"Swift" Gathering needs another look, IMO. (short video)

Since the R29 wipe (~50 days), I have 10,572 mob kills, of which 74% (7832) were bears and wolves.
That's an average of 152 bears/wolves killed and skinned daily for this 50 day period.

The only reason I'm including these numbers, is because it is absurd to think that someone who has skinned this many bears/wolves would not be very, very, very good at it. You would be correct in saying that I have considerably more playing time than most others, but that does not change the fact that being GM in Swift Gathering still leaves a very long, very boring harvest time.

The skill tree is GM'd, of course.

Here's my question:
What is the reason for the long waits we have to endure each and every time we harvest Hides, Trees, Cotton or Ore Nodes - even at GM levels ?

I mean, what purpose do these waits serve ?

Once the game goes "live" these long, boring progress bars will not go over well with many most of us, and will be a huge turnoff for new players.

Harvesting is where the economy begins. It is something that most all of us will do, and do a lot.
Working our way to GM in a harvesting skill, (which most harvesters will eventually do) MUST mean something to us when we get there.

I respectfully request that the Dev's give Swift Gathering for Hides, Trees, Cotton and Ore nodes another look.

Here's an example of a 6 second harvest a month ago, compared to a 53 second harvest now.

 

The reasons are obvious to the most casual observer.
a) Give MOBs a chance to respawn and interupt your gather.
b) Makes the game feel like there is more content than their really is.
c) Helps to curtail the desire for everyone to do it and thus decrease supply in the market.



Once someone has GM'd swift it makes no sense for these times to be perceptible any longer - obviously you've devoted a lot of time and energy to be a very proficient harvester.

I will add that in real life when I had to field dress a deer because someone shot it on my property I did not finish it anywhere near as fast as a beginner does in SotA. Took me all afternoon to prep it and hang it, then it took a buddy of mine and me most of the evening and night to continue the process. I ended up taking what was left to a butcher to finish it correctly.

If the game actually shared the full experience I could see it being considered content, but a repeating slicing action in the air and a progress bar don't count. GM should mean you can't tell it's much more than the timeframe it takes to pickup up gear or gold.

 

I am called "The Tasmanian Devil Harvest Queen" by my friends for good reason and what you have put forth in your post FrostII is SO TRUE. I know when my swift gathering is low because the release is new it will take a while. I still find it horrifically difficult to walk past something I can harvest without stopping and grabbing it. But, that being said, at the higher levels now compared to the past it does not scale now. I have several gathering skills with either all 3 or all 4 of the trees nearly GM and it feels like it did when I first started out. Yes, sorry devs but this will be a turnoff for a lot of new players when the last wipe occurs. You need to rethink this. Seriously.
Please remember I don't expect it to be instant but 53 seconds is far to long regardless of what some may say.

 

I assume that the increase in overall percentage chance of harvest was the tradeoff to the blunting of swift gathering. It went from .8% to .5% then .2% per level. The harvest chance on a 500 xp harvest node went from low to mid 70s% to low 90s%.

I believe the intent was to curtail the tasmanian devil harvesting of one whack harvesting. I would assume that the devs set an expected harvest time period and some players met or exceeded that time period significantly. As a result, they have changed up the equation to see if it suits their goals more.

 

I don't want to sound like I'm arguing that swift gathering needs some love... it does feel much slower than in previous releases and slow enough to turn off new players.

But to be fair, we should note a few things that should be considered in the comparison:

1. Mob level - were they the same in relation to you for each skinning? It looked like in the 6 second skinning the mob conned blue to you and in the 53 second one it was yellow. Perhaps mob level difficulty has been balanced and as a result, made a difference in time to skin?
2. The longer sample was a meticulous 4 and the short one was a meticulous 1. The meticulous bonus seems to be the cause of the longer skinning time more than anything. I roughly counted in my head and it appeared that each round lasted about 11 seconds for the longer one. If you had stopped it at 2 rounds (like the first sample lasted) it would have been around 22 seconds long. Still a bit longer, but the 53 seconds is exaggerated by the extra meticulous chances. So let's keep that in mind.
3. Let's also compare the yield of each test sample. In the short one, all you got was 4 hides and 1 bear head. You didn't show the full loot window in the long one, but each row was 2 hides and at meticulous 4 that should have been at least 10 hides, plus whatever bear heads and the extra aortic thrombus that was not looted in the short one. So, while much longer skinning time, you did receive quite a bit more materials.
4. Finally, you didn't show which tools were being used for each instance. With the new engravings and potions available, gathering times can be improved quite a bit now. Therefore, they had to adjust the base gathering times so that it wasn't easy to get "instant" gathering times with these new gathering time bonuses. I think if you invest in a good engraving and a potion, you can gather somewhat painfully.

Meticulous bonus is a give and take thing IMO. It's nice because it provides more materials from each harvest, but it also takes more time to complete all the extra sessions. Not everyone knows this, but you can stop the meticulous runs by simply jumping or moving your avatar. So if you are satisfied with just 1 meticulous run (or don't want any at all) you can control that and shorten the gathering time.

Anyway, just thought it would be better to have more details about this topic to have a better discussion about it.

 

Mob level difficulty is exactly the same, since both are the exact same mob type (Patriarch Bear). The difference in color is due to Port changing the color scheme recently. Both are Patriarch Bears, so the comparison is completely valid.

Not so, watch it again. The 6 second harvest was a MCx2.

Of course.

Nope, they were 13 seconds each round. If you wish, you can say that the longer harvest would have taken 26 seconds for an equivalent MCx2 (compared to the earlier 6 seconds for that same MCx2).

No, let's don't.
My Meticulous Collection is GM and the subject here is Swift Gathering, not Meticulous Collection.
I have no issues with MC yields. I think they are reasonable.

Reasonable question....
Both used the exact same Skinning Knife of Prosperity.

The bottom line is that 53 seconds for a harvest, after skinning 1000's of bears and GMing the tree - is completely absurd.
The reward for that diligence is virtually negligible at this time and needs serious attention.

 

@Jefe What harvesting has ever been "one whack" harvesting ?
Not sure what you're talking about there....

 

It used to be that when you gained skill at skinning, your harvest times decreased to reasonable levels as you advanced. When the bronze engraved tool mechanic was introduced, the harvest times got pretty short. The solution which has caused the problem outlined in the OP is that they increased overall harvest time to accommodate the bronze tool. The result is that it is necessary to always use a bronze engraved tool if you don't want to go crazy. Additionally, the harvest times were increased so much that now harvesting with the bronze tool is (I believe) slower than before they were introduced at all skill levels.

 

Not to be too off the subject but perhaps it is more on than off...

I don't know the answer to this question but I'm sure someone does...

What is the 53 seconds of game time relative to real time?

I read somewhere there is a breakdown of game to real time - perhaps that has something to do with the 53 seconds to skin?

Example: If real live skinning takes 8 hours (just using a number here) and every 10 seconds of game time = 1 hour real time, than 5 1/2 hours to skin something might be correct.

I'm just asking...

 

Interesting thought. But it won't wash because some things do not follow that logic. Take for example playing a song. We hear the song for perhaps 3 minutes. That is 3 minutes our time and game time. We won't imagine the song in game actually playing for a length of time equal to the ratio of game days to earth days.

 

I replied to each of these points in red above so expand to read them. BTW, I'd like to repeat that I'm not arguing that gathering speeds need to be improved. I also believe that they are too long and boring and will be an issue for many players, new and old.

My whole point was that you were not comparing apples to apples because more things have changed besides just the swift gathering skill effectiveness.

 

Ok @Daxxe Diggler , whatever I may be comparing, one primary fact remains:
53 seconds for a harvest, after skinning 1000's of bears and GMing the tree - is completely absurd.

 

Two comments about speed.

1) In your 53 seconds example, its not really one harvest. You did 4 meticulous collections, so that's really 4 harvests not one. So the average harvest time was 13 seconds.

2) To get the fastest harvest times you need to meet these condations:
- have at least a GM swift gathering skill
- use a bronze engraved tool
- using an Obsidian potion
If you don't meet all 3, you aren't gathering at the fstest speed possible. It was possible to gather instaneously so it needed ot be better balanced.

 

One whack harvesting being that your swift gathering is so high that you only get in one whack or less with the pick axe or relevant harvesting tool before the node is ready for taking.

 

And you have experienced this personally ? Recently ?
Oh, and did you watch my 53 second harvest ?
I'd love for some miners to weigh in here with their recent experiences with Swift Gathering.....

 

I was gmed swift gathering mining, foraging and skinning with the bronze kits before the change. It was awesome. No progress bar at all. I could clear out etceter mine down, then back up in 1 hour 15 minutes. This did not even require the pot. In order to do this now, will require a swift skill level of 140, and the pot. It was a very had nerf we took to it there. I do not think watching progress bars is in any way entertaining. When they made the change to crafting, and added the progress bars, I was very disappointed. However, I do understand the skills go higher then 100, and before the change, it might have been too fast. but I also think the nerf was to hard, and a swift gathering of 100 + bronze kit + obsidian pot should get rid of progress bars. Lets add in, the pots disappearing before they should right now, I do not want to waste another set of pots like that.

 

I was down to 3 whacks in the prior update in the range of a 110+ swift gathering. Not particularly. I gather enough in this release to know the duration of harvest and am approaching GM on mining at my own pace this time.

Like I said, I suspect they have an average time answer they are looking for the harvesting enthusiasts to prove or disprove. 2 iterations ago with a .8% per level speed increase, people blew that out of the water and I am assuming they didn't get the time taken they were hoping for with the .5% increase.

So a pedal to the metal approach to get a stellar swift harvest may just result in it being blunted further.

 

Interesting Jefe you obviously didn't pay attention when you read my post. I clearly stated
"Please remember I don't expect it to be instant but 53 seconds is far to long regardless of what some may say."
One second harvest would be unrealistic. Please don't put words in my mouth.

 

at 150 skill and all the best tools, I find nothing wrong with a one second harvest time. At some point, you have to be the best, otherwise, there's no point to progression.

Standing still doing nothing? Not fun. Not challenging. And... not acceptable to the general public.
These harvest times will need to be drastically adjusted if the intent is to attract a larger demographic. There's a very good reason most games don't focus on the resource acquisition (like shroud is) but rather on the refining and final production, where you can make the process challenging, interactive, and innovative. (in an internally consistent, thematically appropriate way)

 

I'd agree with the real life analogy IF the cloak I made from that skinned animal lasted years if not decades... it will barely last a few months at most maybe even just weeks with a lot of game time wear and tear... deterioration factors in the game make that a poor example of how fast we should be able to skin an animal.

In addition, skinning times can be different in some zones despite the skill level that is supposed to control how fast you skin something.