Why Gathering/Refining/Crafting Should Be High Focus

After seeing the alpha footage it appears the gathering/refining/crafting will be generic and essentially just have you press a button and wait, I think this is a bad system.

Despite what others have said, it is actually impossible to stop multi-boxing unless you have to type in your irl I.D when creating an account, and even then there are those who will find a way to abuse this. The reason people multi-box is to gain an economic advantage, I know that mouse inputs/ghost mousing will be tracked and banned if abused, along with scripts/etc... However if the main ways to gain resources has little to no APM or doesn't require you to focus on an interface to gain said resources (what it looks like to me in the video), it will not be difficult to manually do this with muti-boxing on several clients, especially if there are "veins" of resources presumable holding a high amount of that resources in an area. (Especially with the family teleport system, you would just walk around till you find a vein, then teleport 5 of your multi-boxed chars to the vein) Judging from the video It would seem you could cut a log, walk around 5-10 seconds and find another tree to cut, this will not be difficult to do on multiple clients (especially with add-ons, which again, you can't actually stop if someone knows what they're doing), the best way to stop multi-boxing abuse, is to make it as difficult as possible for someone who would multi-box for economic gain. I suggest having a UI that requires you to interact with it that either requires high focus or a level of apm that would be very difficult to pull of on two clients by a single person.

Something like for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YYArGhO3_E

Pressing a button and waiting a few seconds to gain resources, refine, or craft... is the "participation trophy" of gathering, refining, and crafting.

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Comments

TheGoodzilla

I dont see why the example you provided should have to be used in gathering of base materials.

There is nothing about a tree chopping mini-game that sounds fun.

I feel like refinement of materials should also be free from this kind of unnecessary stuff. Chop the tree, get the wood, turn wood into planks. Just a time sink. You want to make the planks into a refined item? Then yes, I can see how this could be interesting as it would not just require resources, but also skill at doing the interaction to pump out a high number of quality products. But short of finished products this is a bad idea.

Samson1

TheGoodzilla wrote: »

I dont see why the example you provided should have to be used in gathering of base materials.

There is nothing about a tree chopping mini-game that sounds fun.

I feel like refinement of materials should also be free from this kind of unnecessary stuff. Chop the tree, get the wood, turn wood into planks. Just a time sink. You want to make the planks into a refined item? Then yes, I can see how this could be interesting as it would not just require resources, but also skill at doing the interaction to pump out a high number of quality products. But short of finished products this is a bad idea.

Agree. It's one thing to have these mini games in a single player game (like Fable) when you aren't crafting or gathering very much at all. But I can see it being a pain in the butt when it comes to being implemented in AoC.

Kaelang

I wasn't really a fan of the Fable crafting system, sure it felt more 'involved' but it didn't bring much to the table. And as long as there isn't a node that doesn't ever deplete, which would be cause for someone who can use their second screen just to consistently generate resources, I don't see there being much of an issue. The second account will still need to move around and collect.

Beekeeper

I agree that it would be more interesting to do a little more than press a button to collect (and would make it less feasible to multibox), it's also a question of scale and repetition.

I feel like a lot of criticism towards active systems assumes a wow-like economy, where the only real money is made by delivering wagonloads of ore at once. In such a system, you NEED to do the same repetitive boring task 200 times so you can fill your inventory and flood the auction house with 30 stacks of copper ore. I don't know if anyone would call that fun besond the expected reward, which just stinks of bad design. If the economy depends on skinnerboxes, you almost NEED multiboxers to take the liad off of real players.

If getting resources requires more focus, but is fun in its own right, you can give a lot more to the player than a single worthless blip you need to amass for any meaningful profit. Hunting animals for pelts and other materials does this, raiding does this, pvo does this, fishing seems to go for this, so why not also make other sources of materials both more engaging AND rewarding?

If pressing E gives me 1 flower, and I can press E 10 times per minute, you could easily make it a small activity where you still get those 10 flowers per minute, but you have to do less gathering spots in total. You chop one tree for 10 wood instead of 10 trees for one wood each.

Marcet

I like crafting that is a farming simulator, grab minerals and make ingots, get exp, spam crafting and sell. Thats all I want. Btw im gonna be a cook and I want to be the best at it so yeah im gonna farm the shit of out that profession. I don't care if it's repetitive, click a button and go take a dump.

Samson1

Marcet wrote: »

I like crafting that is a farming simulator, grab minerals and make ingots, get exp, spam crafting and sell. Thats all I want. Btw im gonna be a cook and I want to be the best at it so yeah im gonna farm the shit of out that profession. I don't care if it's repetitive, click a button and go take a dump.

HiddenDaggerInn

hmm no, no thank you to mini games during gathering. Let me get the stuff I need and get out of there and sell it or make it kk thx.

Beekeeper

Sandman wrote: »

hmm no, no thank you to mini games during gathering. Let me get the stuff I need and get out of there and sell it or make it kk thx.

You won't be able to both gather and process materials, so if you decide to gather, you gather.

Xenotor

I have to Quote Jahlon here: "Mini games in gathering are fun for the first 10.000 times you do them."
So no thank you.
If someone wants to pay intrepid another 15$ for a small economic gain or a to get banned then let them do it.

Beekeeper

Counterpoint: Without a minigame, gathering is never fun. And why spend time on something that's never fun?

Bot

I really, really don't see quick time event mechanics ever being desirable for anyone regardless of the benefits. I agree with the sentiment of trying to make it so you can't just script it and it's not mundane. I think a good solution could be having a mini-game like a lock cracking mechanic similar to other games, but unique for each material possibly. An example could be if it's a tree you have to cut you have to use your mouse to cut a specific spot so it's rng similar to a captcha with a short cd if you mess up. Just make it very simple, rng, and increase the yield per this method to compensate. Will overall take up less time for people who actually are playing the game when they do it. I think you could just reuse the process for other stuff too like for mining it'd be pulling a pickaxe down at a specific spot. For gathering it could be putting a hand down on a specific spot. This would make the development aspect of it simple since they can just create one mechanic and reuse it with varying art to make it more customized. Just the overall key is for it to be incredibly simple to do, seamless in transition from action key to initiate>mini-game>receiving mats, and fast.

Xenotor wrote: »

If someone wants to pay intrepid another 15$ for a small economic gain or a to get banned then let them do it.

The issue with that is it's not just them paying another $15 oh well it's their money spent, it's about how it impacts the game for those of us that play legitimately.

Songcaller

We had quick time events in combat at one point. Thankfully IS listened to the Community and removed the quick time events in combat. We do not want to backtrack and force quick time events in crafting, only for 99% of the player base to turn around and tell IS to remove the quick time events in crafting.

No quick time events please.

Beekeeper

Doesn't have to be a quick time event, just something a bit kore interesting than E

Nagash

What about a system like FFXIV?

Chaostastic

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Harvest

It seems what you're speaking of is already in the game.

Beekeeper

Nagash wrote: »

What about a system like FFXIV?

FF14's system is deep, but honestly super dry. A bunch of lists and numbers and chances. Good for optimising, but both unintuitive and unimmersive.

SoggyBandaid

One possible point of concern for me consists of the 3 artisan trees (gathering, refining, crafting). I love crafting in pretty much any mmo or single player rpg I get my hands on, but the system can make a big difference. IMO most games allow for a single character to focus on gathering/processing/crafting for a completed item set. Ex: I harvest, refine, and smith metal for my fighter, or harvest, refine, weave cloth for my mage. AoC is taking a different approach, and regardless of mini games, I think that means the profession system (gathering, refining, crafting) need to be high focus.

To highlight, players seem worried about which trade offs will be made in gathering/crafting between convenience and fun and whether multiboxing will give economic advantage, but I don't know if I've read a single comment in any thread about refinement. Refinement seems to have so little player interest no one is even addressing it, but it will be crucial (probably) to the overall item creation process (and therefore economy) in AoC.

In summary, I worry that regardless of mini-games, almost all players will main a gatherer to have access to raw material, almost none will make a refiner because it's an underwhelming step in the item creation process, and almost all players interested in crafting (myself included) will do so with an alt character since it will be mechanically more beneficial to leave the crafter at home base.

PlagueMonk

I'm fine with gathering being a simple point and click to get it over and on to the next material but I would hope processing and crafting require some real effort and really make you feel like you're making something.

Kesarakk

Beekeeper wrote: »

Counterpoint: Without a minigame, gathering is never fun. And why spend time on something that's never fun?

Some players, myself included in other games, actually enjoy the mundane task of gathering or even processing materials. It is a type of task that is calming if not soothing. For players like us, we love to turn on our favorite song or playlist and hit the road searching for our next ore to mine or tree to cut. There is no need to add a mini game to a system that is mundane. I don’t want to complicate a simple system just because it isn’t flashy enough for some players. There is a level of enjoyment in every system of a game and sadly there is zero ways to make each one a 10/10 on the enjoyment level for every single person. If you don’t like to gather materials because it isn’t visually stimulating enough, hire a player who likes doing it for you.

Beekeeper

kesarakk wrote: »

Some players, myself included in other games, actually enjoy the mundane task of gathering or even processing materials. It is a type of task that is calming if not soothing. For players like us, we love to turn on our favorite song or playlist and hit the road searching for our next ore to mine or tree to cut. There is no need to add a mini game to a system that is mundane. I don’t want to complicate a simple system just because it isn’t flashy enough for some players. There is a level of enjoyment in every system of a game and sadly there is zero ways to make each one a 10/10 on the enjoyment level for every single person. If you don’t like to gather materials because it isn’t visually stimulating enough, hire a player who likes doing it for you.

I totally get that mindset, just putting on music and doing stuff that by itself isn't all that interesting. I do it all the time for punching trees in minecraft. I zen out and take down half a forest.

But, at the same time, something like "E" just feels so damn unsatisfying. The whole aligning yourself for the prompt to show up, like a car doing parallel parking, feels like bad design. Or doing a back-and-forth dance because you're too far away, now you're too close, now you're too far again, now it works, nope was turned too far left, it's just too much. Some real deep frustrations coming up here, lol.

I would never want to take away the simplicity, the ability to just zone out and go for gathering, I just think other games did it better.

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