Encumbrance

For me this sounds like grinding and I thought that RG wanted to reduce grinding to a minimum with SotA...

 

One person's grinding is another person's pleasure ......

 

define a single outing?

One must wear armor and carry weapons to defend yourself from mobs and other players. That means I need to be able to carry everything I need (sword or regents) in addition to a gathering tool and enough room left over to carry resources gathered as well as some loot. I shouldn't have to make more then one trip to gather the ore I need to make multiple swords or other creations.

Wanting realistic encumbrance is unrealistic, this is a game that is suppose to be fun. Especially for crafters who not only need to carry enough to defend themselves but also need enough room to carry what they gather. Yes there will be llama's and mules to help but really you should only need those for seriously mass crafting.

It's great for y'all who have nothing to worry about but carrying your phat loot but crafters should not have to worry about choosing between carrying loot and/or resources.

 

So you're talking specifically for crafting now and not adventuring? Its a different topic a little because I think the carry limit for adventuring is fair.

For crafting, the devs really have to figure out how they want to do this -- as a lot of logs or ore , etc if done realistically would be really heavy. So its naturally a problem no matter where they set the encumbrance limit without in turn unbalancing the carry load for adventuring. You don't want to allow an adventurer to carry 20 suits of armor just so a crafter can carry a bunch of logs, deer carcasses, and loads of ore.

Personally, I think a single tree, or a single deer, or a single lode of ore should lead to a lot of raw material and you shouldn't really need to go from node to node to get a lot to work with. Also, that there should be a lot of relatively safe areas, or ways to stay safe even if there are some wolves around. Plus, I think there should be a lot you can craft on the field, or at camp.

 

Part of the issue is some of the gold is gained through heavy items like weapon drops from mobs.

If mobs would just drop equivalent value in gold instead of a 4-10 gold sword then there would be fewer problems. Right now I would need to be constantly deleting swords etc from my bags to make more room for lower weight items that also have gold value, in order to stay out longer on a loot gathering session while bringing in as much value in gold gained per mob as possible.

That is doable (constantly deleting heavy things of lesser value), but also a bit of an annoyance that players don't really want to have to deal with just to get things done. And with the game being designed around weapons and gear dropping off mobs, I don't see them changing this gear drop and turning it into a pure gold drop instead anyway.

Also - most of us just hate deleting things that have any value at all.

 

lollie,

That goes back to the issue of how much gold you expect to earn from an outing. You can always leave the swords on the corpses if they're too heavy for you.

 

Then this could be said of other gameplay elements, too. For example open PvP and full loot. It may be realistic but for some it's not fun.

I think that you should indeed need pack animals if you want to do more than the occassional crafting. If you want to produce masses of swords etc. then you need a pack mule to carry all of the ore. If you want to forge just a few swords then you don't need hundreds of ore. And I think that with the encumbrance system we now have it is indeed possible to carry around enough ore or wood to craft a few things out of those. If you want to craft more, go get a pack animal.

 

And if you come across some rare ore lode in a shardfall area, you might have to decide whether to be greedy and put yourself at risk, or just take as much as you can carry without penalty.

 

Yup. For me, and most crafter/gatherer types, the gathering time is (or should be) as enjoyable as the crafting time. I like to spend time, hours sometimes when I can, just wandering around gathering for a crafting session and/or some to sell. It's relaxing and enjoyable in most cases (except in games that have perversely decided it's a good idea to make it unpleasant). What I don't enjoy is run out, gather a little, run to bank or house, run out, gather some more, run back, run out, run back, run out, run back, ad nauseum. bleh! Distinctly un-fun. Holds no appeal for me whatsoever.

 

This is a great way for the devs to control how much players make per outing...yes, it is impossible to cary so many swords that you make a ton of money selling them...but that could be exactly what they want in order to slow gold progression. What is really getting things done? The devs shouldn't want you to easily stack up weapons and make a ton of gold, it would totally unbalance the game, although it would make it easier on you.

 

But basically it would play out like this:
You start the game and set out to gather a few ressources. You are encumbered and go back to the town, crafting a little bit and then selling the crafted items. Then you set out to gather more ressources, go back to town and craft again. You sell your crafted stuff and then you might have enough gold to buy a pack mule. You set out again and gather even more ressources so that you can craft and sell even more. You then buy a pack animal that can carry even more (or buy two pack animals if this is possible). So over time you can gather more and more ressources and craft more and more items in order to slowly build your little merchants empire.

Without encumbrance we would have: go out gather everything you see, craft as much as possible, sell and then you are rich and have your merchant empire in no time.

So with example one you get better gradually over time but with example two you are "king of crafting" in no time.

If this is so then I want to be "king of monster slaying" in not time and don't want to kill thousands of monsters before I get to max level.

 

Same with crafting to some degree. Some people make it sound as if MMOs are supposed to be business simulators. And a lot of people play them as real businesses; in China, they farm gold to make money.

I'm all for crafting and gathering being relaxing to some extent. But it also cant imbalance the game. Also double-clicking over and over on easily marked spots isn't that, to me, so I think a bit more has to be added to crafting to make it enjoyable.

 

Plus, hopefully we'll have some camping and field crafting.

 

You missed the entire point of my post. I said nothing of getting rich nor building an empire. I don't give a fig for any of that. I want to enjoy the gather time & not have to run to town every 10 minutes. Especially since they're planning on no fast travel. What an incredibly boring prospect that is. *sigh* Your first paragraph up there just emphasizes exactly what I don't want to be doing.

 

+1

 

A lot of us do both. When gaming I tend to level almost as much from gathering the materials I need as I do from questing. A contested node field keeps things interesting. But that means I need to be fully equipped to defend myself and fully equipped to gather the resources I need and added capacity to carry the resources.

And yes, the current resource requirement and gathering is way out of whack. A log should provide more wood then what it does now. That goes for just about every resource.

 

Yes, gathering is a problem they have to solve.. they just can't solve it in a way that imbalances adventuring and carrying gear imo.

 

i want wagons

 

Nobody is ever going to make "a ton of money selling swords". We are wanting to sell the things we pick up, because they are there and deleting them feels like throwing money while at the same time being incredibly fiddly and annoying to do.

It's not about making a ton of money, it's about feeling rewarded when you go out, and not feeling too hindered, and feeling like you are making progress. With current restrictions, all those things are in the negative, and that's just not any fun.

 

Well, this obviously has to be balanced. You can't have a super mule character/and you can't have a super weak character.