Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
Node buff ui on large map
Xeeg
Member, Alpha Two
Would be nice to see the node buffs available from mouseover on the large map. Didn't matter as much in the beginning with only 5 nodes, but now with like 20 nodes its starting to become a pain in the butt to find the right node buffs. You can spam global but if no one responds then you have to travel the whole map for an hour or more just to see what nodes have what buffs.
Travelling is already a big time commitment, shouldnt have to do it just to find node buffs.
Travelling is already a big time commitment, shouldnt have to do it just to find node buffs.
1
Comments
But honestly, I think the current system has value. Ashes is built around the idea that information has weight, and if you could just mouse over every node and see all buffs instantly, it would take away from the sense of exploration and regional knowledge.
Having to travel, scout, or even ask around in chat makes the world feel more alive, and rewards players and guilds who organize around that information. Not everything needs to be handed to us on the map. Sometimes, the effort to find the right node is part of the strategy.
Just my take! Curious what others think.
Looking forward to seeing more discussion here!
With the amount of time it takes to travel, one can easily spend half their evening "discovering" what node buffs are on the map, and then not even have enough time to use that information. Or maybe they are looking for a gathering buff and cant find any, what a waste of time. Spamming global isnt a reliable method and shouldnt be the expectation. Maybe the next day the buffs have changed. Doesn't seem like a productive use of time for an evening.
Guilds and people with loaded alts all over the map already have enough advantages, they dont need more. This kind of thing helps players move around the map with purpose and knowledge, which helps lower frustration and makes the game smoother for the average player.
I think having buffs visible on the map is the alternative to people having a community website that is used to track all buffs. Having them not be visible serves no purpose in my mind, that doesn't add depth to the player type who needs it added.
I sympathize with the subsection of the playerbase for whom Node Buffs specifically are part of their exploration loop, I'm sure they must exist, but I don't really think having Node Buffs visible on the map for them would hurt too much.
A middle ground would be making it 'easier' to see what Buildings are active in the normal flow of play, but that's not really very 'middle' or particularly 'different' than now.
As for Node Buffs themselves, I dislike them, but that's from the 'strategy game player' perspective. I am hoping that the team comes up with buffs and bonuses on both Node Buildings/Social Org things and Quest Reward gear, that is more niche/less meta, but presumably we are not going to see such things in this Phase, so while I'm against Node Buffs as they are now, I'm not necessarily opposed in general.
This post doesn't speak for my group today.
This is a great point. It is the exact same thing with the information on ashes codex. Most players dont want to "discover" all of the monsters loot tables in the game by killing every single monster in every level bracket a billion times to track their loot tables. Actually, I dont know a single player who wants to do this.
Who wants to find out what stats their craft is going to have by gathering/buying all of the different rarities and then seeing what gets crafted, for every item in the game? It takes long enough to get the mats and build your items even with this knowledge.
Every single competitively geared player uses ashes codex to plan their builds and daily activities.
I think it is far more immersive to stay inside the game for information than to use 3rd party websites/apps/discord servers to "discover" how to spend your time effectively. If having a second monitor to look at a 3rd party source is more convenient, time effective, and enjoyable than using the game UI, then Intrepid is failing its customers.
Node buffs are just another thing which will draw us out of the game again if intrepid doesnt do it better than the 3rd parties.
In the past I suggested a reward system where people that drop loot from mobs can report that loot to a local hunting lodge and the reward would depend on how well-known that piece of loot from that mob was. So, the first person that, say, drops a super rare recipe from a well-farmed mob would get some very cool things for giving up that info. Or alternatively they could keep that info for themselves and/or their guild.
But if Intrepid don't manage to protect their client from datamining - all of that would be a complete waste of devtime, soooo.
Well so far they haven't. So why would anyone do any of that if you can just go onto ashes codex? And if Ashes codex didnt exist, the dataminers and their guilds would have insanely massive advantages over everyone else.
As long as the information is available to hackers, it should be available to everyone. Otherwise you are simply punishing people who follow the rules/just play the game, which doesnt make sense to me.
But if we still have concurrent datamining, say, a year into A2P3 - yeah, we're royally fucked and there's no reason to not just have the full lists of literally everything on mobs, quests, puzzles, whateverthefuck.
Which would be a really sad state of affairs tbh, but dataminers couldn't give fewer shits about this stuff...
A possibly interesting point for you is that there is a psychological workaround for this being employed already.
Those all-encompassing databases aren't the thing that most players want to use, they're a thing that they use because the game doesn't give them the limited version, because they become the path of least resistance.
TL has the mob drops listed in-game, and it also has the reverse, where the item can be checked and you can see at least some of what mobs drop it. But this doesn't seem to get optimized that hard (based on World Chat, some info I have from guilds stronger than mine, and the behaviour of my own more-casual guildmates).
Because what they want is to know how to spend their time, but not necessarily true optimization. The same thing could apply to certain implementations of Node Buffs themselves, or to the presentation of the data about those Node Buffs in game.
Also, for this target concept, it doesn't actually apply, the source wouldn't be Datamining, it would be player reporting, possibly backed by an army of Alts. So, at least for Node Buffs, the only way to withhold information in a way that would matter to that immersion type, would be to change how the Buffs work.
Well that depends on the player. Players who are highly competitive PVPers are going to use whatever resource available to get ahead or at least be on equal grounds to the other players in the game. Personally, I am absolutely fine with using tools that have all of this information in an easily accessible way.
I just have fun moving around in the game and accomplishing my goals, these tools help me define my goals. The less time I have to spend learning "how the game works", the more I can spend on just playing the game and chilling. Especially when that time is spent travelling around the map over and over and over and over. Most of that time isnt "learning", its just travelling.
It remains to be seen if Ashes' design will stand up to the playstyles of its favored demographics (or if they have a plan in mind for changing that trend in demographic pairing)
So I'll ask something slightly separate.
If your ability to utilize a specific Node Buff wasn't so universal, if it was dependent on some other status you had, or the weather, or anything that could change too quickly to make general sense to move around the map just to maybe get the bonus:
1. Would this be a negative to you?
2. Would you stop traveling around as much?
Lmk if an example beyond the very basic would be helpful (basic being the type that affects mobs, like 'this Named Mob only spawns after a thunderstorm in the area).
That's totally fine, could be cool. What affects me moving around the map is the knowledge that what im doing is useful. I dont like running around the map just to "check" something like this, especially when it changes day by day.
Using node buffs for professions is something that you do as a plan, not as an exploration activity. I wouldnt load up my character with 400 basalt and then roam around the map, through jundark and everything "hoping" to find a node with processing. I want to know where I am going before I do something like that.
The fact that I don't know ahead of time makes me less likely to travel, because I dont want to waste hours looking for something that doesnt exist. I'd rather just farm where I am at if that is the case.
Exploration to see if anyone is camping bosses is fine, or to just go looking for gatherables... I enjoy this type of exploration, no problem.
Edit* OK maybe I could be convinced that it is cool to be "surprised" about a node buff and then change your plan to try and make use of it. But if I am planning on a gathering run, it is nice to know ahead of time where I want to go. But this would have to be done in a way that ashescodex doesnt just add a "node buffs" page and make this irrelevant anyways. Everytime i log into ashescodex i think that intrepid should just be doing this themselves, thats much more "immersive" imo.