Dev Discussion #46 - Materials: Less is More or More is Less?

I'd prefer several ways to craft the same thing. Ideally mats that come from several corners of the land or just achievable through different means.

The resulting craft should have the same basic stats, but varying additional effects (within reason).

I think I'm flatly in the middle.

I view this issue as being connected to open world economy and immersion, and so I always would make my suggestions from that perspective.

I like having more different materials because it allows developers more tools to mess with the economy, to inspire players to explore, and it seems like it would be a requirement for Ashes just to keep the Node system economies fresh. It's troublesome to have a lot of items to need to store separately, but I just can't see an enjoyable version of this for me with low itemization.

I also don't think it is necessary to do a lot of very specific items that are only used in one or two things, but how would things like 'Seasonable Gatherables' work across an entire world of Verra if we were so limited?

I also don't really see what a 'wide variety of things for them to be used FOR' would even be, so I guess I will have to wait for Alpha-2 to understand what that would mean. Other than that, I've got lots of opinions on food and far too many economic opinions that will need to be integrated into testing.

What I CAN say is that I don't mind if Fish are similar, but as I always say 'not like BDO please' where all Fish are functionally the same, large categories of meat are the same, etc.

In the end, I just can't imagine what the context of this question is. I don't know what 'fewer' or 'more' is to the Itemization team. I can say that I come from a two games with hundreds of items and that helps me enjoy both the economy (in one of them, anyway) and immersion (sort of). I know I'd be disappointed in 'less than 10 types of ore' and so on.

But I never know how to imagine what a Fantasy MMO world will be willing to 'leave out' until I see the plans, since so many items seem 'required' (Gemstones, for example, gotta be at least 10, right).