Serious concerns! Need Leadership communication!!

Let me first say that I am a big believer in this game and the vision that Steven has for the final product. I love the idea of a player driven economy where players need to work together. The intentional slowing of the game is a good idea. So, in short, I am a huge fan of the game and wish the best for a successful launch with long success.

Now for the concerns…

Keeping in mind that this is an Alpha I have grave concerns about communication of where things are at its current state and whether some things are broken, not fully implemented, or working as intended. My current view is that we are starring down the barrel of a game that will potentially be ruined by social media before it ever has an opportunity to launch. I love a complicated game that rewards hard work; however, the game is so complicated that it might actually be the death of the game. Or... maybe what we are seeing isn’t intended and we just need more communication from the leaders to further explain/expand on what we see now versus what will be.

With that said… here are a few things that I see as very problematic issues in the “current” state.

1) Requestion Agent – In the current state the donation system is overly complicated and confusing to the player base. A player looks at something like “Standard Tools” which are listed as needing 1500. They see that we have only donated maybe 300 and think we are so far away that the goal of 1500 is next to impossible. In reality, we don’t need 1500 but the only person capable of seeing that is the Mayor. This leads to confusion among the players which in turn leads to them making their own conclusions about the goal being so incredibly difficult to attain.

Additionally, the paired donations hinder the success of the system. A player that has copper will most likely not have fish. The player with fish will likely not have copper which leads to neither player donating. This pairing of donation resources further complicates a system that need not be complicated.

Solution: Use the system that is in place for the Construction Manager. The donation system for the Construction Manager is very clear to players. Both the goal (amount needed) and progress are easily understood. A player that has fish can donate the fish without having to worry about another material they do not possess. It also makes it clear to everyone what exactly they need to farm to accomplish the goal.

2) Rarity Level balancing – Rarity of items is a serious issue and a massive bottleneck that is killing crafting in the game. I mentioned this in a post that I tagged Steven in but got no responses from anyone in leadership. My question was whether the system is working as intended and that we are supposed to be stepping up things in a tiered fashion?
Example – Animal fat for hunting is essentially game breaking (or is it?). My theory is that the reason gathers are not seeing heroic or above is that the player rarity numbers aren’t high enough to see it. My thought is the player would first need to craft the uncommon shirt/pants which raises the rarity scale to see more Rare and give a small percentage for heroic. Then crafting Rare to tier up and see more heroic with slight chance at now seeing Epic. If this is intended that is fine, but the players need to know in order to play the game properly. When looking at the pickaxe for example we craft the first apprentice pickaxe with novice level ingredients. We also get additional crafting recipes for pickaxes that have “Rarity” on them; however, the rarity drops are so scarce that we are Journeyman before we even have the resources to make the other pickaxe recipes; thereby, making those irrelevant. The same goes for the clothing.

Partial Solution – Fix rarity drops if they are in a broken or unbalanced state (emphasis on Animal Fat and Weeping Willow). Another thing that could be done to slow things is to not give the clothing when leveling up but instead make it something that needs to be crafted. I personally leveled mining to GrandMaster with the first apprentice pickaxe and the clothing given by the vendor making all the other versions obsolete. Another thing to implement is to make it impossible to get higher levels until they are unlocked. Meaning, cap my xp so it locks at maxed 29 so that I cannot continue leveling to GM with an apprentice tool.

3) Node balancing with buildings – At the end of phase 1 I had been raising the alarm to my guild about the bottleneck faced with Tanned Raptor hides. I knew it was going to be a big issue, but it has been far worst than I predicted. Buildings are just as big an issue and, in another week, the entire server is going to come to a halt (mark my words). Why? The level of complexity in crafting that we face with needing materials from ALL professions is way beyond what it should be at this low level. To craft a Hunting Shirt, we need to get Tanned Raptor hides which is a huge issue just to get considering there are only 5 spawns (complicated further by how hunting drops work for carcasses). To make the “tanned” version the Leatherworker needs to have Weeping Willow and someone to gather/process that extremely rare resource. Then you need a Tailor for bluebell bolts plus further resources from Metalworking and gatherers of metals. All for an apprentice level shirt. Now, in the current state we are gathering Journeyman level metals that can’t be processed along with gems that can’t be cut. All because the building system for nodes is a bit too far in complication. The Mayors have designed a plan to have them in the desert and those nodes are far behind the rest which will bring things to a halt. Since we are reliant on all professions this will halt everything. No progress will be made for I am guessing the better part of 2 weeks at this point. In a game where the design is for everyone to work together this might be doable, but this game isn’t designed to be that way. We have a game that instead pits the nodes against each other. This reliance on needing all professions to make things will further be impacted when we talk about node sieges. Imagine if Halcyon was destroyed and the specializations they had in place where suddenly gone. That would bring down ALL professions because of the overly complicate reliance on all professions to craft something as simple as a shirt/pickaxe at the apprentice/journeyman level. No armorsmith, weaponsmith, or other profession will be able to craft anything at the journeyman level until both Metalworking and Stonemasonry are brought up into play. Even if you get Metalworking leveled up for processing metals you can’t cut gems or make molds. This is going to result in people abandoning the game. I have already heard from multiple hard-core crafters that if things don’t change, they will simply just be gatherers.

Solution: Honestly, I don’t have an answer here, but the overly complicated reliance on all professions needed to craft something at the apprentice/journeyman level is problematic at best.
There are lots of issues and so many things that are in the process of being balanced, designed, and built that don’t rise to the level of concern with the few things I have mentioned above. This is an alpha after all. This is where we raise our concerns in hopes of getting answers, but communication on these issues is a must. I fear that these areas will be used by those in social media to paint a bad picture of the game. We have all seen how social media can kill a great game before it even begins (Narc being the first pebble to be thrown). Some may agree with me and there will certainly be those that do not agree. To that I will emphasize that these are “my” thoughts and concerns of a few issues in the current state of the game.

I hope this gets seen by leaders and for some clarity on what we are seeing now.

Leathal

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Comments

SmileGurney

+1 to the requestion agent concerns
+10 to the complexity of processing and crafting at higher levels. This "might" even out as the rest of playerbase catches up with people who rushed processing and crafting.

I really hope the market UI and functionality gets updated soon, especially if any of you aims to supplement your guild needs through open trade...

kadrian

+1 to the requestion agent concerns. I rarely have fish to turn in with whatever resource it is paired with. I have a ton of resources waiting on the construction foreman to appear so I can dump them there if needed.

+10 complexity... I am almost to JM Tailor (lv. 19) which I have obtained by ONLY making tier 1 footwear because the mat requirements for ANY apprentice level falls into the bottlenecks mentioned by op. What there is to be found on the marketplace is overpriced due to scarcity.

Solution for hides - Make them a random drop off of appropriate mobs or make all animal mobs "skinnable" by a hunter.

Weeping Willow - these are needed by EVERYTHING, which is bad and feels bad considering how scarce these are currently. When someone is commissioning an apprentice level crafting/gathering/processing shirt, I have to let them know that each bolt requires a weeping willow board. So not only do these bolts require flowers/thread but a board (1 weeping willow) per bolt. So, the shirts take 10 bolts... that's 10 weeping willow pieces, minimum. Not to mention the weeping willow chips required for tanning the hides.

Spread the love and have some recipes use something different. We can't all be beholden to the willow.

Crafting required mats - I can't see why Apprentice items ONLY use apprentice tier mats. This makes the lower-level mats almost obsolete eventually as the general population levels up. Apprentice recipes should use apprentice mats for the mats needing quality with Novice tier secondary mats so that they do not just become storage space takers. JM would use Apprentice/Novice secondary, Master uses JM, Apprentice, Novice, etc.

Market UI - the search is horrible. I've been considering a poll/survey of my guildmates to find out how they search for items to make sure my 50 characters contains the correct keywords. The items listed should be what is searched for rather than keywords in the description.

Crafting XP Grind - I don't mind the grind, let me say that top off. However, there should be a way to "practice" so as to not generate 100s of an item that you know you will NEVER be able to sell all of. Maybe a handful here and there, but all 100s? Plus, there isn't enough item storage space for all of that. How about a checkbox on the UI that we can check to "practice". It still uses resources, just doesn't create the item. By making it a toggle, we can choose when we want to practice vs. when we want actual items crafted.

Let me end this by saying, I 100% am in support of Ashes and so far, am loving the game in general. As this is an Alpha, I felt the need to add my concerns to Leathal's post.

Sincerely,

Kadrian

Taiisien

Agree 100% with original poster.
1) +1 This seems like a very valid solution to the donation requests. As Kadrian stated, rarely do I have both materials, and getting someone to swap their ore for my wood so we can both donate never happens.

2) +1ish I agree that the rarity is an issue. Maybe I am just bugged, maybe I dont know where the high rarity spawns are (I have seen videos showing that the same spawn creates the same rarity every time regardless of that persons gear and that it stays this way either permanently or sometimes will change on server reset). What I do know is after spending a rediculous amount of time and resources to get my apprentice lumberjacking axe, pants and shirt to rare quality, I still gather wood at a ratio somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% common, 15% uncommon, 2.5% rare, 1.5% heroic, 0.75% epic, 0.25% legendary. I am not sure how I feel about the OPs solution to not letting you gain xp above your current skill level, on one hand I agree, but on the other hand part of the reason for gathering / crafting is to gain xp at it, if I'm no longer getting xp because the mayors cant get buildings built why would I keep gathering? And if I'm not gathering, I'm not donating which only furthers the problem.

3) +100 I agree completely. I remember also banging the drum in phase 1 saying that Willow was gonna be a huge bottleneck. It is the ONLY T2 resource for lumberjacking (the only gathering profession btw that only has 1 tier two resource) and this resources is used by practically every profession this was going to be a major issue, well here we are in phase 2, and its a major issue. The problem here that I see is the overly reliant nature and inter-dependency of professions. Lets simplify it some, especially at the lower levels. Here is what I recommended as a solution in a different thread.

I understand that at the Grand Master level your profession is dependent on other characters, but requiring practically EVERY other profession is a bit much. I would like to see at the GM level an interaction with 4 maybe 5 other professions MAX, but the way it is now you are dependent on at least 4 and each of those are dependent on at least 4, its just over the top.

The other thing I would like to see is to have this dependency reduced per tier. So at novice you need say one or two other professions to provide materials. Then at every other tier add in another dependent profession so that at GM you interact with 4 or 5 other professions (that still makes you dependent on at least 2 other people or as many as 5 other people). I mean, it's the NOVICE level, your still just starting out on your artisan career, why does it have to be tied to 7 other professions.

Since this is a leatherworking topic, lets look specifically at that.
The most efficient leveling recipe is River Stalker boots or gloves, these take 2 grem skin and 1 cotton thread. the grem skin takes a hunter to gather the grem, and a tanner to skin the grem. the cotton thread takes a farmer to grow the cotton, a weaver to process the cotton into thread, and someone to farm the droppings required for the farming. Thats 5 professions other than the actual leatherworking needed to finally craft an item. Then you need to do the actual craft exactly 267 times to advance to apprentice, if you are not getting some kind of crafting xp boost.

Maybe lets try something a bit more simple like this...
Hunters gather carcasses (though I really believe you should be able to skin your beast kills and have the carcasses provide a significantly higher xp / material amount from tanning) and deliver to tanner, tanner then processes and can also obtain cordage (whether this is leather strips or sinew or just call it cordage) as another material like bones and fat. This cordage and skin gets delivered to the leatherworker who then makes the gloves and boots from 2 grem skin and 1 leather cordage. Now there is no dependence on a farmer, weaver, or droppings gatherer. This is the base and is tied to three other professions, at say the journeyman level add in another profession then at grand master add another one.

kerrai

I don’t understand why processing doesn’t just work like crafting and let you put in varied rarities of materials and see what the results will be. It’s weird and needlessly clunky and frequently makes epic/legendary materials feel bad to have (I’m looking at you epic Slate, you worthless garbage you).

CROW3

kerrai wrote: »

I don’t understand why processing doesn’t just work like crafting and let you put in varied rarities of materials and see what the results will be. It’s weird and needlessly clunky and frequently makes epic/legendary materials feel bad to have (I’m looking at you epic Slate, you worthless garbage you).

I didn’t feel this until crafting slate weapon molds, where ALL mats / components have to be the same quality. This feels dumb, if I want to use a higher quality mat to create a lower quality result (because that’s the mat I have) the system needs to let me.

If I have legendary slate, bluebell thread, and board, but have an uncommon animal fat, why can’t I craft an uncommon mold?

Just awkward.

Zapatos80

There definitely is a ton of placeholder jank right now in the artisan system, namely many of the issues raised in this thread. The fact that there's only 8 nodes, capped at lvl 3, means that even with no duplicates, we can have at most 16 Journeyman stations (out of 22 professions). It also means that if a node gets destroyed, there won't be an equivalent station elsewhere in the world (when we have the intended 80+ nodes instead of 8)

That being said, I think stations having to all work together to get Journeyman gear is working as intended. A node being destroyed creating a bottleneck for a lot of other professions is the kind of stakes that node sieges represent, and the interest in destroying/protecting these assets. And how far you'd have to travel to get to a replacement station, with the danger of carrying the mats to and back. It's just super jank right now because of the tiny number of nodes, but I like the long term vision.

Journeyman epic/lego crafted gear is absolutely ridiculously strong compared to green/blue drops, so it makes sense that it requires a massive effort to get online.

Zapatos80

kadrian wrote: »

How about a checkbox on the UI that we can check to "practice". It still uses resources, just doesn't create the item. B

I think recycling/dismantling coming eventually will fix this issue.

Smaashley

Leathal wrote: »

3) Node balancing with buildings

Solution: Honestly, I don’t have an answer here, but the overly complicated reliance on all professions needed to craft something at the apprentice/journeyman level is problematic at best.

I agree on this 110%. I my mind, for an ideal new player experience (first 20 levels I'd say), they should be able to gather/process/craft an item without depending on other players. This is mainly because the system, as it is now, allow us to get up to 5 Apprentice Professions which isn't enough to craft an item because you need lot more profession to gather/process/etc.

The way they designed the profession system with only 2 Grandmaster, 3 Master, 4 Journeyman and 5 Apprentice is probably because they want people to depend on other players, which is fine by me, but not at early levels. We should rely on other professions starting at level 30 or 40.

Veeshan

1 - Every Citizen in the node can see how many tools you need to some degree. go to node tab go to building see what buy orders are listed click on empty build spot go through each building to see what buy order line up to and see the total required amount and now u know. you can tell exactly what the mayor aiming towards going through this way.
Also any extra buy order are needed too cause they are used for upkeep of the building aswell.

2 - Rarity is an issue atm only useful resources for crafting with is heroic up due to mobs dropping blue quality anything blue or below is rather useless since there easy enough to find on vendors that players got from mob drops. rest is typicaly trash with a couple exceptions like wood for tools since u have to craft though. alot of the other gets bypassed by vendor selling them like caravan parts

3- Imo all hunting mobs need to work like Grems/raven where killing mobs will cause a tamable one to spawn so you have to activly them to get them to be tamable version (i know this is a place holder system atm though) as per raptors i feel these are suppose 2 be a desert or tropic mob so we might see more when desert gets worked on hopefully they relay seem place holder atm in the riverlands.

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