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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
Crafting costs and times and tediousness
Volgaris
Member, Alpha Two
in Artisanship
Putting testing on hold for now. I'm bored with crafting and don't feel like exp grinding anymore.
Crafting burned me out with the constant running back and forth between crafting areas. A 6 minute trip from the Farming UI to the Cooking UI... There is just no reason to place the beginner crafting stations so far apart. A massive tedious activity. Running between stations that are just UI activities is boring, I'll have no more of it. Bless those who are pursing it.
The quest that rewards the Chest, Pants, and Boots still exists, probably others too. Reducing the earlier game crafting value.
Crafting a salad cost almost as much as just buying one. A Fresh Salad is sold for 1s60c, it can be crafted for 1s.20c, fuel x2, droppings, and a 6 minute run. It's actually cost effective to continue grinding for more glint to buy the food vs making it, EVEN if you have the mats already. The same can be said with the salve. There's little incentive to do either of these as you progress.
The gear crafting has the same tedious travel and storage issues as the consumables, but is at least not competing with vendor sells, just drops... Which gives it slightly more value. But after running between the stone works and the metal works a hundred times, I'm just bored with it. I've spent more time traveling than anything. Granted I didn't really know the recipes and played blinded as much as I could to simulate what a new player would feel. I didn't look anything up online or use any outside sources.
The beginner stations only craft tutorial level (1-10) items (correct?), just clump them together in the starting areas close to the storage. Let us learn the systems and get geared as we level. Just doing that would be enough to help people get geared close to the speed at which they level. Once players get to 10, 11, and so on they'll move to a Node then they can start contributing to a Nodes stations. But for those characters under 10 you're just stuck with this stupid layout of crafting stations. Yeah you can grind group your way to 10 in a few hours but then what's the point in all the crafting from 1 to 10? None.. Just skip it, grind to 10, get drops, get to a node, start crafting from there. everything level 1-10 is under leveled for you now and you're just crafting it to get to apprentice level.
The UI for all the crafting is terrible, needing to buy basic materials on top of having to pay to use the station. It's a tax on a tax, for processing then double that again when you actually craft something. It's about 12 clicks to process 1 piece of zinc (everything is basically the same too.). Then 6 or so clicks to craft an item. Sure economy scale will help with this, but what level 10 is going to have the materials or gold to process a full stack of anything? Speaking from an new character experience, this suucckkkks. It's boring on top of the boring trip between stations.
So go grind mobs to get glint/gold/recipes. And you end up with all the gear you need anyways. Even solo! I mean fuck what the hell is even the point?
I see some things have changed and crafting is getting better overall, but it has a long way to go imo. I really think Intrepid needs to make a decision of what type of game they are going to make. WoW like? L2 like? AA like? Characters level so fast like a post WoW game, but crafting, and node mechanics are like a broken pre WoW game like L2. You can't just shove a bunch of good ideas into a box and call it good because it's a bunch of good ideas. These ideas and designs will cancel each other out and conflict. Stop trying to please everyone.
This is tedious, not fun. I'm not saying take away the grind, take a way the tedious designs and layouts.
Crafting burned me out with the constant running back and forth between crafting areas. A 6 minute trip from the Farming UI to the Cooking UI... There is just no reason to place the beginner crafting stations so far apart. A massive tedious activity. Running between stations that are just UI activities is boring, I'll have no more of it. Bless those who are pursing it.
The quest that rewards the Chest, Pants, and Boots still exists, probably others too. Reducing the earlier game crafting value.
Crafting a salad cost almost as much as just buying one. A Fresh Salad is sold for 1s60c, it can be crafted for 1s.20c, fuel x2, droppings, and a 6 minute run. It's actually cost effective to continue grinding for more glint to buy the food vs making it, EVEN if you have the mats already. The same can be said with the salve. There's little incentive to do either of these as you progress.
The gear crafting has the same tedious travel and storage issues as the consumables, but is at least not competing with vendor sells, just drops... Which gives it slightly more value. But after running between the stone works and the metal works a hundred times, I'm just bored with it. I've spent more time traveling than anything. Granted I didn't really know the recipes and played blinded as much as I could to simulate what a new player would feel. I didn't look anything up online or use any outside sources.
The beginner stations only craft tutorial level (1-10) items (correct?), just clump them together in the starting areas close to the storage. Let us learn the systems and get geared as we level. Just doing that would be enough to help people get geared close to the speed at which they level. Once players get to 10, 11, and so on they'll move to a Node then they can start contributing to a Nodes stations. But for those characters under 10 you're just stuck with this stupid layout of crafting stations. Yeah you can grind group your way to 10 in a few hours but then what's the point in all the crafting from 1 to 10? None.. Just skip it, grind to 10, get drops, get to a node, start crafting from there. everything level 1-10 is under leveled for you now and you're just crafting it to get to apprentice level.
The UI for all the crafting is terrible, needing to buy basic materials on top of having to pay to use the station. It's a tax on a tax, for processing then double that again when you actually craft something. It's about 12 clicks to process 1 piece of zinc (everything is basically the same too.). Then 6 or so clicks to craft an item. Sure economy scale will help with this, but what level 10 is going to have the materials or gold to process a full stack of anything? Speaking from an new character experience, this suucckkkks. It's boring on top of the boring trip between stations.
So go grind mobs to get glint/gold/recipes. And you end up with all the gear you need anyways. Even solo! I mean fuck what the hell is even the point?
I see some things have changed and crafting is getting better overall, but it has a long way to go imo. I really think Intrepid needs to make a decision of what type of game they are going to make. WoW like? L2 like? AA like? Characters level so fast like a post WoW game, but crafting, and node mechanics are like a broken pre WoW game like L2. You can't just shove a bunch of good ideas into a box and call it good because it's a bunch of good ideas. These ideas and designs will cancel each other out and conflict. Stop trying to please everyone.
This is tedious, not fun. I'm not saying take away the grind, take a way the tedious designs and layouts.
0
Comments
Blown past falling sands…
I'm starting to agree in some aspects. Players are different and will perceive grind different. I like the complexity of the crafting system, others might like it. The leveling from 1 to 10 is WoW levels fast, even without quest hubs/exp rewards. Which doesn't match with the rest of the game's grind.
What made me throw in the towel was running between the crafting stations and storage in the early stage. I did 4 1-10 characters. So that's a factor. But I did that to stream to some 20 something friends who have a mild interested. At level 6,7,8 you start feel like you're swinging a wet noodle as a weapon, and you'll need some armor. So you can ignore the quests that reward armor if you want to waste time, or just do those quests. But you'll still need to craft quite a bit to keep a decent pace. OR you can just zerg grind your way to 10 in 2 or 3 hours and head straight to a Node, which is... bad design to say the least.
But what I showed was just boring...
1. Travel to combat
2. Combat to gather glint
3. Travel to sell glint
4. Travel to gather (nothing special, not a bad system, aside from hunting and fishing, no fun)
5. Travel to process
6. Process (this is just a clunky UI, no fun)
7. Travel to combat
8. Combat to gather more glint
9. Travel to craft
10. Craft (another clunky UI thing, no fun)
11. Repeat 5 or 10 more times
But you'll be level 10 or 12 before we even get all your slots filled. You'll pick up half the pieces along the way too. I'm not saying that progression balance is bad, or even the drop rate. But the waste of time travelling in the starting area is just frustrating to anyone who wants to progress with crafting as a major source of exp. There's no value added in the layout of the novice starting area crafting stations and storage. Just lay out the stations in each of the 4 starting areas with a storage. They don't need to be side by side, just put every station in say Lionshold. The stations can still be out in the starting area where they are currently. The trainer/certificate can stay there too.
As it is, IF I play the game I'll skip all crafting until I get to a Node. I'll zerg grind to 10/12 get to a node to start buying basic items if drops didn't happen. If I can keep that up until 25/50 I will, and crafting will be a end game / max level activity. Players will follow the path of least resistance and zerging your way through it the meta right now. It's just boring. This leads to a different design issue with groups though. The question is does Ashes want the leveling process to matter like in L2 or other oldschool games? Or do they want to rocketship players to 50 so they get to the 'real game'?
Good luck finding the amount of mats required for 1 bag, let alone 2. This is just for one gathering discipline!!!! Add Shirts (App Tailoring), Trousers (App Leatherworking), Belt, Scroll buffs.
Who approves this stuff? Some of the decisions made just blow my mind and give serious doubts as to the development team. I think I've just talked myself into quitting until this debacle is fixed, nice to have clarity and my time back.
The bag space though... the travelling... the running around for that is not going to be fun.
Give enough room for someone to main two artisan skills. All the novice bags are a joke with the amount of materials. I'd rather deal with a weight encumbrance.
Taking a break is a good idea. At least until a PTR comes out or a meaningful update. It's still alpha. I'll test if it's fun or I don't have to put in a massive grind to get to other things. I've tested the early game the 1-10 pretty solid. The game loop is just zerg farm to max level, and that's just boring to me. Then push Node progression and run caravans for gold so you can then craft. Then Node/Guild war.
I'm all for some complex systems that require spread sheets or even a custom app, bonus if they have api I could pull from. That's half the fun for me in these games. Maybe they will pull it together. So we'll see, they got time to work on it, hopefully they take some input from all players not just the try hards.