This would normally go in the crafting section and may wind up there.
I do NOT like the idea of very limited nodes. People will camp them. Bots will be created to camp them. Yes there are antibot mechanisms that can be used but as developers have gotten better tools so too have bot creators. Far too much competition for resources in a game that should encourage cooperation.
I hope Corey just meant they wouldn't be all over the place, so that you couldn't walk 50 feet without falling over a node. Not actually ...rare .... unless they were a rare node that gave special rewards (preferably not labeled as rare - Vanguard at first labeled rare nodes as rare but later changed it).
The frequency of nodes in Vanguard was good. Not all over the place but not excessively limited.
Hey, good question. The goal of course is for history to not repeat itself in such negative ways. That's something VR takes very seriously. Even if someone could control all of the nodes, it would be almost impossible for them to monopolize the market because other methods of gathering materals, such as through salvaging, are designed to be more efficient and therefore preferred. But to answer your question, yes, giving nodes semi-random locations is part of what would make it difficult to control all the nodes in the first place, even if for some reason you wanted to. You can expect nodes to be few and far between and you won't always know exactly where they spawn. There has to be some degree of logic to determine where the nodes spawn in order to ensure they make sense ecologically - nothing is truly random - but there also has to be enough variance so that you can't always walk up to a particular location and be able to guarantee what will be there. Ceythos intentionally makes an effort to prevent situations where a player could just repeatedly run a predetermined loop to gather a certain set of materials. That's not a very fun experience. The idea for nodes is to make them feel more like a pleasant surprise or a bonus, rather than a necessity.
Bazgrim said:...other methods of gathering materals, such as through salvaging, are designed to be more efficient and therefore preferred...
Oh, I remember salvaging being talked about but I guess I didn't apprecate it might be the best method of 'gathering'.
I *really* like that. It makes total sense and opens up a whole load more (and less boring hehe) possibilities.
Players could make proper money from looting 'trash' from monsters and returning to town for it to be 'processed' by NPCs or by crafters themselves.
Fantasy Olde Worlde Recycling! Nice!
I'll admit I'm somewhat leery of the idea that salvaging is the preferred method of resource acquisition, as it may leave those who want to emphasize their crafting more than their adventuring in the lurch. I do understand, of course, that combating bots hoarding the nodes is important, and that having someone completely craft and never adventure is not encouraged, but I think it might introduce some incentive issues in distributing loot during pick-up groups.
I *like* nodes and harvesting - it was one of my favorite parts of Vanguard. Getting materials in other ways is fine but I really hope that harvesting is a significant part of Pantheon as it was in Vanguard. As in special harvesting gear, rare and even ultrarare materials possible, group harvesting and the like.
Some randomness in where materials spawn is both desirable and expected but it should be possible to be a harvester and go around and ...harvest. Not just stumble on a node twice a day if you are very lucky.
bigdogchris said:The solution to camping nodes is to make them randomly spawn.
Agreed, but I have yet to see an MMO with truly random node spawns. For whatever reason, even though the algorithms already exist, game designers won't use them. On these forums, though, there are many suggestions on raw generation that are vastly better than just the tired old "have the right tool in your bags, click on this" harvesting loop.
It's a bit of an odd duck situation with what the recent crafting video revealed. Nodes will be rare to restrict the flow of raws. Yet, all raws will be available from killing NPCs. So.. there is no restriction on the flow of raws, if you are going to be killing things. o.O
Fair enough, I guess we will be killing things, then. Which we would have been doing anyway. /smh. I wonder sometimes if they don't avoid writing these things down because it would highlight the logical failures of fighting one design goal against another. heheh. :)
vjek said:bigdogchris said:The solution to camping nodes is to make them randomly spawn.
Agreed, but I have yet to see an MMO with truly random node spawns. For whatever reason, even though the algorithms already exist, game designers won't use them. On these forums, though, there are many suggestions on raw generation that are vastly better than just the tired old "have the right tool in your bags, click on this" harvesting loop.
It's a bit of an odd duck situation with what the recent crafting video revealed. Nodes will be rare to restrict the flow of raws. Yet, all raws will be available from killing NPCs. So.. there is no restriction on the flow of raws, if you are going to be killing things. o.O
Fair enough, I guess we will be killing things, then. Which we would have been doing anyway. /smh. I wonder sometimes if they don't avoid writing these things down because it would highlight the logical failures of fighting one design goal against another. heheh. :)
I imagine nodes will have much higher rates of high quality materials compared to mob drops/salvaging.
That was my assumption too Iksar. While you probably can get by with salvaging, from a gameplay standpoint and from a realistic standpoint nodes would probably be the most efficient way of getting materials.
I mean i have played ark and its really easy to exploit noid points. I hope they have a way of dealing with this because for all their talk about "reputation in th community" i think they dont realize that msot MMORPGS are case studies in anarchy