Liked the updated but was disappointed that you were going for the traditional route.
It would have been great to see a mini-game or events for harvesting. Even if the mini-game was something simple like a dot moving between 2 lines as you take aim with your pick on that shiney magical rock... (moves faster at it approaches the centre then slows to the edge again).. and the closer to the middle you get.. your chance increases for a better or more resources... the difficulty could also be modified by the size... with bigger rocks etc offering better/more resources..
Might also be cool to have certain resoruces appear at certain times of the day/night.... Ghost nodes appear at a specific location at midnight... or meteors come at specific times of the year.. with a boss spawn.. that spews out rare nodes...
Any other ideas?
I don't think it's necessarily always a good idea to try to be different just for the sake of being different. There's really only so much you can do with harvesting without it getting too complicated. There's something to be said for simplicity. I think the real fun (and room for innovation) will be on the crafting side of things, and harvesting can just be a means to get the materials you need to craft.
That said, I don't think there's anything stopping them from having certain resources only available during certain times of day. Anyway, since there are multiple ways to acquire materials, I think it'll be quite a bit more interesting than most games where everyone is just running around clicking on nodes.
Great points Baz! However, I think there's still plenty of time for us to give feedback on what we like/don't like and why.
I would strongly encourage anyone who has thoughts or feedback on harvesting to pop into the thread in the Crafting subforum so that we get all the discussion in one place: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9470/official-harvesting-update/view/post_id/181174
I'm glad they have salvage and scavenging. Too many MMO's never allowed for reverse engineering items or breaking them down into raw materials. Some of those screen shots make me wish they had farming, to accompany cooking, but that could fall under gathering or scavenging.
Nodes can be a very vague term too. For thoses who played UO you will remember : any rocky area was a node for minning, any tree a node for woodcutting, and any water a node for fishing.
Every sample of ground then could be exhausted in ressources for a while.
However, I'm not stating they will choose this path, but who knows ?
Nephele said:Great points Baz! However, I think there's still plenty of time for us to give feedback on what we like/don't like and why.
I would strongly encourage anyone who has thoughts or feedback on harvesting to pop into the thread in the Crafting subforum so that we get all the discussion in one place: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/9470/official-harvesting-update/view/post_id/181174
Nephele beat me to it.
I do kinda like the bar idea (kind of like the wood chopping "job" you could do in Fable 2 to make money?)
Sorry OP but as someone that probably spends more time on crafting that most other aspects of MMOs I absolutely hate the idea of making a mini-game out of it.
Successful harvesting should not be based on the player's hand-eye coordination, quality of graphics, internet connection speed, or the like. I am assuming you do not have a totally random mini-game in mind in which case my objection would be lesss fervent but just as real - I don't see the point to meaningless fluff making the process of harvesting a node of copper slow and tedious.
dorotea said:Sorry OP but as someone that probably spends more time on crafting that most other aspects of MMOs I absolutely hate the idea of making a mini-game out of it.
Successful harvesting should not be based on the player's hand-eye coordination, quality of graphics, internet connection speed, or the like. I am assuming you do not have a totally random mini-game in mind in which case my objection would be lesss fervent but just as real - I don't see the point to meaningless fluff making the process of harvesting a node of copper slow and tedious.
Guess I wasn't very clear. Sorry about that. I also like harvesting. it's pretty relaxing. But can get boring after a while. Especially with no chance for something unique to happen.
Idea behind the Mini-game concept was that you could still click on the node and get 1 resource OR do the quick Mini-game and get up to 10 with a bonus chance for a rare resource. Your choice. So the concept is to enhance and give more options, not introduce a tedious mini-game for the same amount of resources.
What's wrong with awarding based on eye co-ordination or "net connection" anyway. Much of the game will be based on these two elements, especially on certain classes like chanters. Meanwhile, there is no excuse for a bad connection today; it's not 1999 with a dial-up connection anymore :D
Since they aren't doing group harvesting out of concern that too many resources would flood the market I suspect that they won't do anything else that makes materials a lot easier to get.
Thanks for clarifying what was meant.
I am very much not a fan of "action" combat either - I like things slower and more strategic in a MMO. Understanding that combat does have to move along fairly rapidly.
There are probably still people with dial up connections but I was thinking more of the disparity between satellite-based connections and fiber-optic wires, not to mention that some internet service providers are a *lot* better than others.
The more I think about it the more I am convinced that harvesting should be its own profession that you must choose over one of the other professions. I would reduce the number of harvesting professions down to three: Animal (Skinning, meat harvesting, fishing) Vegetable (Lumber, herbalist) or Mineral (Miner/Prospector, Mudder).
The harvesting professionals would be the only ones who could see the nodes appropriate to their profession. Additionally there should be a range of tools that help them find areas with the resource they want then effectively force them to spawn. As the harvesters must be out in the world, often in danger, they are more the ideal professions for the more combat focused and crafting light players while still allowing them to be part of the item economy.
The lower influx of raw materials that will result from dedicated harvesting professions will be offset by switching from a simple combine button (low craft time - high harvest time) to a multi-step/multi-minigame crafting process (high crafting time - low to equal harvesting time). After all any crafting system that does not increase the value of the raw materials by successfully crafting an item out of it is a failure of a system, either decrease the demand or increase the supply. In terms of function of time it should take slightly less time to find and harvest a raw material than it takes to turn it into a usable item for crafting to be a value added process. Additionally there needs to be an item sink for completed items either through item decay, valuable turn-ins or salvaging for learning purposes to prevent flooding the crafted goods market.
As I think all crafting profession tasks should be some form of mini-game, rather than a simple click and wait, I am heavily in favor of all the different harvesting sub skills have their own mini-game UI. The mini game need not be a twitch game but it should be non-trivial as better results will improve they harvesters yield. Making meaningful mini games might take some outside the box thinking but it could range from a “choose your own adventure” style text choice system all the way to turn based Wack-a-Mole with a randomization seed to prevent it from being repetitive.
Scavenging/archeology/tomb raiding makes for an interesting “loot the room” skill tied to the perception system and does not really need to be a full harvesting skill to serve its purpose, though you might still want an adamantine pry bar and a diamond edged hacksaw.
Salvaging should be a skill each of the crafting professions have to break down items appropriate to their skill into raw materials. As many items will contain sub-combines from other professions many of the items will be salvageable by more than one profession. Each crafting profession will have its own salvage table on each item it can salvage. Salvaging can also be a way to learn new recipes or sub-combines in addition to leaning from teachers or writings.
Let's talk Fishing and how it can translate to gathering in general. Since I haven't fished in an MMO in quite some time, I may struggle to recall elements so sorry in advance. In WoW, you sit there and wait for a bobber to dip below the surface, then you have a bit of time to click on that bobber. I suppose that is a mini-game in and of itself since there would be no fish if not done right. Chopping a tree OTOH was not a mini-game, you got wood.
IRL, sometimes when the bobber goes under you do NOT instantly set the hook, you let the fish run with it (take line). This could be a feature in fishing that expands the mini-game just a bit to add spice to it.
Similar systems could go into mining and logging with minimal detriment to the anti-action folks but still add a flavor to the gathering system. You don't need to make it necessarily a fish/no fish scenario based on reaction times, but some form of mini-game could be added to yield bonus items like sap or amber or torches or something.
dorotea said:Since they aren't doing group harvesting out of concern that too many resources would flood the market I suspect that they won't do anything else that makes materials a lot easier to get.
Eh? Who said that.
Only game that ever had group harvesting that I know of was Vanguard and flooding markets was never a thing that I was aware of. If anything the rare elements were really rare. Group harvesting usually made the difference.
Also, group harvesting REALLY increased social awareness with strangers helping each other out with rare nodes.
I think not having group harvesting is an opportunity missed. Maybe they will add it later but I would not hold my breath.
Also, flooding the marking is going to happen no matter what system they go with, unless it's artifiically limited, globally, by hard timers. Even then, guilds would just get large enough to get everything.
It's also a bit of a weird thing to be concerned about, considering every other MMO has never had a problem with "flooding the market" with common raw resources, if they do the right thing and set raw resources to have exactly zero value to NPCs, and set refined/interims as being exactly fuel value cost. Then there's no issue to worry about. But maybe they're the type of development team that has to experience something first hand before they learn, rather than learning from the last 20+ years of others mistakes. :)
I mean... do they want people to USE the crafting system, or not? Economic damage can be completely mitigated by the above, and having sellback costs for final combine results be exactly fuel costs. Then crafters make nothing. Full stop. Craft your life away, but unless you're selling to players, you make zero. This also opens the way for faction, diplomacy, flavor, lore, and other NPC consumption mechanics for all things crafted. Yet another missed opportunity.
I have experienced "flooded markets" first hand in countless MMO's I have played. I agree with the team's assessment on why group harvesting shouldn't be a thing. They have stated many times that they want a player driven economy so player to NPC trading isn't going to be much of a focal point. Supply and demand is extremely important and saturating the market with "extra" resources "just because" doesn't sound like a good idea at all. It would be nice if harvesting nodes were actually worth paying attention to for a change ... it would certainly go a long way toward preserving the value of the crafted loot that the resources turn into. VR's philosophy behind harvesting gives me a lot of hope about the rest of the game.
oneADseven said:I have experienced "flooded markets" first hand in countless MMO's I have played. I agree with the team's assessment on why group harvesting shouldn't be a thing. They have stated many times that they want a player driven economy so player to NPC trading isn't going to be much of a focal point. Supply and demand is extremely important and saturating the market with "extra" resources "just because" doesn't sound like a good idea at all. It would be nice if harvesting nodes were actually worth paying attention to for a change ... it would certainly go a long way toward preserving the value of the crafted loot that the resources turn into. VR's philosophy behind harvesting gives me a lot of hope about the rest of the game.
That's very subjective in fact. I've got nothing for or against Group Harvesting, but I can hardly consider it as "flooding the market" if the normal income is only performed with "group harvesting" while Solo harvesting would be extremely slow to compensate and favor grouping.
However, it's not a fact or anything, just that solo gathering could be really starving in comparison.
I agree with Zewt here, mostly. Group harvesting won't cause markets to be flooded for normal resources. It just means people will farm up the bulk stuff they need a little faster if they're smart. Given the benefits it brings in terms of socialization and fun, I think that's ok.
If we want to worry about markets being flooded with resources, it's rare resources we need to be concerned with. The problem Vanguard had (with the resource market) is that getting a rare resource was simply a low percentage chance on a node spawn. So, 95% of nodes would spawn as the normal resource, and the other 5% would spawn as the rare version of the resource. Also, rarely, you could get a rare resource as a "bonus item" while harvesting a normal node, if I'm remembering correctly.
Yes, group harvesting was used by players to amplify the yield from those rare nodes. However, the problem of the rare resources being too common would have happened regardless of whether group harvesting was used or not - because those rare nodes were farmable. It's no different than a rare drop off a mob. Eventually, people will farm things enough that "rare" becomes "not so rare".
So - if we are worried about this problem for resources used by crafters, then we either need to a) throw out the concept of rare resources altogether, so that we don't care about how common or rare something is, or b) insure that those rares leave the economy much faster than they enter it - orders of magnitude faster, really.
In terms of crafted items themselves, flooded markets tend happen for three reasons:
1) People have to grind items to advance, so they make a bunch of items for progression, and then try to sell them all at once. Multiply this by a few hundred players and it kills markets.
2) The items people can make are not deemed "worth it" by adventurers, and thus supply far outstrips demand over time. This includes when an item is rendered obsolete because there's a better dropped version, or "rare" version, or whatever.
3) Crafted items never leave the economy at all, and over time secondhand sales cause supply to continuously go up while demand stays constant or goes down.
Prevent those three things from occurring in Pantheon and we shouldn't really have to worry too much about flooded markets.
((Eh? Who said that.))
The author of the harvesting article in the last newsletter.
I agree with Nephele (as usual on matters related to crafting). Vanguard "rares" weren't very rare. When Vanguard introduced ultrarares they weren't very rare either.
If the idea is that certain resources should really *be* rare this does not mean that group harvesting is a bad thing. Simply do not allow the Vanguard system where someone finding a rare node could form a group and everyone in the group would get the rare. Have the node not be identifiable as rare until the material arrives in the player's inventory. Thus I click on a node shown as iron but get a unit of mithril in my bag. Or show the node as rare but let everyone but the person that clicked it get the common version.
None of this will help if the objective is to limit the quantity of common materials, of course, as the article seemed to say.
Nephele said:In terms of crafted items themselves, flooded markets tend happen for three reasons:
1) People have to grind items to advance, so they make a bunch of items for progression, and then try to sell them all at once. Multiply this by a few hundred players and it kills markets.
2) The items people can make are not deemed "worth it" by adventurers, and thus supply far outstrips demand over time. This includes when an item is rendered obsolete because there's a better dropped version, or "rare" version, or whatever.
3) Crafted items never leave the economy at all, and over time secondhand sales cause supply to continuously go up while demand stays constant or goes down.
Prevent those three things from occurring in Pantheon and we shouldn't really have to worry too much about flooded markets.
We spoke about this a little bit on Discord earlier but I wanted to respond directly here with a little more thought. I think group harvesting contributes toward all 3 of those reasons but more importantly it's the overall rarity (or lack thereof) of nodes in general that really makes the difference.
1) The more resources that are available, the more likely people will be able to buy them in bulk and crank out a bunch of crafted merchandise that then needs to be unloaded. (When it comes to grinding to level, it's probably better if players grind sub-combines than actual finished products. Even better if there is a high level of interdependency between the crafting professions where there is consistent demand for the sub-combines from multiple professions.)
2) Same as #1. "Worth" is obviously relative here but it's hard to justify tuning easy/accessible gear to actually be any good. I'd like to see the idea of "common crafted gear" be obliterated completely. Entry level crafting gear should be "uncommon" and as such the quality can be improved to compensate for the increased rarity. Risk vs Reward is paramount -- if it's possible to flood the market with gear because of how easy/accessible it is to acquire then it stands that this gear should be mostly undesirable. What's the point of even having it in the first place? Less is more.
3) This is another area where a surplus in supply is bad. This is extrapolated when the gear isn't even desirable in the first place. I have seen this play out time and time again. People craft dozens of items to level up their crafting profession but then sell those items directly to a merchant (for a big loss) because it's not worth spending a few minutes to place them on an auction house. There are already XX of the same item on there and selling your goods becomes more of a "watch the market and keep undercutting" mini-game than a "find people who are interested in what you made" type of social experience.
I don't disagree that there are underlying fundamentals that contribute toward market saturation and item value deflation. I feel that the most important factor of all is supply vs demand and that group harvesting can only have negative implications in that regard. For me ... it's really simple. There are finite resources in the game. If I manage to venture into a dangerous area ... alone, and strategically sneak around and find nodes that can only be harvested at opportune moments, that sounds fun and exciting. If a group goes through the same area they should be more capable of clearing content and safely harvesting those same resources. That's fine -- it's safer to harvest but the yield remains the same. That's how risk vs reward is balanced. When group harvesting is added it always makes more sense to have other people with you; the reward is steadily increased despite the actual risk declining with each additional player. Multi-boxing would be incentivized because any time you're out there harvesting with open spots in your group it's going to cost you free resources that were otherwise ripe for the taking.
I also think that horizontal progression is more meaningful when each sphere can compliment each other. Being a stronger adventurer means that you can better position yourself for improved harvesting. Being a better harvester means that you can "cut out the middle man" when it comes to resource accumulation and producing crafted goods. I can only speak for myself here but I haven't bothered with harvesting in many years. The last thing I'm going to do with my "time" is waste it on trying to harvest resources that are extremely easy to accumulate. I'll spend 25% of that time just playing the market and still make 10x the profit. Harvesting and crafting have both been an afterthought for me since FFXI. Progressing in either sphere is simply inefficient because of how saturated and accessible they are. Make the world super dangerous and the resources will actually be valuable. Anything that takes away from that is automatically suspect in my eyes.
dorotea said:((Eh? Who said that.))
The author of the harvesting article in the last newsletter.
I agree with Nephele (as usual on matters related to crafting). Vanguard "rares" weren't very rare. When Vanguard introduced ultrarares they weren't very rare either.
If the idea is that certain resources should really *be* rare this does not mean that group harvesting is a bad thing. Simply do not allow the Vanguard system where someone finding a rare node could form a group and everyone in the group would get the rare. Have the node not be identifiable as rare until the material arrives in the player's inventory. Thus I click on a node shown as iron but get a unit of mithril in my bag. Or show the node as rare but let everyone but the person that clicked it get the common version.
None of this will help if the objective is to limit the quantity of common materials, of course, as the article seemed to say.
I was a very active crafter and harvester in Vanguard. And I ran a fairly large fansite for Vanguard. I know how rare or common things were.
There were 3 tiers of harvest. Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Casual Vanguard players confuse them. Uncommon were usually not scarce enough to call in a group to help. But the "Rare" you always would depending on what type of node it was.
Maybe the last year of what happened to Vanguard made harvesting much easier, but they pretty much broke everything when they added KDQ.
For the majority of Vanguards lifespan group harvesting made real sense and harvesters relied on it.
I too spent a *lot* of time harvesting in Vanguard.
I too liked group harvesting.
I too thought it made real sense and would have been happy if VR used it here - and they still might.
My suggestion that calling in a group to harvest a rare might be prevented was intended to encourage VR to reconsider group harvesting if they are firmly opposed to having too many rares on the market. I personally never saw a problem with the markets being flooded and would have preferred the Vanguard harvesting system essentially unchanged.