Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
Comments
Geology is the most 'complex', 'game dependent' one, but basic geology Gameplay design would dictate that Riverlands would be largely sedimentary rocks.
This wouldn't be correct, what they have now is just as correct or even moreso. The reason one might use design differently is because of player intellect limitations. I definitely have friends/group members who won't 'understand why igneous rocks could be commonly available in specific sub-areas in the Riverlands'.
So rocks are more usefully deployed/used as things that are different between nodes, than things that are hugely different in availability between biomes, imo.
From the Econ Design perspective (according to my mental model of it, anyway) the thing you care about for sorting Rocks is 'which of the three types of Rock' and 'how hard is it to work with' and then you just pile them up, literally, by 'difficulty of work', into ArtC(N) categories. The design language of 'Grey', 'White', 'Red' used in Throne and Liberty is actually quite good as a shorthand for rock types even if it isn't quite 'right', at least for me, a person who has only ever studied Geology for exactly this purpose (World Design stuff for gaming, and I definitely think players shouldn't need accreditations in Chemistry to know where to find rocks).
Basically there's no clear answer, but if I at least throw out what I have for the other things above:
ArtC1: Sandstone, 'Red Clay', Limestone, Gabbro (this is the non-volcanic mountains one)
ArtC2: Shale, Calcite/Dolomite, Granite (mountains again)
ArtC3: Diorite, Marble, Bauxite, maybe Basalt
ArtC4: Slate, Andesite, Mica, definitely Basalt if not used before
etc. From there you'd have to get more specific by far, and 'by far' I mean 'more than most games would ever do'. If I was asked to 'somehow make a pathway for Stonemasonry that was equal to other Artisanship Paths', I know I'd end up spending most of my time trying to find rocks that most players would recognize by name, and then I'd be counting on the popularity of MineCraft and the various mods it has, to carry the Knowledge Path through.
BDO tried but the reason BDO manages is that it doesn't focus too much on the actual rocks you get from hitting rocks, instead it focuses on what ores you get.
There are a bunch of additional complications that come in from the way Ashes handles Artisanship categories but I don't want to use this post as yet another club in the bludgeoning my group 'wants to do' relative to that, so instead, to keep within the standard method:
So there are multiple ways to do it, one could take some thing similar to the above, skip the Evens, and 'cap Casuals out' at Shale and Granite, thereby making Marble something 'special' and making Basalt 'a tier of thing required for higher grade molds and such' (to withstand higher melting temp metals).
One could just make up names for commonly found rocks (that's pretty much what geologists did for a century) and fill them in however you like as long as you have a rough idea approximately what rock the name represents (if you're being serious about this I think it actually requires more knowledge, because you are slapping new names on things like 'silica undersaturated foid-bearing pyroxenite'). This seems like a good path for Ashes, imo, 'Halcyonite' and such. This would be sufficient to fill in the 'Evens'.
One could look through a ton of historical rock names/uses and pick out whatever sounds good, as long as you know the classifications. I think this one takes the least 'real effort' but is prone to 'mistakes', and idk if AI would be helpful, or detrimental, to this one. This is imo the riskiest relative to Knowledge Paths since it can create friction between 'people who actually know what/where a rock is supposed to be, and those who don't', whereas the previous moreso 'boosts engagement'. I don't know what Wyrdstone is, but trying to work it out, assuming that the designer had some real concept of it (i.e. that the visuals somewhat match something they got from whatever composition they had in mind) would probably be more 'fun'.
One of those things where 'the best approach' is decided by your staff, as most things in MMOs should be, assuming you ever want to launch it. Players can give a rough idea of how they want something to turn out, and certainly what they don't like, but it's the Designers/Devs that know things like "I can save 20 man hours by just putting Marble as a rare drop from Limestone/White Rocks in canyons/deposits and nowhere else".
There will always be players that are pedantic enough to not respect Developer time even when they're trying, it's just something Devs unfortunately have to live with. On the other hand, though, starting the bottom layer of Stone stuff at Basalt and Granite may come back to bite them later just on a design level.
tl;dr - ArtC1: Sandstone, 'Red Clay', Limestone, Gabbro, split up by location/node rather than trying to ensure that it's particularly biome-specific
And because I'm told I need to target this down even further, using a hypothetical example that only applies to Throne and Liberty, yet again (multiple ESL friends/guildies):
If I hit a White Rock and get Calcite (just Calcite) and in the visual language of the game, Calcite is in the 'Green Grade' box, but doesn't have 'Quality' in front of it, I personally will assume that all Calcite is Green Grade, and if I hit the same White Rock and get Marble and it is in the 'Blue Grade' box, but is just 'Marble', not 'Rare Marble', for me, this works.
I can see how 'not knowing which Rarity Grades were skipped' in Ashes would be a pain, because the only 'language' being used is the box border. So to be as clear as possible:
FF11 - Kaolin is incredibly rare to get, but there is no indicator of this, a player could randomly get one, assume it was junk, and toss it (less likely because it's on the Chocobo Digger Knowledge Path and diggers would assume 'I've never seen this before in all my digging it must be cool')
BDO - IF there were such a thing as 'Legendary' Kaolin in that game it would certainly still be called just 'Kaolin' and would come in the Yellow(Orange? idk I don't play anymore) border, but you'd know it was important
Throne and Liberty - Growing pains. It doesn't work like the BDO above for materials but probably should (I think this one isn't just 'our preference'), because it works like this for food ingredients and Fish already, but it also puts Quality, Rare, Precious names on things that have the up and down conversion options (this is about to get confusing because Noble <-> Precious conversion doesn't currently exist). Basically I'd expect just 'Kaolin' in the 'Noble' itemborder/box and it would be used to make some level 30-40 vase or something by high level 'Artisans' (those who do Firing, and therefore process Clays).
Ashes of Creation - Growing pains? Everything my group believes was covered in some prior post, I think. If they need Rarity Grades (can totally see it), they have to weigh 'the confusion of skipping some' against 'the mess of Inventory management and Econ Design paths caused by not doing so'.
I guess we can try to collect some data on 'people who definitely think it is good to have every Rarity Grade', because right now I only have data for 'people who would be okay with skipped Grades to fix the issue' and 'people who would be frustrated by skipped Grades but would be ok without any rarity grades for items at all'.
In my mind I'd just put it in the same basket as this kind of "nesting doll" of a material. All of the mats in the picture can be acquired directly through drops/spoils, with varying chances.
So if I'm farming a relatively easy to kill mob and it drops DMP - I'll just know "oh, I could make use of this knowledge". But with rarities it's all just "grind this shit until you get a rarer version of it". And obviously the underlying principle is the same - you just farm until you loot it, but, to me, the feeling of looting a "unique" material is soooo much better than just looting a rarer version of something that I have literal thousands of already.
Progression Paths or as they call it in Throne and Liberty, the Path of Ascension.
I'm not a sandbox/full-loot purist here to argue against this concept, that players play MMOs to progress. But there is a bunch of stuff I can talk about from multiple games to show what I think is an issue to Econ.
Other recent posts from me have gone on about how players need to have some reason to play an MMO while 'Ascending', or they learn that the game is single player until they get to the 'end' which... what? Why?
Grouping
Don't let your story mode be entirely single player. Make duo content that can be soloed by veterans/insane people or where you can choose a path to have an NPC help at some upfront tradeoff or cost. Most people have at least one friend. Many can manage to make at least one friend. If your game has a Level Sync function, even better. Mentors? Great!
There's not much point in a mentor system if your Story Mode doesn't even let the mentor actually help in the fight, but obv not much point if they can just solo it for you either (surely the aforementioned veterans/insane ones still will). The most basic of teamwork mechanics is fine. Even if 80% of players are going to look it up beforehand just to avoid the social anxiety. It also benefits a nontrivial number of people who have at least one friend who also enjoys adventuring and working things out on their own because they get to play an MMORPG together. Amazing.
Don't make your story mode full-group either. This is insane. FF11 roadblocked so many players this way. Anyone who has been tracking any recent Elden Ring: Nightreign discourse understands why 'more than duo' isn't where you aim. You could make an up-tuned version of the fight for full-group that players can choose to do, probably even repeat for fun. This doesn't even need to be mechanically very challenging. Then reuse the assets/attacks/designs.
Econ wise, this makes at least some people care about gearing beyond 'the game should give me enough gear to do this because the story said I should do it, therefore the game should make sure I have the gear for it'. If you make at least one friend, even five minutes of post-progression conversation might lead to someone helping you learn to make money, giving excess gear, encouraging or buying something from you.
An entlrely Single Player story Mode leads to economic isolation
Handouts
But obviously, even in duo, it's good to give some rewards. Even players who love to earn their keep 'out in the world' still feel more connected if clearing content that you are trying to tell them to be emotionally invested in, gives them something.
That something can progress their skills and levels so that they feel 'I grew, now I can try more things'. The issue in games like BDO and TL is that the story is so railroaded that the 'more things' is literally just 'the next story beat'.
FF11 didn't mess up this part particularly. If you cleared a mission, you got a bunch of Rank points toward unlocking the next, but often not enough to be allowed to start the next immediately. You needed to gather and hand in some Crystals to the Gate Guard. Literally just 'please go touch grass (or sand, or dirt, whatever)'. Find something else to do for an hour or two so you remember you are playing an MMO and there are other people in it.
Economically this is a hard thing to judge for most other games, but for Ashes? If you want to claim this game has Econ that matters, this is the bare minimum, but you don't need much more than that. TL originally was somewhat like this too, note. If you just speedran the story you didn't always get enough exp to start the next thing immediately, you needed to at least participate in something else. They pointed you at the 'something else' (events) and those gave good exp too if they happened to be active. If not, you could go exploring.
Without this, you're forced to make your handouts be 'enough power to always do the next story beat so that players aren't frustrated'. The argument a few people give of 'why wouldn't they be frustrated anyway since they aren't doing the thing they want to do' is valid for some games but probably not things like Ashes/TL/BDO (yes even BDO). If they don't want to do MMO things during the 'Path of Ascension' they probably aren't going to want to actually play your MMO when they reach the end either. This could work for New World because it's Box Cost. TL is 'Free but with stuff you buy if you like continuing to play' and Ashes is Sub Fee which is even rougher.
The 'Casual' players of Ashes will absolutely demand rewards for doing story, progression handouts that they earn through time spent on quests and contributing to Settlements/Organizations, etc. Great! They absolutely should have all that, but make them 'touch pixel-grass'. Or they will run through your storybook and then go 'that was a good story you can keep that $15 bai'.
Some will anyway, but I absolutely assure you that if you don't ever trigger the part of their brain that goes 'oh wait this is an MMO and I can work with people/sell things/see other cool people do cool things', even people who might stay, sometimes just leave. Some don't even start, they just watch someone else play the 'Path of Ascension' on a streaming service.
Order of Complexity
Oh boy is this messed up right now in nearly every MMORPG...
BDO is so relatively bad at teaching anything related to the supposed MMORPG part that no one I know even considers it one anymore, possibly not even BDO itself.
Throne and Liberty's actual Path of Ascension is as mentioned, though I should clarify that it makes you do the entire storyline before encouraging/giving you props for doing a single dungeon, a single Trait enhancement, a single 'bought a thing from a merchant'.
There is a literal reward of 3 Green Tier Armor Lithographs given for buying the most basic thing after you finish the entire story mode and are given full Epic II equipment for every gear slot. You cannot even enhance Epic II gear with Green Tier Armor (this has a use still, but it's an extremely backwards complexity flow).
New World was an amazingly similar jankness, in the modern world it's hard not to suspect AI, but it could be easily attributed to the 'Single Player MMORPG' design style.
Ashes is somehow worse than both these things right now. Obviously no heavy critique here, it will improve, but not if the mentality that is causing the BDO and TL issues is also present in Ashes development.
Did I mention that the TL one is 'locked in order' in a specific way? I'll tell you how locked it is.
in 'Step 2' (more like group 2) of this Path, it starts with 'Join or Create Guild'. What? This is always a terrible idea to put anywhere or force, but this is 'in order to get the rest of this loot you must do this'. Then it's 'Purchase Items from a Sundries Merchant'. But that isn't the one that gives the Armor Lithos I mentioned, it is a separate prerequisite one.
Only after doing that, are you allowed to continue on this path to learn stuff that is extremely early-game before finally being allowed to go shopping a second time for those Armor Lithos you don't need.
This is actually a 'net' to catch people who slip through the cracks. The issue is obvious though. The game is now incentivizing 'skipping a bunch of things and only doing them after you hit max level' because, you guessed it, reaching max leve is the prerequisite ending of 'Step 1'.
"You should reach Max level first, then join a guild, then shop at a merchant, then make some Green Armor".
This is not afaik, how this is actually taught. You still do get told to do all these things during the regular flow. This is for 'jogging the minds of/holding on to' players who literally pattern-match autopilot through everything, but that means that Economically everything is so out of order mentally/conceptually that the 'MMORPG' part, especially the Econ part, disappears.
Ashes seems to be locked in a similar 'battle', looking from the outside. The 'just give people stuff so they can get to the end/the PvP' camp seems to exist, from where we sit, outside the glorious Studio. I'm not sure if it is clear, but the above is my group's 'counterargument against that camp'. It is 'the thing that frustrates because it isn't necessary'.
Just like the idea that the camp we are 'technically in' (the Sandboxers that want everything to be discovered, for things to be hard and take long, and for min-maxer Hardcores to experience drag, limits, and 'stress') shouldn't be directly catered to, neither should the 'camp' for whom the Path of Ascension as it is now is a gold star implementation (BDO is probably worse by now).
Optional Rewards
Handouts were called that because they don't usually require anything of the player other than 'walk forward', and again, those are probably good to have, with the only previous 'complaint' being 'require them to also play an MMORPG a little at some point, for your own sake as Developers'.
Optional Rewards need to actually feel like rewards, though, and if your Handouts are too strong, your Rewards don't do anything. That's both Niche Invalidation and Content Invalidation! Wow! It's like punching yourself in the face twice!
Honestly I don't really feel the need to expand on this one. I believe in you, Intrepid, but admittedly my group is running low on visible evidence that they should. Maybe do us a favor and have another good Dev Stream in January where you give more details about 'stuff you worked on but we can't see yet'.
I guess if things are the same in February I'll actually say something about why you should bother rewarding players for going off the Golden Path earlier with stuff that is slightly better than the stuff they get for just staying on it, and how to maybe Econ-ify that, but I prefer to wait and see what you do.
So forgive me in this case, this is just a reaction to the outcomes of 'waiting to see what gets done' in BDO (TL a little, but theirs is just out of order) and Phase 3.
You never promised us anything would actually be good in Phase 3, but it triggers the 'wish to tell you what you should have done' even if you had some good reason for not doing it.
And there's also several side quests/tasks that give you some resources that you can use to enhance your gear a bit (or even craft better one), so that continuation of the story is marginally easier.
So when even a fucking mobile auto-mmo can do this kinda thing in 2025 - it'd be reaaaaaal god damn sad if Intrepid fail at this...
Because sometimes it's just nice to be able to talk about nice things, and maybe some people who are outside my group who need to keep hope alive will also like to hear some mostly-nice things.
tl;dr most of the above Niches are back in an update that a lot of people would probably consider really cool. At least A- if not A+ solution to 3 of the four above (the important ones).
Believe in your Devs!
Throne and Liberty has released a slightly weird yet lore-appropriate update wherein their giant flying Divine Beast Cetaceans now spawn/summon floating islands, presumably with their immense gravity magic powers, which then spawn gatherables.
One of those Divine Beasts is tied directly to a Dynamic Event and the spawns are related to success at the event. The other is the 'competitive' one, with a tendency to spawn at the same time as Primetime Bosses (both blocks), pushing the Niche choice at least to the level of 'are you going to try to compete for Bosses, or compete for Materials?'
The first one is the one that the 'Red Fog Island Hermit' uses to 'get their Niche back' even if only a little (I haven't rechecked Red Fog Island itself yet) by going to a floating island at the same time they would have gone over to Red Fog and then staying there. You can't fish but the Fishing aspect of Red Fog was only lost due to a difference in available Fishing Bait anyway. The issue here was their 'economic progress' and that has been restored.
The Mountain Climbers got an extremely interesting restoration of their Niche. If you climb the mountains before the Event, you can use your skill and specific gear/food to fly to some islands before the players who ride the Divine Beast to them, and therefore get the first 'gatherable spawn rotation'. They are also 'not the same as the easily accessible ones that the people riding the back of the Divine Beast get to first. So people on Minutrite get stuff from its gathering points, and mountain climbers get first pick of stuff from islands that are practically designed for them. They can even, with enough skill, use the island hopping to get back to the flight path and get onto Minutrite. This isn't even just one Mountain, I believe one could argue that there are three different islands with 'Early Access Options' from three different mountains.
On the other 'side' (the second Divine Beast, Gigantrite, in the other geo-region), there is a further split between those who spend their time gathering the crystals that Gigantrite drops onto the ground, and those who stay on the Divine Beast's back to get other items. If you know the path Gigantrite will take, you can still do some of the 'mountain climbing' style things to get onto specific islands. Since different islands spawn different resources generally, there is further specialization.
Other minor pain-point removals were performed for gatherers who reached high enough levels in Gathering, which, while still the sort of thing that I would hate to see in Ashes, doesn't offset TL too much since Artisanship is mostly, by their own definition, 'Single Player Content'.
Yet in an even more 'fun' twist, that doesn't quite work out that way when players are 'competing' or rather 'deciding if to compete or not', for those resources.
If a floating island spawns Ore veins and Trees, but has two people on it, they can't both get them all, there will always be a chance to gather something while someone else is gathering. The early result is that a 'Blacksmith' and a 'Lumberjack' auto-sort themselves, each taking what suits them, and maybe the 'White Grade' gathering points of the other. Will this shift later? Maybe, but for now, it's one of those things that makes an MMO feel like an MMO, for this player type (there's nothing on these islands for Tailors, and only a bit for Cooks/'Alchemists'/Fisherfolk, but those people hadn't lost their niches relative to the aforementioned anyway).
You can race people to the top of mountains, using your Stamina Regen gear, squabble with them because you're both trying to gather Sand, do something useful for yourself if you somehow didn't log in fast enough to get to the Boss for your daily PvX encounter, or basically go 'quick guys, while everyone is doing that, since it's night, let's go grab all the loot from the dungeons!'
I guess this is a post about skilfull Niche Revalidation moreso than a rant. Things are still only 'okay' for certain aspects of it, but at the end of the day, Devs want to do a good job. They want us to enjoy the work they are putting in, and at least some of them probably want to listen.
So to whoever on the team is in charge of making crafting not be unbearable, know that we still care. Sometimes it's hard to be patient because we care, after all, who doesn't want to get the chance to do more fun things in a game they're already enjoying, sooner?
But greatness takes time, and MMORPGs also need time to find their own Niches, so keep going.
Because the Revalidation was important, but now a Niche Equalization pass is needed. Everyone knows why Niche Equalization would be important, right? It doesn't have to be perfect, and it's seldom more work than some event or a gear/ability balance.
I'm not going to go complaining about the Knowledge Path or Micro-Slots of tailoring in Ashes. Any basic Tailoring Guide for the current Alpha will show the 'pain' of that, and it's almost certainly unfinished so 'who cares?'. Throne and Liberty on the other hand is 'live' and therefore valid to rant about(?).
We got Divine Beast islands. These boost Carpenters, 'masons', 'glassblowers', 'smelters', 'blacksmiths', etc. Nothing for Tailors. That's 'fine' because Tailors don't have to do practically anything right now. You just stand near a sheep or llama and press harvest indefinitely.
But what if that wasn't fun? Well then you can go hunt things for Leather, same deal. In Ashes though, you can't. You 'need herbalism' or 'need farming', and it's not gonna be totally clear which. TL so far has chosen to put the two together, in terms of play experience somewhat, and can't reasonably put Llamas on floating whale islands.
What they could put, is 'Cotton'.
Depending on your worldbuild, Cotton can go high in the Micro-Slots, actually. TL puts 'Wool' at ArtC1-Weaving, which is, oddly, also valid, because the specifics of Clothing fibers depend on how the ecology works out. You can do stuff with Cashmere style concepts too (though presumably not call it that, but hey, one could).
Point is that animal fleeces are actually probably easier than plant fibers in many places. The 'important part' is often how you do the combinations if any, and this comes up a lot in 'Weaving'. It doesn't matter if you start at Wool or start at Cotton, having the Blends one or two 'tiers' higher than both of those comes out the same, and if Ashes intends to have Processors within Cloth, managing without Blends might be rough because it won't equalize.
We saw the 'same' in Leather, the current implementation bears out the same hallmark problem (I will never let this in-joke die), but whereas Leather has a specific thing you can do about it, Niche Equalization for Weaving is harder, especially if one wants to keep 'the Casuals'.
Assuming therefore that Wool and Cotton take up ArtC1 and ArtC2 or are equal at one of those levels, those 'Casuals' will end up without much push or feeling of accomplishment even if you give them some forms of Silk and/or Linen at ArtC3, because Settlements won't have the same diversity as the original concept. For the sake of argument let's assume Settlement Diversity drops to BDO tier (if they maintain a conceptual FF11 tier this is mostly moot) but that Freeholds don't have a lot of limitations.
At that point you could do 'Animal Husbandry' + 'Farming' and then have a higher level Weaver make things like 'Velvet' (FF11 Velvet, not real Velvet, Ashes would surely come up with some name). TL can avoid the 'problem' that we see in Ashes therefore relative to the Knowledge Path, and this is the one place I have to bring up something from the current implementation to make the point.
Snowdrop Thread + Daffodil Thread + Hawk Leather.
What?
Yes, this is a fantasy game, with big plans for Econ tiers/slots, but... what? And it's not like I'm claiming more players are going to know what viyella is/was either. It's moreso that the expectation/ability to remember are so much more likely to be lacking.
I guess there's always the consideration that certain blends are quite literally getting into political/religious stuff for some people, but given exactly how that comes up I tend to assume that games/Econ Designers basically have to ignore it.
Summary then!
TL would need to put Cotton or Flax on the Islands for perfect Niche Equalization.
Ashes might have issues with this if they stick to things like Snowdrop and Daffodil Thread, not to mention the other potential Knowledge Path issues for parallel reasons.
The Clothcrafter of my group would greatly prefer that this was not unnecessarily overcomplicated at the lower levels if trying to live outside the Riverlands.
The Herbalist Farmer of my group would greatly prefer that one not simply stick Daffodils and Snowdrops everywhere.
As the Animal Husbandry person, Freehold or not, I like being able to contribute to this early.
If you're aiming for higher levels of Artisanship to enforce more interdependence, equally, please blend some fibers across Gathering(?), Farming, and Husbandry after ArtC3.
Hell, SHOULD they? We've already seen region-specific stations as a thing in Ashes (or at least an underlying mehcanic, even if it might've been somewhat of a bug). So what if freeholds' buildings were also limited by the region where you put your freehold in (both for gathering and processing).
Tbh I'm not actually sure which I'd prefer. They'll already be a super limited comodity, with supposedly still the best processing in the game, so if you then put region-locks ON TOP - it might make the entire system even worse.
But on the other hand, if we actually do end up having region-specific station requirements - having unlimited freehold capabilities would make freehold owners unreasonably economically powerful, on top of them literally being the most powerful people around considering that they got a freehold.
And I'd imagine this would heavily impact the crate/caravan routes, cause if guilds don't need to process their goods at specific nodes and can instead just pool all of their gatherables at their freeholds - their trasportation movements would differ quite a bit.
Quite frankly? I just don't wanna think about it. I will say that my group came to this game because of interest in things like this:
And if Freeholds allow players to easily bypass this, it would go against our expectations. Those expectations might have been overinterpretations, but they did basically tell us back in Alpha-1 that if you wanted to have Fishing on your Freehold you would be better off placing it so that a River or pond was within the Freehold Footprint.
I would therefore not expect that you can 'decide to raise sheep, fish, and tea in the average Sandsquall Desert Freehold'.
So when I said 'don't have a lot of Limitations' I didn't mean 'you can install a full yield fish pond no matter where you live', I meant it more like BDO, where you can grow Mushrooms in Arehaza, but your yield will be worse for most of them.
And Settlements would maybe be similar to the Bastok/Altepa Desert example. You could get everyone on board with the idea of 'we're gonna go against the trend and be Leatherworkers, we have the Farmers who can handle the Tea Leaves!', but the reason for this would be 'so that you don't have to compete with a nearby Town with an even better setup for (let's say) Mythril Swords' and you want to use the Leather to specialize in Mythril Gauntlets.
I'd be thinking that a Freehold would be the same, just on an even smaller scale.
"Oh, I raise Sheep and such here even though it's not the best climate because we need a few to get materials for our Mythril Armor and don't want to be subjected to bandits."
Basically sitting right in the middle. Not wanting either "you can only make Mythril Armor in this Settlement/Region because you aren't allowed to raise Sheep for enough Leather/Wool back at your Freehold and the Crafting Station therefore literally does not let you' nor 'You can freely raise Sheep anywhere with no downside'.
Risk vs Reward.
For the stone I could see it being okay but I prefer what XI did and made it so you needed to go down into mines to mine ore and even then you would dig up stones. Pickaxes would break so go in prepared with stacks and inventory space. Not enough people in the mines to pop nodes would have you running your ass off and too many people would lead to over crowding and not enough resources to gather. It was nice cause even having the area to yourself wasn't a good thing an low key incentivized team play while also allowing you to invest your time and get something out of it.
The problem with the NW style of mining is it leads to too much inflation of basic resources from people who are just grabbing the nodes out of convenience more than anything
Hunting should be the same way, right now it's more convenience than anything or trying to camp over areas where people are farming xp like right outside lionhold. I would prefer the hunter have to do something to actual creatures instead of a node popping up as a placeholder which can be farmed. This will drive hunters away from busy areas so their hunts don't get messed with but at the same time trade time for a guarantee in drops if the player is coordinated and patient enough to make it back.
I think a lot of the farming should be redesigned. The current system of planting legos for more legos is kind of broken imo and the freeholds being limited is a bit of a kick in the teeth for how you're controlling the flow of resources into the server. Again if it was me I would keep the freeholds but let it be a slight advantage and give cities instanced farms for breeding and cultivation. areas will be rented like apartments and will give you what a freehold gives you, just not as good.
As for farming trees and plants, only allow players to plant basic trees but give them access to resources that give it quality and quantity boosts or maybe even change what they planted if fed something over time.
If your gathering systems are designed like this then everyone from the people who treat the game like a full time job to the people who have full time jobs will be able to do their thing without having to be gated behind a first come first serve mechanic, and players with limited time can invest their time without it being as much of a gamble.
glint system is also an inflation machine imo the hauling from one city to another I like I just wish the packages were glint + resources giving basic resources more value and less over crowding of grinding spots by lowing the amount of glint needed to compensate for the resources used instead.
Also I would make it so resources would drop from mobs just at a much lower rate then if you were to gather it yourself and tailor these to their perspective environments. Like skeleton miners dropping ores and with grems instead of farming for droppings they drop all of their crafting mats just at a low rate, like no full carcass but a skin can start at 1% at lv 1 and go up something like .3% per level.
Ark survival evolved has the best poop management system by far. all your tames poop and you collect it to make fertilizer. If you create an instanced farm like I mentioned before players can trade time for raising something simple like grems just for their droppings instead of farming mobs themselves. Bigger tames = bigger droppings so players can make a thing out of being a turd farmer while giving breeding certain types of creatures a purpose in the game as well.
I figure that Ashes must have this problem a lot, considering how many of their designs are supposedly based on actually needing to commit to things, understand things, and work together. MMO Devs have lots of reasons to be nervous about stuff like that in this era, but hey, at least some are still really trying, so let's be thankful for that.
In case you need to hear it today, Intrepid Devs, still thankful for all your effort no matter how other things seem to be going.
My group is literally celebrating today some new signs of Niche Tuning in Throne and Liberty. Niche Tuning that we have been genuinely looking forward to for months now, with excitement on the level of 'new dungeon release'.
Yep, I'm saying that for us, 'tuning Fish Recipes' and 'releasing an entire new Co-op Dungeon' are equivalently hype.
Everyone likes different things. Keep it up.
I can't see how I would go about convincing other players that Ashes is a 10K Economy style game at this point.
In fact, things are looking Dire.
As always I'll try to keep to the 'contract' between Intrepid and their testers/supporters, and talk about other games.
FF11's 10K model breaks down during periods of rampant inflation, caused by something that isn't quite 'bots', but is similar, just too many players with lots of reason to do high level things, but not to spend gil. Long story.
Throne and Liberty's 10K model breaks down only slightly so far and only due to the faster leveling and structure of lower level drops (limited pipelines for their usage).
Both games have been cautious about botting because bots and low level characters/players are very similar. Unfortunately if the least skilled players of your game can make money, bots can make more. The issue is solved by relative value of money for time spent, of course.
TL is now moving in to the phase where less desirable traits on Epic I and Epic II gear pieces are worth less than the Opportunity Cost of Extracting them, making it harder and harder for players not at the top to make any money in a way that doesn't put the Economic Drag pressure on them instead of the top players.
This also deflates the whole economy. In the same space and for the same reason, FF11's economy inflated. The reason is simply that those who are at the top progress the fastest and play more. Eventually they are not logging in to Progress, but to Profit off those trying to Progress. Another place this comes up is that smaller groups and solo players have the same outcome. To enjoy the game they need to progress in whatever activity they choose, but simply being given things isn't really 'enjoyable progress' for the type of person that plays this game type. Ashes doesn't plan to do this, FF11 barely did it, TL is careful about it.
Fixing this by diminishing the hardcore player isn't necessary nor a good idea, it doesn't give the strivers anything to strive for if you show them 'when you get here you will have less fun'.
A mild repetition of a quasi-solution on the TL side then:
The result is that when a Top-Level producer chooses to diminish their target by collecting cheap drops/traits from 'easy content', they join the ranks of Lower Level producers, still having at least some reason to do this (rather than for example, just log out, deflating everything, or 'never make that choice', technically inflating everything).
When a Top-Level Producer has a good day (multiple top-end drops), the progressing mid-level Consumer now has enough money to pass up to them, rewarding them for their skill but without an unnaturally high skill*time multiplier.
If that's too abstract, in short, it's the Furniture/Material deconstruction thing.
"Gear Drops that get phased out should become materials for 'single player/casual' content progressions, particularly those that feed into things like the 'Guild Item' occasionally. Without this, everyone will chase only the latest items and have no reason to interact."
Why am I ranting about this now? Because I have a terrible feeling that someone is going to conclude that having the inflationary effect from Sport Fishing, and the deflationary effect from people fighting during the Harbinger event and similar things, will somehow cancel each other out. When, really, it's just the same pressure on the little guy/smaller guilds, from both ends.
Don't squeeze people out of your game's economy this way.
And if that all seemed too abstract/not related to this game, even now... {That's too bad.} {See you again!}