Zinc and Copper

Yeah, resource location spawn this time around is weird as hell. I guess this mess is the result of them doing the "resources are now really random" change w/o properly preparing for it.

I've seen Weeping Willows in the middle of fields and forests and I've seen barely any minerals under mountains.

As for the resources themselves, I think the true answer to that issue is simply Treasure Maps. They give you a shitton of copper/zinc/rubies and they require a fraction of that to make, as long as you get the Faded Map drop from mobs. And humanoid mobs do drop a fair bit of them.

I'm sitting on 30 uncomm rubies, zinc and copper and 30 comm copper from just 4 maps. And will go hardcore on Ash wood farming tomorrow to try and run my Epic treasure map, cause ooooh boi that one's gonna be a doozy.

Wait, do you actually need any Artisan skill to get resources from Maps or is this gonna turn into another one of those games...?

Azherae wrote: »

Wait, do you actually need any Artisan skill to get resources from Maps or is this gonna turn into another one of those games...?

The only artisan skills you need is the ones that are involved in making those maps. But once you have the map and the excavation kit - you just get the stuff.

1:46:00 is my first map finished
1:55:00 is the next one
https://youtu.be/iUEtA8f8DC4?t=6360

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Wait, do you actually need any Artisan skill to get resources from Maps or is this gonna turn into another one of those games...?

The only artisan skills you need is the ones that are involved in making those maps. But once you have the map and the excavation kit - you just get the stuff.

1:46:00 is my first map finished
1:55:00 is the next one
https://youtu.be/iUEtA8f8DC4?t=6360

One more log onto the pile, then.

We have not received permission from frexil36 to share the quoted post.

While that is very true, Intrepid have barely started working on their new player experience for Ashes. And maps are kind of an involved system, cause it requires you to do several things, and teaching all of that would require quite a bit of work. Well, unless they just go "here's a wall of text that simply points you towards npcs and says "figure it out on your own""

Azherae wrote: »

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Wait, do you actually need any Artisan skill to get resources from Maps or is this gonna turn into another one of those games...?

The only artisan skills you need is the ones that are involved in making those maps. But once you have the map and the excavation kit - you just get the stuff.

1:46:00 is my first map finished
1:55:00 is the next one
https://youtu.be/iUEtA8f8DC4?t=6360

One more log onto the pile, then.

EDIT: No, wait, I should be more serious and not flake out on this.

It can't be that we're expected to just generally use those. That would defeat the main purposes of leveling gathering, I'd think.

Even in Chocobo Digging and the current similar event that Throne and Liberty has up, the idea isn't to replace the main sources of these items. Not even in FF11 where there is no gathering skill or Gardening skill (other than the vast knowledge required to actually be good at Gardening in that game). The Gardener and the Gatherer still take precedence over the Chocobo Digger because that's required for logging in to feel good.

Reward-randomness isn't just flexibility, in most games it's very binary in terms of how powerful it is, and that needs to be constrained so that the person who has a less random playloop doesn't constantly get that 'drift' feeling that makes them shift.

Unless you're making a Gacha style game outright, the only outcome of 'making a game about gathering and crafting' and then 'making a large/strong source of progression/rewards a separate, random function', will be people jumping ship to the next game with the same style but more novelty.

So I'd say that for this thread, I would have to strongly disagree with:

Ludullu wrote: »

As for the resources themselves, I think the true answer to that issue is simply Treasure Maps. They give you a shitton of copper/zinc/rubies and they require a fraction of that to make, as long as you get the Faded Map drop from mobs. And humanoid mobs do drop a fair bit of them.

Mob drops 30-40%, gathering 50-60%, quests and random interactions 10%.

Or y'know, don't, and just do what FF14 does and figure out a way to draw all your players back every so often.

That seems... problematic. The 'generous' reason for that would presumably be a wish to allow Artisans to have some way to supply themselves without needing gatherers (or gathering skill). ...but then you're allowing Artisans to not need Gatherers.

Azherae wrote: »

I would have to strongly disagree with:

And just to be clear, for Intrepid, I disagree with this setup as well.

And the reason is exactly this

SongRune wrote: »

but then you're allowing Artisans to not need Gatherers.

Because you know what was my first reaction to "I don't have a few items and I wanna craft them and then need a ton of mats"? Not going to gatherers or markets. It was "oh, right, I think people said maps give a ton of mats, I'll just do those".

And then I simply Needed on all map-related items that dropped during my stay in HH, which resulted in the video I linked above. And those mats were definitely the cheapest and fastest way I could've gotten those mats for.

Like, even if I had managed to find uncomm copper for 1s each IN THAT QUANTITY - that'd still be more expensive than me just farming a location for a bit (which means money and other loot) and then combining said loot to get a ton of mats.

I plan on trying to get 10 epic Ash wood tomorrow to use my Epic map. Will post results, if yall interested.

We have not received permission from daveywavey to share the quoted post.

I mean, how much copper does any random person who doesn't do maps have? It's all about relativity

@SongRune well, I spent 5h farming Ash trees. Got 5 epic epic in the first hour and then only a few rares in the other 4 In other words, it sure seems like the best way to do maps is to just farm mobs. Because mobs will give gear, maps themselves, money to buy resources for maps from players AND they'll lvl you up.

Obviously if you're a gatherer, you can just farm ash trees for several days and then sell them for quite a nice price, because maps seem to be the only thing requiring Ash wood (well, only valuable thing) and a ton of people will have maps from farming mobs during lvling.

So, in a waaaaay, crafters still gotta go to gatherers. It's simply a different kind of gatherer. And considering this setup, if I was a GL I'd tell my people to farm maps (which is also money farm), and then tell everyone to cut down every damn Ash tree they see, so that we could get the appropriate rarity for our maps.

The return from this investment would be a ton of starting mats that we can then use for higher lvl crafting.

I'll spend tomorrow's 5h of gameplay just farming money to see which approach is better for a solo player. Cause right now 1 Epic Ash is ~1g. If I can manage to make 2-3g in those 5h, I'd say that farming mobs is also a better alternative than doing some gathering yourself.

We have not received permission from daveywavey to share the quoted post.

I'm really curious what pylons will be able to bring into this whole thing, once they're properly implemented. Cause right now we're kinda like headless chickens, just running around bumping into resources. But pylons are supposed to direct us towards those resources, which means that gathering should become a proper activity, rather than just smth you do when you come across something valuable (or something you mindlessly grind until you get lucky, as I did).

We have not received permission from SmileGurney to share the quoted post.

They didn't ignore it, they basically postponed the response.

It happens. I seriously hope we don't keep discouraging Devs this way or the industry will never get much better. If people call out something it has to go through a few phases before you can even get a sign-off on improving it, far less 'the specifics of how'.

Once again I remind, they're still hiring for that Econ Designer, so there's no one to 'sign off on the proper fix' in the first place.

Don't give up, Econ team. We'll keep telling you when it's terrible.