Displacing the fun with the added grind

So, the grind is finally making its way into SOTA, and it is doing so at the expense of fun. I'll just run down a quick list of the regressions since R14...

• Out of level harvesting is pointless. I've got a level 44 adventurer, I need to fight in places like the mysterious swamp to have enjoyable combats and level. Since I am a level 12 producer at the moment, I can't harvest in those higher level zones. Lesson: Harvesters with producer and adventurer levels out of sync will need to grind to rebalance.
• Harvesting is slooow: Even with 3 levels in the speed up skill, harvesting trees took long enough that I was alt-tabbing out of the game to surf the forum. Lesson: Harvesters should buy a second monitor.
• Crafting XP is a mess: This is probably going to be fixed by balancing, but the currently, if you want to be a crafter or harvester, your best bet is to grind trivial formulas for hours on end. Lesson: Harvesters should stop pounding sand and start pounding salt.
• Mobile harvesting nodes (MHNs, sometimes referred to as "monsters") are more productive than stationary ones: Currently, MHNs refresh much faster and in higher numbers than their stationary counterparts, have the added benefit being of coming to you for harvesting. For reference, at the hide farm in Solace Forest, I was able to clear 100 hides in around 30 minutes.
• Harvesting o-face is creepy as hell: I've mentioned this other places, but I don't think that mouth agape, eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head expression your character strikes as they handle a big ol' piece of wood or slice open a wolf can be overstated.

 

This is since you had the adventurer xp all through R14.
If both XP types had existed back when you levelled up your character then you'd have all those tier 1 gathering nodes to gradually get better at along with the adventuring.

Agreed. Suddenly there is a need for a second screen with added functionality.
Some of the tier5 times are sleep inducing, especially when you then fail.
I'd rather have to have plenty of short ones with a lower drop rate than the wait times...

Agreed. *sigh*

Which is the reason it takes about 250+ hides to make a good leather armor...
Something which I find a very strange fix of an artificial problem.
If they could increase the tier of skinning MHN so that you get a drop matching the gathering roll, instead of the binary fail/succeed it would be much better.

Have you seen where you need to click those wolves? And where they start the skinning process....

 

Well, I prefer to level up quickly at first and then expand into crafting once the adventuring grind goes into high gear. In general, my play style for MMOs is to take the path that offers the least boring grind, and this latest patch has cut off one more method to dull the monotony.

 

While I think the gathering-level thing adds a bit more to the gathering-system, I would have very much preferred if they had added a system that allows you to prospect any rock or chop any tree with a lowered chance of actually GETTING anything. I wasn't a fan of the basic system with random ore nodes and sparkling trees, but with the xp added, it feels even more tedious =/
I understand (and am totally fine with it!) that they don't want us to gather 100 ore from 3 rocks in about 5 min, so I'd be fine if you could just start chopping away at any rock or tree and have a lower chance of getting ore or logs, or maybe something like ore splinters that you have to combine.
I mentioned before how odd it feels to be able to chop only the sparkling trees, or have ore nodes plastered to some rock wall, but if you are able to harvest any animal you kill, I'd prefer the same for trees and rocks, yet with a lower chance. It'd feel much more active than running forth and back to find a sparkling tree or some ore node.
Just my opinion though =)

 

To your first point. I'm currently in a love/hate thing w/the fact they didn't wipe w/R15. It's great I get to keep my house and level, but if any release could have used a wipe it's this one. Starting fresh when there are so many new skills and upgrades would have been nice. Also, a wipe would have cleaned up my bank for me.


I think your other points will be fixed with time.

 

I would like to harvest more instead of multiple, multiple times, twice is good not more than 2 per at max level. Currently a rabbit only gives 2-3 carcasses

 

The only problem with this is that every scene would be strip mined of hills and barren of trees as players galore slash and burn everything to get extra resources. Definitely more realistic but do we really want all zones to look like this:

Spoiler

How many carcasses should 1 rabbit have? Personally I think it would be better if kept it at 1 carcass per animal (as it is silly to harvest multiple dead bodies from killing 1 thing). If they changed it to flanks, or legs or whatever that would be a different story.

I'd also love it if all animals only gave 1 hide but named after the animal (i.e. bear hide, wolf hide, whatever) and that based on the type of hide is how many leather pieces or strips could be made from it (obviously the bear patriarch would give more final pieces than a rabbit). This could also be used for cloaks from specific animals (ala U7 P2 purchasable cloaks of wolf, bear, snow leopard, etc)

 

Yes, we need distinct hides, so we can do things like bear skin rugs and wolf cloaks.

A typical carcass would break down into a saddle, 2 shoulders, and 2 haunches. Larger animals would also produce a neck, and those with a large tail would also produce a tail, and some with a big breast would have breast meat. Then these all could be broken down further for larger animals. A shoulder would produce forelegs and shanks, and a haunch would produce hindlegs and shanks. A saddle would break down into loins, flanks, and racks. And then those could be broken down further

The resources in a scene will respawn after a while anyway though so I don't know that the scenes could ever be stripped naked. It wouldn't really be possible 100% to allow every tree to be cut down though, because the scene borders of forest scenes are made up of trees.

 

From your lips to the Devs ear's

 

I'm envisioning a programming change where instead of an impassible border they will just slap in the same escape method random encounters have... instead of "proper" exits you can just cut down enough tress to flee the zone directly, once you've gone far enough. I'm thinking a randomized 8-15 trees needing to be cut away to escape the zone sounds good.

 

Unfortunately there is a philosophy that has seemingly won the line of thought that the grind is a "game feature" rather than leveling being more of a tutorial in itself that can be basically circumvented by veteran players.

 

I like that in an area where I have a high chance to harvest copper 90+, I get a few.

I go to an area where I have a lower chance, so I have to make multiple attempts, which one would think meant better results, I get a few.

Essentially right now you are best off to spend all your points in skinning (whatever the skill is called) and farm farm farm farm farm x1,000,000. Then you can go back and redistribute points into something you can't find nearly as consistently as animal skins.

Also it feels like to find any amount of ore/wood/cotton you have to spend hours hunting for it. I can only imagine how much worse this will be when success at crafting gets hammered by skill points in it. Back to the skinning farm to grind up your crafting skill as well, so you don't have a 25% chance to make ingots which RNG can translate into 30+ fails in a row.

Yeah, I think I may just skip crafting in this game as any level of "fun" to it is leeched out by this current implementation.

My main question is, why do you need to add this "skill system" to gathering. What is it actually adding? It's already a lot of time spent to find resources, now we add RNG that makes it even more painful.

NOTE: Yes, I realize it's in flux. Yes, I realize it's early access. Yes, I realize __________. The point is, as it stands now, that's my feedback. I thought I'd make myself a halberd but in the hours I've spent running around killing stuff with grabbing what resources I can, I may actually have enough now to give it a try.

2nd NOTE: I'm effectively a noob at this game. I've ran around during the releases, grabbed my hats, etc. Now that I'm finally giving it a go, I find the adventure side of it ok but grindy (content is coming, I know) and the harvesting feels incredibly grindy. Just wanted to throw perspective to my comments above.

 

So collecting 10 bear asses?

 

Welcome Sir_Niccoli and thank you for your perspective and yes the game is pretty much really grindy right now. Hopefully we'll get some other fun things to do to keep us inspired to play. Fishing anyone and fishing contests.

 

The only difference between grinding and game play is whether a given player likes it or not. Let's be careful not to exclude what other players find fun.

In my case, please make gathering as challenging as possible.

 

I would prefer they wipe it every release. It all gets wiped up until lot selection, 2 weeks before release so why not wipe it every time? Clear it all off, start anew each time.

 

Nothing to stop you from making a new character if you want that

 

Yah, I do

 

Most definitely yes!!!!! And then mount them on the wall in my keep... Everyone else can do heads on the wall... but I want something unique. 8^0

 

Flip-side, don't force players to partake in activities they have specifically stated that they don't enjoy. For example, this is 2015. I should be able to play the game without running duplicate content (recycling is fine) and hit max adventuring level. If this game fails to achieve that, it is a failure in my book either because it lacks content or the levels are too far apart.