Gathering nodes

Does anyone know whether the appearance of sparkles for gathering nodes will be tied to skill in a respective gathering profession?

I’m hoping we have to identify nodes via experience and sight instead of idiot markers on a mini map.

The info out there is pretty vague, which makes sense as gathering is lower on the A1 priority list - still curious though.

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Vhaeyne

I agree with your hopes. I don't want the sparkles in the game personally. I think MMOs rely too much on character skill and leave little room for player skill.

Unfortunately, right now, everything sparkles. Anything can change during development, though.

Maybe if we keep talking about how we hate sparkles, they will go away?

George_Black

I give eso a lot of shiet but their special effect on gatherables is subtle enough.
If we could tone it down a touch it would be even better.

Spending skill points to increase a characters identification ability to find such gatherables is useless.
Let everyone being able to find them at the getgo.

Some people might like to think that it adds depth to the gathering part of the game. No it doesnt. Any person that plays more than 2h a day can spare skill points for all those meaningless applications.
It's a waste of development time.

"Wood detection". Oh shiet. I can see that tree over there. Good think I spent 2 points out of my 5895 to be able to see trees sparkle.

RocketFarmer

Never really had an issue with sparkles on harvestable objects or corpses for loot. There aren’t a ton of objects anyway, so that cuts down on a field of sparkles unless you have crushed your enemies, seen them driven before you, and listened to the lamentation of the women and children.

George_Black

If the assets are designed beautifully and enticing, making you want to go and pick up that gatherable, I dont think we need too many sparkly effects.

Also the gathering animation should be engaging and short.

Some people might argue that players should sacrifice skill points for faster gathering animations, or bonus harvest chances, to make it more meaningful.

No it doesnt. Any person that plays more than two hours has plenty skill points to spare.
Want meaning in the crafting gathering system? Only one job per character, besides the combat class or node affiliations (divine, military, scientific).

Vhaeyne

RocketFarmer wrote: »

Never really had an issue with sparkles on harvestable objects or corpses for loot. There aren’t a ton of objects anyway, so that cuts down on a field of sparkles unless you have crushed your enemies, seen them driven before you, and listened to the lamentation of the women and children.

To me, it is not about the sparkly effects being an eyesore. It is about rewarding the person at the keyboard who takes the time to learn what nodes look like and consistently keep and eye out for them.

When the nodes sparkle, it is essentially the player's character telling the person at the keyboard where the nodes are. To me, this is lame and less rewarding than if I spot them myself.

It also devalues all nodes materials from nodes in the economy across the board because when things are easier to find, they become less valuable. People would gather more if the game points out every node they come across.

In my preferred system without sparkles, the people who do take the time to notice nodes would see more value for their efforts.

Just my preference.

daveywavey

I prefer the way it looks when it's not glowing, but I understand that it makes the gathering system more accessible when it is glowing. For people who don't have much time to play to learn what to look for, for people who can't afford the top-end gaming rigs and find it harder to spot things, for people with eyesight difficulties, etc.

I think the only sparkle I used in ESO was the one where the resource nodes looked like every other rock, and so I'd always be running past them. But, I do like to try and learn what everything looks like. Adds to the RP aspect of the game.

JustVine

You have to make gathering nodes have seperate models from everything else if you want to get away from the sparkles. This isn't even an accessiblity question. Distinct shapes and silhouettes are what humans are biologically adept at looking for. This is true if you are colorblind. This is true if you are a teenager. This is true if AoC is your first game. The sparkles are there so they can get away with fewer, less thought out/worked on models. It is an Alpha after all.

Right now not ever tree that looks like a harvestable tree is cuttable. This is less true in certain biomes. I dislike the look of the model choice for this. The sparks are 'necessary' here because the silhouette isn't distinct enough.

Mineral nodes barely have a silhouette, artificially smooth, video gamey. Intrepid, please just make them look like crystal formations of the mineral in question in the full release.

Additionally there isn't a good solution to fishing spots. A certain pattern of rocks would work but itd feel weird for the rocks to disappear after fishing. The sparkles look natural for this one honestly, even if they are too opaque the my taste.

Plants are the best done ones so far, I got no complaints if they turned off sparkles for these other than that they would need to make them look a little bigger in scale, since tall grass/bushes obscure them too often for the silhouette to be accessible detected.

To Davey's point the rest of accessibility is solved via tutorials that will inevitably be in the full release.

Voidwalkers

We had a sparkles discussion thread on forum quite a while ago, but not sure if the devs had given their final verdict yet ... Anyone heard anything from Steven?

akabear

I think New World did a reasonable job of it. their gatherables are visually distinct and were environment specific so easier to find if you knew what you were looking for.
As one levels up, more items become gatherable in tiers.
Although I have only tried about 20min since beta started this time round, so things may be different.

BDO did a reasonable job too..

ESO, I have not played for a few years now, so cannot remember..

No need to have "sparkles". keep them visually distinct, even sound for some items..

I remember a river shore plant in ESO that used to make a sound when near, and some exotic plants in NW also make a distinct sound.

daveywavey

akabear wrote: »

I remember a river shore plant in ESO that used to make a sound when near, and some exotic plants in NW also make a distinct sound.

Nirnroot sings its pretty song

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Dygz

The way it currently works, we have to have the sparkles because recognizing the node assets doesn't mean that we can harvest that asset. Just because you recognize the appearance of Redwood doesn't mean you can harvest it. Similarly, just because there is a corpse that doesn't mean you can harvest it.

Which is different than WoW or ESO.
But...it's Alpha One, so...we just have to see how that progresses in future test phases.

CROW3

Thanks, guys. Is it ESO that adds sparkles with skill points in gathering? Been a long time since I played that game.

I'd be much happier with a system that put the onus on me (the player) to identify nodes better/faster than on my character (via skill points or otherwise) to change the appearance of the node. One of the ways you could do this systematically would be to create associated spawns as indicators of nodes to watch for. Particularly in herbalism - I'll learn that where there is a lot of Plant A, there are also a few of the rarer plant B.

Dygz

Well, RPG means that the character is supposed to be able to do things better than the player.
Just because the player knows plant B should be around does not mean that the character should know.
So... my preference would be that you need to be a certain Artisan Level in order to see the sparkles for a Tier 2 Herb.

CROW3

I'm a method role-player, what can I say?

RocketFarmer

Would a dot on the mini map work? And then you need to use your eyes and experience to tell which object is harvestable?

Elite Dangerous has an interesting method of mining in that you can technically mine all of the rocks but only certain ones have materials that you are after. Scanners could ping the rocks to show the ones more likely to have what you are after, although without a more detailed scan you aren’t completely sure.

For trees, because they’ve made only select trees harvestable, it’s not so easy. The way I see it, to have the balance in resource gathering for lumber they should make cutting down and harvesting a large tree much more difficult and take longer that just harvesting a fallen tree. More wood can and should be available from the fallen tree, but the node should use much more wood for upkeep to keep balance to the economy. I also think that if the players over harvest trees, the land doesn’t produce enough. They could also have nature spirits or even corruption creep in when such resources are over harvested. Perhaps the trees themselves become corrupt. This approach would be a method to balance the economy without the artificial feel of only being able to cut down one tree in an entire forest.

I guess in real life you need to search the body to even see if there is loot. I know people like the easy button or auto-loot, but for those who don’t want to be led by the nose what else is there?

Dygz

LMAO
The current mini-map sucks so bad - more dots would be horrible.
But...it's Alpha One, so... maybe.

Mordecarious

Vhaeyne wrote: »

RocketFarmer wrote: »

Never really had an issue with sparkles on harvestable objects or corpses for loot. There aren’t a ton of objects anyway, so that cuts down on a field of sparkles unless you have crushed your enemies, seen them driven before you, and listened to the lamentation of the women and children.

To me, it is not about the sparkly effects being an eyesore. It is about rewarding the person at the keyboard who takes the time to learn what nodes look like and consistently keep and eye out for them.

When the nodes sparkle, it is essentially the player's character telling the person at the keyboard where the nodes are. To me, this is lame and less rewarding than if I spot them myself.

It also devalues all nodes materials from nodes in the economy across the board because when things are easier to find, they become less valuable. People would gather more if the game points out every node they come across.

In my preferred system without sparkles, the people who do take the time to notice nodes would see more value for their efforts.

Just my preference.

I agree with this. As it is in Alpha-1 right now there are lots that can still be changed, but to illuminate a mithril node just like a stone node does not reward the player for finding the higher tier item.

One thing that we haven't talked about yet is what happens when people start to harvest Mats to skill up their harvesting skill and drop the lower items because the travel time to get back to a node warehouse is not worth the effort or time. This would lead to a ton of skinny items dropped around the map like what happens when a death occurs. This would become an eyesore!

What I have run into with gathering locations is that places that you would naturally think have the items you are looking for have nothing. Prime example would be in the Alpha-1, the surrounding edge of the map where there are mountains you would think there are stone, silver, gold, etc. But they are few and far between, were as in a random forest there are 5 nodes. This does not make any since to me.

Also, just putting this thought out there, do you guys think that any tree should be able to be chopped down? I know that some of the trees that are harvestable are not too common. And, Palm trees give redwood...this does not make any since to me. Should different tree types give different wood types?

RocketFarmer

Don’t disagree about the mini map being bad.

As for the effect, based on the gathering skill one could have a utility skill (using precious skill points) to ping the mini map to show the likely location of a harvestable item.

Now, going back to the Elite Dangerous example, you don’t discover that that harvestable object has been depleted until you attempt to harvest it.

Perhaps more skill points can be applied to narrow down what is depleted or not. Skill points for the tiers of materials, skill points for the precision (how big the dot is), and skill points for the range of detection.

Elite Dangerous had another concept with respect to mining. You could do surface mining, which preserves the object, or you could do deep mining, which destroys the object and has a risk/reward of having a chance to get more material with a chance of destroying the material available.

That all translates well to mining. For trees, it could be the difference between pruning a tree for small pieces or harvesting the whole tree. Now IRL when you fell a tree you are then stripping it down into huge logs that then need to be transported to a mill. Not something one person can put in their back pack. The traditional MMO RPG wood gathering translates more to collecting sticks, branches or smaller sections.

The limiting factors of resource gathering beyond availability are time and mass. Mining and logging represent something far more than one person picking up rocks or sticks. Mining for precious metals or gems, sure, but basic building materials would take a significant amount of time and effort for one individual.

If we’re talking about the “fun” factor, then perhaps the player gathering activity involves locating the resource and then calling in NPCs to perform the actual harvesting. That would then center the PVP target on the mini caravan required to get the resources back to town. The PC could either switch to their next resource prospecting or support the mini caravan back to town. And let’s say that NPC service covers an area where multiple resources could be harvested via the same trip. That would also explain logically why every tree in a node isn’t harvested. Unless the tree is special, a town will harvest from a closer location and a location specifically set aside for that purpose. Perhaps the mayor gets to decide which forested areas are permitted for harvesting and which are not.

Dygz

The mini-map should not cost skill points.

CROW3

I’d rather figure how to hide the mini map completely than finds ways to depend on it.

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