe all the realms as frequently. Please could this at least be considered.
2. The resource item quality system, variety of gatherable items, pack system/size, widely distributed processors, and travel time to a bank is really a problem. It means that a general gathering run is very inefficient for larger things like minerals and lumber. Having everyone gathering everything is a massive traffic jam, while we are compressed in such a small space. The risk/reward for gathering, particularly the time investment risk, is really bad. You can gather for hours, and get nothing but worthless material, and only gain a few levels of artisanship. I think quantities, drop rates of higher qualities, pack design etc. need to be experimented with. Your pack can be full with very few materials if you get lucky/unlucky with quality rolls. If the artisanship gathering skill trees don't help this somehow, please can you think about making it so that they do?
3. There needs to be much better delineation between the POIs that are set up for group levelling, and the wider node environment that should be more for solo play. There must be a way to make the mobs in the nodes inefficient to farm in a group, but still rewarding to solo, even if you cheat and just make them grant no XP if you are grouped up and/or not doing a story arc or quest. I really don't think it is necessary to kill the gameplay of one group at the expense of the other. Separating them would help balance the time investment risk, and make the game holistically equally rewarding, no matter how you like to play it.
3 wishes is the norm, so I'll leave it there. As always, this may of course be where you are headed anyway, in which case, I'll try to be more patient.
So, There are a few Christmas wishes I would appreciate being granted with levelling/Artisanship:
1. Node levelling is far too fast during testing. When we have 80 nodes this won't be a problem, but the min/maxers, just charge through zerging the content before the rest of us have had a chance to test what it will be like for 90% of players. Can we have a realm that is regularly wiped, so when we have a short amount of time to play, we can go somewhere to test and not see a world where everything is max level, and full of max level players, gathering all of the few accessible low-level resources. I think we may need that to test artisanship and levelling properly in a way you cant on the PTR, and then you won't need to wipe all the realms as frequently. Please could this at least be considered.
2. The resource item quality system, variety of gatherable items, pack system/size, widely distributed processors, and travel time to a bank is really a problem. It means that a general gathering run is very inefficient for larger things like minerals and lumber. Having everyone gathering everything is a massive traffic jam, while we are compressed in such a small space. The risk/reward for gathering, particularly the time investment risk, is really bad. You can gather for hours, and get nothing but worthless material, and only gain a few levels of artisanship. I think quantities, drop rates of higher qualities, pack design etc. need to be experimented with. Your pack can be full with very few materials if you get lucky/unlucky with quality rolls. If the artisanship gathering skill trees don't help this somehow, please can you think about making it so that they do?
3. There needs to be much better delineation between the POIs that are set up for group levelling, and the wider node environment that should be more for solo play. There must be a way to make the mobs in the nodes inefficient to farm in a group, but still rewarding to solo, even if you cheat and just make them grant no XP if you are grouped up and/or not doing a story arc or quest. I really don't think it is necessary to kill the gameplay of one group at the expense of the other. Separating them would help balance the time investment risk, and make the game holistically equally rewarding, no matter how you like to play it.
3 wishes is the norm, so I'll leave it there. As always, this may of course be where you are headed anyway, in which case, I'll try to be more patient.
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Comments
And I don't see how the game is not solo friendly, I'm literally able to solo 2star and 3star NPCs, the biggest difference being that I get more XP per hour if I kill them faster in a group, because the system gives on average more XP that way than if you're solo.