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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five 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.
Flavor: More Econ Ranting
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
in Artisanship
In a previous post I poked at categories of Artisanship results and how they impact design. This is just another rant on the matter.
Food systems in games require lots of different foods to feel engaging. This is 'how to use the categories to pad out the food options'. The previous mention was about 'having food that reduces some stats too, as a tradeoff'. To help avoid the BDO outcome. References will be mostly to FF11 (actual ingame foods), and a little bit to Throne and Liberty (moreso how foods affect gameplay). To avoid any future confusion ifwhen the Ashes foods are updated, I won't reference them and will just talk 'around them'.
Example 1: Staple Foods
Economic Niche: Standard player, open world mob 'farmer'.
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4517/yellow-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4381/meat-mithkabob - mid level
Ignoring the differences in 'cap' for now, these foods are close to the same. The higher level one has some resistances to CC on it, at the 'cost' of requiring a rarer ingredient that players can neither craft nor farm, but still generally available to them. Lower level cooks do not need to produce Yellow Curry to be successful, and not everyone needs it, but it is still not quite 'Niche'. A high level cook would produce it basically whenever they could. There are few downsides to this food, even classes that use INT and Attack would still probably not suffer for eating these.
The 'flavor' that they add to the game is not a lot, but it is still 'enough' because in FF11, most people know where the meats involved here come from, or are aware of where to buy the Curry if they know anything about it. One could imagine 'regular people' eating Mithkabobs, and richer ones eating curry.
Example 2: Opportunistic Foods
Economic Niche: Skilled raider or lucky Dungeoneer
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4298/red-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5196/buffalo-jerky - mid level
Buffalo meat is not, strictly speaking, 'Dungeoneer' type, but if we treat 'dungeoneering' as 'anything that can't be quickly reached and probably should not be soloed by most people, it fits, in the past. In TL this is more explicit, there is a set of foods like this which can only be made from materials from actual DCNM boss drops. You don't make these because everyone needs them, the game isn't designed around people needing these, they're also not necessarily more expensive by very much. They're an opportunistic, interesting thing to eat.
But this is half of the Opportunistic Food type, the type that is opportunistic because of the source being an opportunistic activity, not the product being an opportunistic result/target. In terms of the 'flavor' they add to the game, these ones just help pad out the food offerings.
Example 3: Opportunistic Foods II
Economic Niche: Could be anyone but often Fishers for a specific reason explained later
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4297/black-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5721/crab-sushi - mid level
In FF11, the food design was not perfectly realized until later, so the original method of padding them was bad for the overall economy. Bonuses did not have caps so the highest level food was almost always the best, followed by 'whatever was good but cheap to make'. This left no room for this food type.
The examples above are things that fit this model even within that. Foods that don't offer as much, but are easy to make, or in a hypothetical better system, foods that reduce stats that are unnecessary for the current activity in exchange for slightly more (about 25% more, so let's say moving from +60 to +75). Enough to make players go 'eh I might as well min-max it' but not 'I definitely have to min-max it'.
Whether these are high or low level foods would mostly be determined in that case by 'if a low level character even could reasonably eat it'. Let's take an example of a food that gave -30 HP in FF11 or --300 in TL, in exchange for that 25% extra of whatever that type of food gives. Sometimes this is good/safe, sometimes it isn't. That is a 'high level food' and probably should be high level to make (some special less easily obtained but still open world meat or egg is the usual way). Whereas a potential low level option could be 'Reduces resistance to Fear or Sleep' in exchange for that 25%. Because low level characters won't often be faced with those CC options, but high level players in a PvX game 'sometimes would have a good reason not to eat it'. Even for more common CC effects, some might have so much on their gear that they can afford to give up some of it in certain situations, and the food is a quick way to do that without having to re-gear.
These foods, despite their drawbacks, would not be 'Niche', and would probably be quite popular, but the ones that would be less popular among low levels or specific classes would still have less reason for production (see the comments sections of the examples for this if deep-diving). The flavor/feeling they add to the game is of distinction. They exist to be created occasionally or for specific people. It doesn't always matter if they are 'min-max' for a specific class or situation.
Fish dishes work better here, particularly in games like Ashes where one is restricted (even FF11 has no limitation on Fishing skill relative to other Artisanship, but fishing is a commitment in itself and not every cook also wants to fish. In Ashes that should be fine, in TL for example it doesn't work, but is also sorta-fine due to another system they have). Rarely getting a Fish that can be cooked into something that is not always used, is fine, without frustrating either side of this equation too much.
Example 4: Niche Foods II
Economic Niche: Usually Farmers/Gardeners for yet another specific econ reason
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4277/tonosama-rball - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4557/steamed-catfish - different high level
Food that is vital for no one, not even specific classes or builds. There for the moment when you want to really do something silly/crazy, or flex on a boss, a specific battle situation, etc. The Rice Ball isn't actually a good example of this, but FF11 and Ashes both have the 'failure' in how they handle both 'number of food buffs' and 'number/concept of viable builds for flex situations'. The result is the potential to make foods so niche that they're almost for fun, or always discouraged.
I expect that if Ashes improves in its combat build options to the Throne and Liberty level, more options would open up here (with some overlap to the previous concept). I would be fine a food offers me 'decreased mana regen in exchange for more skill damage' in TL (it must be this type of obvious 'these two stats affect two sides of the same coin', it can't be 'decrease mana regen for more base damage', that's just a noob trap either because it should generally be used, or won't look like it should be used to a large number of players).
Yes, it is true that some players will just never understand, see a negative number or reduction, and shy away, but it's fine, because they aren't harmed by this, and the food can remain in its niche space.
FF11 has elemental defenses which matter in multiple ways, but probably aren't as easy to grasp even if they are equate-able to certain things in more modern games that avoid the direct concepts of Elemental Damage or Elemental Damage Reduction. So whereas TL has "Stun Resistance" as the obvious example, FF11 might choose to put this not under 'Resist Stun' but under 'Lightning Element Resist' because most effects that Stun would also be Lightning type. Similarly Water>Collision, Bind->Ice, Silence->Wind, Weaken->Light, Burn->Fire, Earth->Petrification, Dark->Sleep. This probably works better for food, since, despite there being 'lore' ways to explain 'you ate this pepper and now your Fire resistance is higher', resisting Fear is just as 'sensible'.
This ties well into why Farmers are the 'better' option for this in the game type that Ashes/FF11 are. Farming is supposed to be somewhat dynamic, and often lower time investment/effort. If you give Farmers too many Staple or Opportunistic options for produce, you end up with bots, alts, and general BDO gameplay. Whereas if most of the foods that Farmers contribute to are somewhat Niche or, at worst, better but the additions are also only Niche and could be ignored (such as a food that is exactly the same statwise as another but with +100 Fear Resist due to being spicy), then the economic incentive to constantly grow the 'Lionfang Pepper' or whatever, is lessened and farming skill is more adaptive.
For Ashes this easily ties into weather, area, etc, and then this in turn loops back to the 'flavor' effect. The Desert Node might have a food similar to another but with a resistance that fits the area, produced from an ingredient that fits the area, but is sometimes useful or good to have or grow in another area for specific content (e.g. Firebrand).
I should finish this properly but I've realized I'm distracted now so I'll just leave it there and maybe do the colors when one of my group scolds me for 'em.
Food systems in games require lots of different foods to feel engaging. This is 'how to use the categories to pad out the food options'. The previous mention was about 'having food that reduces some stats too, as a tradeoff'. To help avoid the BDO outcome. References will be mostly to FF11 (actual ingame foods), and a little bit to Throne and Liberty (moreso how foods affect gameplay). To avoid any future confusion ifwhen the Ashes foods are updated, I won't reference them and will just talk 'around them'.
Example 1: Staple Foods
Economic Niche: Standard player, open world mob 'farmer'.
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4517/yellow-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4381/meat-mithkabob - mid level
Ignoring the differences in 'cap' for now, these foods are close to the same. The higher level one has some resistances to CC on it, at the 'cost' of requiring a rarer ingredient that players can neither craft nor farm, but still generally available to them. Lower level cooks do not need to produce Yellow Curry to be successful, and not everyone needs it, but it is still not quite 'Niche'. A high level cook would produce it basically whenever they could. There are few downsides to this food, even classes that use INT and Attack would still probably not suffer for eating these.
The 'flavor' that they add to the game is not a lot, but it is still 'enough' because in FF11, most people know where the meats involved here come from, or are aware of where to buy the Curry if they know anything about it. One could imagine 'regular people' eating Mithkabobs, and richer ones eating curry.
Example 2: Opportunistic Foods
Economic Niche: Skilled raider or lucky Dungeoneer
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4298/red-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5196/buffalo-jerky - mid level
Buffalo meat is not, strictly speaking, 'Dungeoneer' type, but if we treat 'dungeoneering' as 'anything that can't be quickly reached and probably should not be soloed by most people, it fits, in the past. In TL this is more explicit, there is a set of foods like this which can only be made from materials from actual DCNM boss drops. You don't make these because everyone needs them, the game isn't designed around people needing these, they're also not necessarily more expensive by very much. They're an opportunistic, interesting thing to eat.
But this is half of the Opportunistic Food type, the type that is opportunistic because of the source being an opportunistic activity, not the product being an opportunistic result/target. In terms of the 'flavor' they add to the game, these ones just help pad out the food offerings.
Example 3: Opportunistic Foods II
Economic Niche: Could be anyone but often Fishers for a specific reason explained later
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4297/black-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5721/crab-sushi - mid level
In FF11, the food design was not perfectly realized until later, so the original method of padding them was bad for the overall economy. Bonuses did not have caps so the highest level food was almost always the best, followed by 'whatever was good but cheap to make'. This left no room for this food type.
The examples above are things that fit this model even within that. Foods that don't offer as much, but are easy to make, or in a hypothetical better system, foods that reduce stats that are unnecessary for the current activity in exchange for slightly more (about 25% more, so let's say moving from +60 to +75). Enough to make players go 'eh I might as well min-max it' but not 'I definitely have to min-max it'.
Whether these are high or low level foods would mostly be determined in that case by 'if a low level character even could reasonably eat it'. Let's take an example of a food that gave -30 HP in FF11 or --300 in TL, in exchange for that 25% extra of whatever that type of food gives. Sometimes this is good/safe, sometimes it isn't. That is a 'high level food' and probably should be high level to make (some special less easily obtained but still open world meat or egg is the usual way). Whereas a potential low level option could be 'Reduces resistance to Fear or Sleep' in exchange for that 25%. Because low level characters won't often be faced with those CC options, but high level players in a PvX game 'sometimes would have a good reason not to eat it'. Even for more common CC effects, some might have so much on their gear that they can afford to give up some of it in certain situations, and the food is a quick way to do that without having to re-gear.
These foods, despite their drawbacks, would not be 'Niche', and would probably be quite popular, but the ones that would be less popular among low levels or specific classes would still have less reason for production (see the comments sections of the examples for this if deep-diving). The flavor/feeling they add to the game is of distinction. They exist to be created occasionally or for specific people. It doesn't always matter if they are 'min-max' for a specific class or situation.
Fish dishes work better here, particularly in games like Ashes where one is restricted (even FF11 has no limitation on Fishing skill relative to other Artisanship, but fishing is a commitment in itself and not every cook also wants to fish. In Ashes that should be fine, in TL for example it doesn't work, but is also sorta-fine due to another system they have). Rarely getting a Fish that can be cooked into something that is not always used, is fine, without frustrating either side of this equation too much.
Example 4: Niche Foods II
Economic Niche: Usually Farmers/Gardeners for yet another specific econ reason
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4277/tonosama-rball - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4557/steamed-catfish - different high level
Food that is vital for no one, not even specific classes or builds. There for the moment when you want to really do something silly/crazy, or flex on a boss, a specific battle situation, etc. The Rice Ball isn't actually a good example of this, but FF11 and Ashes both have the 'failure' in how they handle both 'number of food buffs' and 'number/concept of viable builds for flex situations'. The result is the potential to make foods so niche that they're almost for fun, or always discouraged.
I expect that if Ashes improves in its combat build options to the Throne and Liberty level, more options would open up here (with some overlap to the previous concept). I would be fine a food offers me 'decreased mana regen in exchange for more skill damage' in TL (it must be this type of obvious 'these two stats affect two sides of the same coin', it can't be 'decrease mana regen for more base damage', that's just a noob trap either because it should generally be used, or won't look like it should be used to a large number of players).
Yes, it is true that some players will just never understand, see a negative number or reduction, and shy away, but it's fine, because they aren't harmed by this, and the food can remain in its niche space.
FF11 has elemental defenses which matter in multiple ways, but probably aren't as easy to grasp even if they are equate-able to certain things in more modern games that avoid the direct concepts of Elemental Damage or Elemental Damage Reduction. So whereas TL has "Stun Resistance" as the obvious example, FF11 might choose to put this not under 'Resist Stun' but under 'Lightning Element Resist' because most effects that Stun would also be Lightning type. Similarly Water>Collision, Bind->Ice, Silence->Wind, Weaken->Light, Burn->Fire, Earth->Petrification, Dark->Sleep. This probably works better for food, since, despite there being 'lore' ways to explain 'you ate this pepper and now your Fire resistance is higher', resisting Fear is just as 'sensible'.
This ties well into why Farmers are the 'better' option for this in the game type that Ashes/FF11 are. Farming is supposed to be somewhat dynamic, and often lower time investment/effort. If you give Farmers too many Staple or Opportunistic options for produce, you end up with bots, alts, and general BDO gameplay. Whereas if most of the foods that Farmers contribute to are somewhat Niche or, at worst, better but the additions are also only Niche and could be ignored (such as a food that is exactly the same statwise as another but with +100 Fear Resist due to being spicy), then the economic incentive to constantly grow the 'Lionfang Pepper' or whatever, is lessened and farming skill is more adaptive.
For Ashes this easily ties into weather, area, etc, and then this in turn loops back to the 'flavor' effect. The Desert Node might have a food similar to another but with a resistance that fits the area, produced from an ingredient that fits the area, but is sometimes useful or good to have or grow in another area for specific content (e.g. Firebrand).
I should finish this properly but I've realized I'm distracted now so I'll just leave it there and maybe do the colors when one of my group scolds me for 'em.
"I blame society."
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
1
Comments
L2 had siege-specific items that would only work during sieges. They had ways stronger effects than any other potion/scroll, but you could only use them for 4h out of 2 weeks, so it kinda made sense for them to be that powerful. They were also only sold by npcs, but that's beside the point for Ashes.
https://l2j.ru/highfive/index.php?p=2&t=6&ty=potion&pa=siege
Would this kind of item specialization (food in this case) be too powerful to call it "niche"?
If TL had food that was 'great at Archbosses but average or below average otherwise', it would get made on a 'timer' because Archbosses are 'on a timer'.
So from the econ design perspective, that is what I'd call 'Coupled'. Demand is directly dependent on some other event and therefore what type of food it counts as, is determined by the requirements and timing of that event.
The most equivalent thing in FF11 was dealt with beforehand (food that gives percentage benefits without caps, which could then apply in the lategame zone where your stats got big boosts). Those were not considered Niche because everyone basically 'spent some time in that zone'. It was just 'less time', so demand was lower, but still in 'Staple' territory, not Niche or even Opportunistic.
The issue there is that if the food is too obvious or simple, especially if everyone eats it (or if there's really obviously only one option per role) then the 'flavor' is lost, but 'making a whole new set of foods just so there is variety in the foods that have these buffs... has its own problems. If it were me deciding or advising, I'd try to discourage that.
TL actually does have food that explicitly raises your stats against Bosses, but they have a roundabout, social way of handling that (one version is good for Tanks, another good for Scorpions and other Crossbow users, etc, but these are also foods that are placed down on the ground and anyone can eat, so someone will place a food and all the Crusaders and Templars will eat at that table, all the Scorpions at another table, etc).
But those foods are not 'better across the board' and therefore avoid the issues.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
This is compounded in TL by the fact that the main 'food slot' can hold either Attack or Defense, but there are 3 others. The Feasts are all currently Attack or Defense.
But you can still get a bit out of it because even if the Tanks all eat at the Defense Food 'table', they might still each eat different 'side dishes'. Those don't often have big effects on large battles (they're often moreso used for super-optimizing harder, single ones), but I guess if they started adding either 'Feasts that don't take up that slot' or 'Resistance Foods that don't', you'd have a similar experience to that?
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
I'd imagine we don't have all that specialized stuff cause we're still early into the overall combat design, but I think it'd help with ttk too, so getting it somewhere early in P3 would be real nice.
I guess that's my feedback to Intrepid in relation to this part of this topic.