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.
Comments
Exactly, I set 3x 50 min timers just before I spent the next hour outside the node gathering, leveling, and exploring. When I get back the components are done (leveling my processing), and I can change from my gathering clothes to my processing clothes and spens the next 30 min working through provessing different rarities. At the end, I package material for carpentry and focus on leveling crafting, or reset the provessing timers, put on gathering clothes, and go for another gathering loop.
The 'interesting'/frustrating thing here is that you actually can get away with it being like this for me and probably a lot of people who play those FaceBook style multi-station management games.
Thankfully they've indicated that it won't be so 'inactive' so I'll gladly wait to give feedback on it, but I can say that we might not get as much 'complaints' about it even from people who want to be Processors because of a true enjoyment of it.
I can actually try to detail it since it's relevant to the thread, but the short version is that even as it is now, the main thing that would make Processing 'boring' and 'not a thing one can like' is actually the abundance of resources and the weak upward correlations, if that makes any sense.
"Get 50 Zinc, make 50 Zinc Shards" - just an afk activity.
"Get 50 Zinc, parcel out that 50 Zinc into 4 or 5 different orders for different things/alloys that people requested." - More active, sort of its own minigame. Add more rarities and it's 'enough'.
I don't think the above 'only works on me because I'm also an Econ person', based on my data from other games, but there's no way to check in Ashes yet.
I'm no fan of the 'afk processing left to NPC', but if one was going to solve this, you have to 'do it this way' either way, because 'actively' making 50 Zinc Shards is even worse.
tl;dr minigames for the Processing itself, though they wouldn't be bad, don't address the 'issue' to me.
A few simple fixes would change the experience
When crafting make it that you can preload a stack of items i.e, a stack of 10 boots more like with processing making it not such a grind in crafting.
Get rid of the stupid "you need a apprentice level axe to chop apprentice level trees" bullshit! If i wanna take twice as long with my legendary novice axe to chop down an apprentice level tree that's my business. This one thing bottlenecks crafters not allowing them to preload items for the next stage while waiting for a node to be able to process them.
The one biggest problem I see will be at the top no one will be a grandmaster of anything because too many hands are involved. If i am a grandmaster armoursmith then I should be able to make the entire suit on my own but that is impossible and not just for one component but multiple. So to be a Grandmaster Armoursmith you would need to be a GM miner, GM hunter, GM Tanner, GM Metalsmith, GM Stonemason and GM Armoursmith but you can only have two! What makes this worse is you can't use lower material to higher end items making master level worthless for contributing to you chosen GM profession. Now if they have it set that when you become GM in your crafting profession that all feeder professions can obtain GM too then forget this whole last paragraph because that would solve the entire problem.
You're definitely more in the camp of 'kinda want a different game' which I respect but... probably not gonna happen in this regard.
Especially since that doesn't even parallel to most real-world-ish versions of this.
I saw this happen in L2 with crafters that managed to get recipes for new tier of gear first, so anyone who wanted to craft that gear would have to come to them.
Yeah but you gotta understand, there's a bunch of psychology behind why this is super important to people and it isn't actually as simple as 'I wanna do everything myself!'.
There were definitely some games that created some bad experiences for people when it came to the idea of restricting professions or 'making sure class identity mattered' and all that.
That's not even considering all the people who know that games like New World absolutely turn into 'people rushing to exploit the basic needs of the niche-less casuals'. So there will always be people who are very wary of the system Ashes is proposing to use, especially combined with some of the other features of the game.
Freeholds anyone?
EDIT: Remember that this is the tier of economy in games people are used to.
If you type P and look at the crafting you can see all the items that can be made. I would have seen here that i can only make a copper and tin bow, and no "bronze" bow. Dunno how long it has been like this tho, did they just change this?
we also have the bare bones system atm suppose to get skill tree and thing in phase 2 i beleive, i do like how need other people for crafting though too for economy we just need the economy side of the game like shops which should be phase 2 it seems too
There are a lot of unfairness regarding PvX that needs to be addressed so low level players can take their journey without begin one shot all the time.
You know, part of the problem was that I felt like i needed to straight grind that profession in order for it to be of any use. This might be a "me" problem, or it might be an ashes problem.
Now that I understand the systems a little better, I've been able to find some satisfying gameplay loops.
For example, this morning I would grind some mobs with a random group until I get enough glint to run a 1g caravan, then chop trees on my way home until i get about 150 wood or so, then stop off at home and set up the lumbermilling, trade the glint in for a caravan run, drive to the next node and get cash, then go grind mobs for a bit for more glint/repeat.
This way none of the activities are too monotonous and now I am getting some synergies going on and feeling pretty good about it actually. Getting gold, exp and progressing my professions.
Not sure if i am optimally progressing in anything, but at least im having fun. =D
There's already a ton of stuff to do in the game, so it's up to players to figure what they want to do with their time. Artisan enjoyers can just spend hours grinding their profession, while casual artisans can just throw in a bit of profession gameplay here and there.
Awesome!
As more people level up, running on a low level character means you have less people capable of attacking you. Since fast travel is t really a thing, the only people that are likely to struck you are those that are already along the route - minimizing that number due to the above would easily be the safest way to run a caravan.
That said, with Intrepids recent decisions, I wouldn't be surprised.
Thanks, noting this helps me too (because it's hard for me to know if only my own group has these changes in experience when 'pushed' or if it is more general, and I've learned that it's really specific per game, so I have to 'restart the count' for every new game).
Have to get player stalls in the game for a little more efficient trading compared to chat. Coming in phase 2, so we’ll see how that small change alters the experience. Also will need to see how it works because I seriously doubt these stalls are “free”, and there may in fact be a limit similar to the freehold concept where early on people were thinking everyone would get a free hold.
Have to get markets in the game for more efficiency compared to player stalls.
Have to remove gear drops from the game to drive demand. The drops will be the recipes to get the artisans to gather, process and craft the gear. If they move toward material cert drops, then you can also exchange those to help in the crafting process. I think for now they have opted for glint, so I don’t know if that’s a temporary thing or a permanent design change. Glint however does apply to commodities, which is a whole other system tied to caravans, and provides a higher risk, higher reward opportunity. I think they see systems in place to get more collaboration between gamers who like to go fight people/monsters and take stuff and those more economically inclined. That system also provides player to player friction so that this isn’t just a big market simulation game.
The game has built in specialization so expecting your PC to craft that awesome item isn’t that reasonable without a connected economy. Right away at the apprentice level you go from knowing all of the artisan skills to a limit of 5. If you want to craft high end gear then you’ll definitely have to earn it and either have a network of suppliers or an active market. I think a network of suppliers may be more efficient, which is why trade guilds will be a thing (already kind of are).
Many are already feeling the pain at artisan crafting, where it’s taking around 2-3 apprentice gatherers, 2-3 apprentice processors and 1 apprentice crafter to produce that item you are after. So with the 5 apprentice skill max you might be very good being a solo crafter of a very small subset of tier 2 items.
Gathering is generally the easiest to level in that it’s resource dependent with lumberjacking being easiest at hunting most time consuming. Mining is a pain because it seems like everything you run into is a tier 3 resource because we don’t have journeyman gathering. If I had a nickel for every iron node I ran across…. BTW, we’re starting to get better at distinguishing copper from iron at a distance at night while monitoring chat and avoiding mobs.
Go into processing and you need an extra 11 resources for every 10 you wish to process plus fuel costs (1 oak for every 10). Those extra resources pay for the processing rather than just selling the resources. If you want to maintain a steady cash stream rather than have your wealth whittled to nothing because right now you are reliant on selling your processed items to vendors. Another way of thinking about it is that the ratio of a resource to a processed resource is 2.2 to 1. A little more than a doubling if you don’t want the difference to come from your coin purse. Takes a little longer, but you don’t go broke trying to level processing.
Getting to crafting, those ratios double to triple. I haven’t done all of the math related to the crafting side, but with each recipe relying on 2-3 processed goods, it would seem to have at least a 2 to 1 ratio, plus the crafting cost. So the ratio from raw materials to crafted good is in the neighborhood 5 to 1 minimum.
Once you get to those apprentice levels, you can bring that down to a simple collection to produce items you can sell. That’s all just for common items, getting into rarities and you start to really grind. Best bet is to retain all of the resources from rare to legendary, and focus artisan leveling on common to uncommon resources . I know there’s a temptation to chase the best gear right away, but in the process you may end up sacrificing a higher level rarity to make something “good enough”.
AoC is a niche MMORPG with very niche features and systems that allow you to do your thing, but not everything (without a heavy time sink). Unless you want to keep your characters at Novice level and supplier the economy with tier 1 items. The higher you go the more specialized and hence the more cooperative the game becomes.
Ya I don't enjoy the crafting and I want to. It's not intuitive. It's convoluted to figure out. Overly clicky. There needs to be way less steps to refine. Getting every crafting types work stations needs to be more available.
By level 3 nod we should have access to all crafting stations. Not being able to do your trade of choice. You should not be hindered because you just can't access a station. That's not fun. I get not being to access high level stations are not needed, but I should be able to craft level 1 to 10 gear.
Want to end this with my thanks. Loving this game very much, keep up the great work.
Two things:
1. What's 'overly clicky'? How would you even do any less clicks for this?
2. What crafting stations is a level 3 node actually lacking? I haven't noticed this as much, but if there was one missing I'm not sure I'd think of it just running around.
Here's an example from processing. Let's say I just returned from slicing up the woods with 43 regular oak, 18 rare oak, 9 heroic, and 1 legendary:
As is, there are 5 clicks to send something through a process queue (material tier drop down (1), quantity drop down (1) , and fuel selection (2 w/shift right click), and 1 click to execute).
So for the mats above here's the flow:
- 25 reg oak (5 clicks)
- 10 reg oak (5 clicks)
- 5 reg oak (5 clicks)
- 1 reg oak x3 (15 clicks)
- 10 rare oak (5 clicks)
- 5 rare oak (5 clicks)
- 1 rare oak x3 (15 clicks)
- 5 heroic oak (5 clicks)
- 1 heroic oak x4 (20 clicks)
- 1 legendary oak (5 clicks)
Total: 85 clicks
One suggested alternative is right click stacks from my inventory by tier (1 click), which then create the quantity for processing. Then select fuel (2 clicks), then execute (1 click)
- 43 reg oak (4 clicks)
- 18 rare oak (4 clicks)
- 9 heroic oak (4 clicks)
- 1 legendary oak (4 clicks)
Total clicks: 16
2 Clicks should be enough. 1 inventory, 1 execute. Maaaaybe 3, if we want an "are you sure" window.
This is why counting on people like me to tell you what's wrong with the moment-to-moment aspects of systems is a bad idea. Thanks for that reminder.
Ha! Takes a village (literally in Ashes). 🤗
It was paaaain. Imo no damn reason for the wait and fuel definitely should be automated. I'm used to just spam-clicking the craft button in L2, cause you simply need to have the mats on you and there's no wait on the crafting process itself.
Srsly, so many crates. Again if I have 500 oak timber I want to use for 100 crates - the UI can be MUCH easier.
I have fighting gamer brain tho...
I'm literally hardwired to 'zone out and start thinking about something else when doing a physical repetition with a visually trackable progress condition'.
I haven't done large scale crafting, but based on my other knowledge of myself, I bet it would be the same (this is the thing that made me literally worry about being flagged as a bot when I'm just playing normally, my mechanical consistency has been honed to some 'interesting' levels over the years).
The same thing's gonna happen for the combat system, but fortunately I have 5 other people who are more likely to complain and remind me, for that.
= not fun. For a game that's so fun how is crafting so far from the mark.
And the Folio! lord give us a Folio in Ashes!