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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
🌼👋 Dev Discussion: Gatherable Spawning System
Dev Discussions are an opportunity to join in on player discussions about topics that Intrepid Studios want to hear your thoughts on. This is less about asking us questions, and more about us asking YOU the questions! If you do have questions about Ashes of Creation, keep an eye our social media channels for our monthly livestreams, check out the Ashes of Creation community wiki, or try the #questions channel in Discord!
In this thread, we’ll be discussing:
Dev Discussion - Gatherable Spawning System
- What aspects of the current gathering system do you like and dislike?
- What makes a gatherable system fun for you? What kind of scenarios would you like to see encouraged through the system? An example could be finding a high-level Surveyor to party up with, or a party to lock down a nearby cave full of gatherables.
- Are there gatherable systems in other games that you enjoy? What about those mechanics do you find fun?
- Which of the upcoming gathering-related changes excites or intrigues you the most, and why?
Please don't feel limited to the thought-starters above! Feel free to share any thoughts, concerns, or stories regarding gathering with us in this Dev Discussion.
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Comments
Hunting. Good place holder but needs major overhaul. Petting a mob to death is not it. Idea. You target a mob. You can attack or you can try to tame. If you attack and kill you should have a chance to get a useable hide that you can break down, or bones that can drop instead or in addition to the hide. Also, a chance for nothing to drop. If you chose to tame say a raven for instance you need to do some research to learn that it can only be tamed with shiny metal fragments of some kind. You click on the raven and the bits with a chance of taming it. Or it goes badly, and you fight. This could be done with other mobs where you have to go on quests to find out what foods or items it takes to tame them. The higher the tier of mob the more research is needed and the harder to tame the mob. This could be used in animal husbandry also. Animal husbandry is a money sink right now. Get about 300 to 400 gold and you can have every mount out there as a ride or beast of Burden. I get you need money sinks, but I think you can get a bit more creative than this.
Fishing right now is a placeholder and rather boring. Stand in one place, set to fish and come back in 30 minutes to check on status. Rinse and repeat. The hardest part is getting the newest fishing rod. Yawn. Where is the risk and reward?
Legendary seems to be easier to get than say epic in some cases like Braidwood. Few people want the other rarities of Braidwood. Want to harvest it and willow just hang out around Lionshold. Now if you are working on harvesting animals for tailoring and animal fat. Then Legendary is truly Legendary. I have not seen any in the game. Nor have I seen any animal fat of the rare, heroic, epic versions. let alone Legendary.
Because I harvest lots of ore, minerals I have gotten a lot of Jewelry, and leatherworkers' recipes but few recipes for stonemasonry, Armor smithing, Metalsmithing, Weapon smithing. Why is this? I am an apprentice in Metal smithing and Armor Smithing. Level 7 in Weapon smithing. Which is taking twice as long to level as Armor smithing because it takes 4 times as much copper to make a shield then the 2 zinc for Boots. I checked the stats on the shields. The Rarity doesn't change the stats enough to worry about. Bug report the epic copper shield can't be made as it defaults to rare. No difference in stats.
To many quests are broken. But I suspect that is on purpose. Problem is few are doing the quests. Instead, everyone power levels and works on PVP because there is nothing else to do. That is the way many players see this game right now.
Rant off.
One biome bonus (seems to be plants in riverlands and ore in dessert) this basicly just increases base quality range to white to heroic it seems (base level is normally common which riverland mining nodes only exception atm due to how many people cried about ore early on it seems to have gotten changed) (im guessing tropics wil be bonus to lumber and badlands bonus to animals which we dont have yet)
Rare nodes - These sucks imo this is the only way to get like legendary/epic trees finding these rare spawns and when u do they respawn 4 hours same spot so if u dont get it on first spawn u will never see these quality of woods.
No skill tree yet - Were spose to have skill tree which might make a huge difference and be why gathering feels real bad right now
Rarity bonus does basicly nothing - maybe skill tree muiltiply rarity bonuses which is why u need a rediculous amount of rarity bonus to make a difference to drop tables.
Raptor spawns near Steelbloom are the biggest indicator of that. Multiple wars were fought over those respawns, which is a great driving force for conflict and PVP. Now imagine what that could look like if that extended to most valuable resources in the game.
Now, I am not saying their current implementation is good. The fixed spawn and rarity for things like wood and minerals are badly done. Currently, you can't fight over those as you don't know where they are and when they are respawning.
Is the solution to switch to fully randomized respawns and rarities? I'd argue no. I agree with the devs that doing so would remove any chance for players to compete over these resources.
Now, I think the solution is something that they are already kinda implementing. The clusters of resources pooled together and more reliable spawning locations are a good start. But I think we can go further
Suggestion
As we saw in the showcase back in 2020 something, they intend on implementing resource obfuscation. They plan on doing that by having regular rocks on the outside, and possible other resources on the inside (Like a basalt rock being broken and rubies being collected). The second step would be to have static respawns for a small duration (let's say something around 2 hours) on an entire cluster. To finalize, we add surveying (which we already have, but could be developed to be more like Star Wars Galaxies surveying), which would allow the players to track and create a heatmap of what resources are located where and in which time slot, even if the resource is currently gone because someone took it.
Additional suggestion: Reduce the timer of the node spawn and reduce the amount each node gives of a resource, so players can go there and fight over a longer period of time rather than just every 2 hours like how it happens with named mobs. Timers closer to the raptor spawns but maybe a bit longer would be ideal
Example:
We have a basalt cave. That basalt cave, at time X spawns let's say 60% rubies, 20% copper, 10% iron, and 10% rividium (or whatever). Those spawns will remain there until X+2 hours. Whether rarities are fixed can be debatable (maybe static respawns are not enough to incentivize the conflict and a big pool of epic resources could cause a massive conflict). Doesn't matter if you go by the cave and everything is looted. You and your group survey the areas, find the resource heatmaps (maybe even with spawn timers), and then proceed to go there. Other groups are doing the same thing and now you guys fight over that area for the next 2 hours. Once the 2 hours go by, the respawns are reset and other things spawn and you now have the choice of keep fighting there or go look for the next cluster.
This way, we remove the problem of things being camped without any chance of competition while keeping the incentives for players to fight over the resources.
TLDR: Fixed spawns (and maybe rarities) for a limited amount of time coupled with proper use of surveying could create an interesting gameplay loop where players can fight for resources without them being camped to oblivion.
Fixed rarity has nothing to do with the raptors scenario due to there only being 6 spawns at that time, all in a small grouping in one area. Thats manufactured conflict, like king of the hill there was a more or less singular zone/objective to fight for to be rewarded.
The problem with fixed rarity is that resources that aren't scarce in numbers or are spread across large areas is that anyone can just find one legendary of the resource, and then sit a character on it with a timer preventing any other player from even knowing about it.
The way to fall in line with what the devs are aiming for (conflict) would be to do like Steven Suggested where higher rarities only spawn off of visually distinct resource nodes, or off of pinged events. My other suggestion for how its currently implemented would be to ping on the map any legendary resource that gets gathered. So when someone finds it, everyone else now knows about its location. These promote conflict.
The con to these foused event and pinged suggestions is that unless there is also some RNG non-fixed rarity drop potential outside of them, nobody will even bother farming the masses of resources due to lesser rarity.
I feel like you haven't read my post, as I pointed out how surveying can be used to fix the issue you pointed out and do what you suggested.
Yes, the raptors don't have fixed rarities. And again I also said that the benefit of fixed rarities would be creating different levels of conflict, as more people would turn out to a place knowing for instance a high rarity of a good material is being spawned there.
I agree with your con though. If we know the rarity beforehand it could cause lower-level rarity resources from being collected. I'd say that could be fixed by requiring bulk resources (as node buy orders do, white low-value materials are very useful for completing those and also used for leveling professions). As long as they have utility they should be worth picking up. If they are not worth picking up, then they shouldn't be there in the first place. Maybe the world manager should control these types of things
But that's the debatable part I added. The important part of the feedback is keeping the fixed spawns and adding the clusters as they suggested, coupled with surveying to fix the issue of materials being camped without players knowing they are there and when they spawn.
I dont think you really made any bad suggestions, however I would say that even with the surveying bit, youd still have people finding and basically hiding resources from others if fixed rarity is a thing. Personally I dont even like the resource rarity route due to power imbalances of same level tier gear which is very apparent right now regarding TTK, but thats a whole other rabbit hole.
Generally though, if conflict over resources is truly what Intrepid wants, just have a players character faintly glow the color of the highest rarity resource item they have on them. That right there would give allllll of the conflict they could ever want, even with corruption. But as for wanting conflict in specifically gathering, you have to have some sort of "carrot" to guide that conflict. And any sort of static rarity where the locations arent discernable in some way to allow for the consideration to fight for it, that just doesnt cut it for promoting conflict.
Currently, because rarity stays the same over long periods of time, you only get the "fights" over these resources at the opening of the server on Thursday.
Two things would easily fix this.
1. Establish a consistent timing for rare tree respawns every x hours
2. Refresh tree rarity at every respawn
This would cause a consistent mad dash for resources every few hours
something like the thunderstruck trees from archeage could be a cool complimentary system if it gave a 2-5 minute timer before a newly made legendary tree could be chopped while giving people nearby a visual indication
Maybe it's a bug and they actually don't, but it seems a bit more likely right now that people just 'assumed that they stayed that way the whole time'.
A consistent timing for the respawns will definitely make this problem worse in all sorts of ways, conflict points must be balanced with dynamism for this to work, in my experience: (FF11, TL, specific things in MOBAs, Elite Dangerous, ArcheAge itself).
I personally believe that if Ashes takes an approach intended to bring it closer to either FF11 (full randomization) or ArcheAge(what you described, or rather, what actually happens), it will become worse.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
Nobody else knew. There was no potential conflict. My efforts to gain mining rarity rating didn't matter. It was ONLY about good timing. And I knew EXACTLY when to be back at that spot.
Gatherable shouldn't spawn with a pre-determined rarity. The rarity should depend on your roll when it's harvested. And that roll should have advantages based on your rarity rating (gear, food, node buffs).
You generate a roll, your rarity is added to that and the rarity is picked based on that roll.
For legendary mats, maybe you don't even have a chance to roll high enough without a decent rarity stat...or it's SUPER hard to get (like 1 out of 10000). But if you have stacked up 1000 rarity rating, you have a 1 in 100 chance on that legendary.
What about quantity? Has anyone ever mined over 5 things (besides the occasional gem or coal). Like trees. Never seen more than 5. Does speed actually work? I have not seen any difference, even being level 50 mining.
Make rarity mean something (as well as the other stats).
Get rid of static spawns. Maybe choose a random location in the navigatable area.
Get rid of perfectly timed spawns. May a set minimum time + a random number
Even more troubling is that Steven seemed to suggest that static, predictable resources somehow encourage conflict? I have NO idea how he's arrived at that conclusion because as you point out, only you knew that spawn was legendary and only you knew the precise time to return to hit it again. How does that possibly encourage conflict?
It simply doesn't and it's terrible for the economy and boring for gatherers. No one wants to know what a resource is before they hit it. And it also makes working on artisan gear fairly pointless if you can run around naked and come across legendary nodes.
And quantity doesn't seem to work on mining (it does with trees). I also have a legendary sickle with +speed that does absolutely nothing different than a common one.
Gathering clearly isn't a priority at the moment and defending static nodes is just lazy developing. They need to be randomized both by location and time to respawn.
And this is no way possibly encourages PVP because no one else likely knows that spawn is Legendary within this 24 hour period.
Static nodes are boring and just encourage people to return to the same spot, or worse just park another character there and log in only to gather it.
I can't possibly see how this incentives PVP and it's a bit troubling coming from Steven. If you want nodes to encourage PVP, put more quality ones in lawless zones or create events for rare resources in a certain area. But static nodes absolutely do not encourage PVP and the issue has consistently been towards the top of feedback given by players for months.
like hunting has 0 rare spawns lvl 1 nodes so u need to proc up common harvest via rarity bonus
Mining is rare spawns on 2 hour respawn timers aswell as a plants level 1-3 nodes (this second part seem to have gotten added in phase one when everyone was complaining bout lack or ores and quality)
logging is the same but 4 hour respawn and hunting lvl 1 nodes that need to be proced up
plants seem like there no rare spawns or rotating rare spawns (cause when i do find legendary they never seem to respawn but havant tested extensivly here) and plants also have a higher lvl range seems to be lvl 1(common)-4 heroic)
So im guessing there using each gathering to pull stats from to find the one they like the most to use
- fixed timers means players either create alts to farm to the second, or players limit their game experience by making sure to hit specific nodes at specific times. People didn't explore new content when released because they felt obligated to guard leg nodes also resulting in less effective testing of new content.
2) there is no 'contesting' over them
- people can't contest what they don't know about and doesn't exist for more than 1 second
- can also be camped by invisible rangers making it even harder to know
- even if can be contested, advantage goes to a few classes essentially limiting a major gameplay loop
3) incalculable advantage goes to a very small few
- those who can log in immediately on server up find the leg nodes; odds of finding a leg node of any major interest (Braidwood for example), is essentially zero for everyone else
- major guilds who have players on all the time can thus 'soft-lock' progression by simply hoarding all the resources necessary for gear upgrades
Simplest fix until long-term vision in place: set the 'move high-rarity-location timer from w/e it is now to just 1 or maybe 2 respawns'. Changing one number and impact is minimal since same resource-generation rate is maintained.
Edit: even though I'm not a fan of only having coal available randomly, having it as a random chance while hitting other stones is actually good in my opinion. Having high rarity only available this way would be great if you can manage a similar intro rate as current.
Blown past falling sands…
And defending them saying they somehow encourage PVP when the entire player community knows that's completely not true is silly.
1. on server restart at 2AM PST, the 'template' for tree rarity is set
2. on server restart at 2AM PST, the gathering nodes will begin to spawn in over a one hour event
3. this event will repeat with the same rarities at 8AM 2PM 8PM
4. on server restart at 2AM PST, the template is changed, and a cycle begins anew
Dedicated gatherers who have good routes will have an advantage for the first event. But every event after, info about spawns will begin to spread- people might recruit friends to protect their legendary spawns or sell it off to other guilds and as the day goes on the information will be more and more accessible creating larger emergent conflict between parties aware of the resource.
I think they should keep lawless areas between the major biomes personally and have higher rarity stuff appear there with a regular frequency
Also I think a missing link between 24 hour static spawns and PvP is that the spawns would have to be in consistent windows- until they are consistent you wont see consistent PvP over them.
I found a legendary braidwood tree, timed it and was able to make 100+ gold in 1 day. Insane and there was nothing anyone else can do about it.
To balance the system, a random respawn timer is needed. This means node respawn times fluctuate. This prevents players with long playtime from dominating resource acquisition, as they cannot predict node replenishment. It creates opportunities for players with different schedules, keeping the world competitive. Random location, rarity, and respawn timers make gathering dynamic and fair, rewarding exploration and skill while limiting monopolization.
Going to be making an official thread on this topic very soon. I'll merge this thread into the official one when it's posted
link to the thread where Vaknar said he was going to make one.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/66491/static-node-fixed-rarity-spawns-are-bad#latest
To be frank, it seems like everyone hates it the way it is now...Especially the newer players joining phase 2, who simply cannot compete with kitted out gatherer's on 180%+ speed mounts. Which sucks, because it's something that quite easily drives people away.
I've been benefiting from it quite alot once figuring it out...but I still absolutely hate it.
Yeah we're testing/playing an alpha...but we're also trying to have some fun, testing said alpha.
Possibly the easiest short-term solution conceptually...would be to just randomize spawn timers for rare+ static resource nodes. As to how difficult that actually is to do in UE5 engine, I do not know...but surely it's doable, because it's already being done with huntables like Gryphons....which is why people have to camp them, if they want that constant supply...And having to camp a resource with an unknown spawn timer, means that it can be contested...Or, it can be more easily found by random passer-by's.
If you know the resource is coming back at exactly "x" time...then you can simply come back to it a minute before that time and make it disappear quickly again. Having to meta-game just to get the resources you need to explore the crafting systems, is just dreadful...even if it *is* just a placeholder system.
And you mentioned invisible hunters...but it's even worse than that. Take big guilds, and add alts...1) They have a much easier time using large numbers to actually find the rare static spawns faster/more reliably than anyone else...And once located, they can simply park an alt on each node with the required harvesting skill, and then log it off.
Then log it back in 30s to 1m before the timer is up, hit whatever node it is...log back off again. There's a high probability that nobody else will even know that node is there for the next 24h cycle...Though, I have caught glimpses of it while roaming around.
And my wager is...if they end up having to leave for whatever reason...they simply hand off that location and it's time to the next interested party within the group/guild...Nobody else will ever get to see that resource again, or have a chance to compete for it until the next rarity/spawn re-shuffle.
On the plus side however...it at least means that higher quality ingredients are making their way into people's hands / the market...so high end gear can be crafted/tested out. If tree gathering, was anything like hunting...Then there'd simply not be enough trees to support the sheer ungodly number of trees you'd have to statistically chop down, just to get 5x legendary.
And most JM equipment items seem to require 20x processed braid-wood.
I feel like fighting over static spawns just isn't the way.... maybe if each resource socket pertains to a small area, and has a distinct golden glow to it, that would make for more fun and interesting contests than standing in one spot waiting to brawl over that resource. So if you cut a high rarity tree down because you spotted that glow, it may spawn within 100m in any direction, maybe even +/- 30 minutes on the timer to further obfuscate the redeployment of that resource. The golden glow's range could even be relative to the character's artisan level, where a journeyman can see it from 50 meters away while an apprentice is only seeing within 25, and the novice has to be within 10 meters to see that any tree is golden.
Not just trees of course, but any resource. While the tradeoff is that it takes away the mystery of what is and isn't rare, for things like braidwood and weeping willow where you can see it far in the distance, that doesn't exactly matter anyway, though changing where it will spawn when it reappears will make it tougher to track down against a field of other players searching for it.
However, I can't say as much because I know that the recent information doesn't convey all that well, that we should be expecting that system to change things.
Right now, the weather system of Ashes isn't far enough along yet, for us to get a good feeling of what the gathering experience is supposed to be like.
So, while legendary X might not need to be obtainable normally in the world, it's different if that Legendary X spawns or upgrades some time after a specific weather event. In which case, it being 'static, and based on a timer', would be the expected and 'correct' initial implementation step.
If the weather is the thing that disrupts the 'quality timer', sometimes it would be more correct to have the spawn stay static, as it does in Throne and Liberty now (and of course FF11 and other games that have dabbled in weather, I think even BDO had something at some point).
So, my contribution is that I don't mind if normally it's impossible to get Legendary X out in the world, but you need to leave some room for 'true 'Thunderstruck Trees' or 'this Marble node got exposed by rain causing a mudslide'.
Those could be in the same physical space, while achieving all the team's goals and making all the things they have said, make sense in context.
I feel more and more lately as if most people who still play Ashes didn't play games with this design type and obv are here instead of delving into TL, but as usual I speak in 'defense' of the devs here, reminding that not only does some of their work need to be taken in terms of a huge context we don't see all of, but also as 'a person who has seen these systems designed and helped design some'.
(forgive me if this seems unrelated or a hijack, I originally wrote it as a response to another thread but then felt it was better here)
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
Please stop this insane talk that static nodes promote fights. The resource is gone 10 seconds after spawning, it's impossible to know it was a legendary willow. And it's bad karma to randomly kill people after at possible down point. Also gives corruption.
The entire idea is awful. And it's the one, biggest problem this game is now promoting. Please reconsider a better path that gives EVERYONE an opportunity at achieving better tools and items.