I want to highlight a discussion that’s spawned from the forging thread, and has been mentioned from time to time in other threads:
I’m curuous what people think?
Personally, I think having discrete planet tiers and associated crafting requirements/outputs would be a welcome (but disruptive) change.
By discrete, I mean that you would not be able to find any (reasonable amount) of particular resource type, except on worlds of that tier. Tiers would probably go something like copper, iron, silver/gold, titanium, gem, special.
Additionally, each tier would have associated crafting recipes to match, possibly even gated for forging. Aka copper tools might only support level 1 boons/quirks/defects, iron gets up to level 2, etc.
I suspect it would help quite a few areas:
Clarity around how to progress through the game
A much smoother progression for players
Forging that scales up with player level
A more segmented (and hopefully less daunting) economy, where lower level players are producing resources that high level players need, but don’t want to spend time on
Less of a monopoly on the economy from us “elites”
Probably order things I’m not thinking of
It also would be a pretty big shift to many game systems, though…
My initial thoughts are that I don’t like the sound of restricting play like this at all.
I enjoy getting some titanium, decent silver/gold and lots of iron & copper, whilst farming diamonds.
Not sure. I do enjoy it though, and would rather this than having to go and farm each one individually, using restricted tools dependent on where I am. this doesn’t sound like fun at all
I’m not sure it would require that you use a specific tier of tool for that world. IMO you should be able to go back to tier 1 worlds, and blow them up with gem 3x3 hammers if you want.
But, a key to making this work, is that doing so generally shouldn’t be worth your time (your time is better spent on higher tier worlds). Which should encourage more trade between players of different levels
We still miss the main issue: builders aren’t gaining any coins.
How are we supposed to buy things from miner/gatherer? Hint: we don’t.
Leveling alt character is more easy than finding the thousands of hundreds of coins required to avoid mining/gathering.
The first thing I did after the first hours of play was to throw away “all the economy” and never look back. The second thing was spending 600 cubits to free myself from this mess…forever.
This is how i thought the game was going to be like once the proper release worlds dropped.
I think if resources are going to be limited to soecific locations or planets,
Then that should be almost all you find there.
I’ve found that you don’t actually get more iron or copper per ore block on any of the higher tier planets so if you’re using a crazy hammer just to break the blocks then its a waste. You can just go to a tier 4 with a basic iron and get the same amount of iron and copper per seam.
I like it, being at end game now i can think back and honestly say the feeling of progression felt rather lacking IMO. If i could farm copper, make the tools, then later forge those tools using mats found on that same planet to essentially mass farm that planet without needing to go to a higher planet I think it would make the game more enjoyable for newcomers.
So basically start on T1->make copper tools->farm T1 for low level forge mats->if you want you could forge copper tools to make gathering iron on T2 easier ->repeat all the way to gems. By that point we could forge gold/silver tools to farm gems without even touching a T5+ planet. You wouldnt mine as fast as someone with gem 3x3 hammers but it would be way more enjoyable over time imo. Right now people are just saving 16k-20k+ and jumping from T3 right into mass gem farming.
Whats to stop low level people from just buying 3x3 gem hammers if they’re still affordable for them though? Making T5+ have a level requirement? A requirement of X amount of blocks/resources placed, broken, or creatures killed?
this progression would be linear and bland and for the later stages in game it would just add the requirement to mine with ur 3x3 on lower tier worlds the ressource away from beginners.
Much effort and change for nothing… no outcome of this is highly preferrable to what is already here
I think at the moment access to higher worlds is already restricted by atmospheres though? Needing to be lvl x to unlock those skills, then deciding when to spend sp in atmos and not your specialisation does kinda act as a semi permeable barrier.
It is a very interesting idea that I’d like to play around with; but i think such a changes would take away a lot of perceived freedom / feel quite restrictive…
I wouldnt mind if they considered this for events though- “the week of the iron giants” where temporary planets spawn with limited / single resources etc could be great. Want diamonds? Sure, go mine a blast world. But if you want tons of titanium, that there temporary moon is loaded with… whoops, its gone
btw i love silver and gold mining on alcyon… dont take this away! lol
the location of my diamond mine on serpensarindi was chosen due to the gold deposits i get in addition to titanium and gems.
i went emerald farming because of the silver i get there too
I agree with @Prome3us. the atmospheres already do some gating of the higher tier planets where gems are located and without adequate protection the mobs on a t4 can be daunting. Some of this is already in the game and I do not see any need to make it more structured.
I am not sure a structured progression through the game is a good thing. Let players progress how they want and at their own speed. If a player is a risk taker and wants to go to a higher tier planet before they are considered ready let them. Why create a game with a roadmap all players follow to progress?
The developers are already addressing forging for mid-level so I do not think this is necessary for that.
I do not see any benefit to the economy. It certainly forces players to do more mining and gathering to get what they need as they have to go to different planets for everything. From my point of view this makes it very boring. At least when you mine for gems you get some other resources. If all you get are gems and rock then you have made an already grinding task even less rewarding in my opinion.
adequate protecton v t4 mobs is 5 points for shadow effect … not really high imo :DD
block armour is the actual gate… 5 points wont suffice to get stuff in enough quantities
wouldn’t be getting everything they need as a by-product on a single high-level activity
Wanted to point this out specifically, from the quote above.
Whenever you go get a resource, you should get that resource specifically, or, any byproduct secondary resources obtained should be vanishingly small in quantity.
Any time you want to get resource A, which also gives you resource B, where one of those two resources is a limiting reagent (say A), then B has zero value. Not just low value, but zero. Because in a perfectly efficient system, you use up all of A, and then have nothing to spend B on, and so the supply of B is always increasing and nobody has any way to get rid of it.
You have to make it that, going to get resource A, gives you B at much lower rates, where there are better ways to go get B at higher efficiency. Otherwise the two are not independent resources. The only alternative would be to make massively larger sinks, like for fresh vital essence or something, to consume all of the leftover resources.
I think I should be using mastery-level tools after having invested 1k+ hours into this game. Contingent on the scale of the content currently available, I guess…
I wouldn’t have a problem with a resource mechanic like this because we would have to revisit the starter areas/materials and continue to intermingle rather than hermit on t5+ As a new player in MMOs, seeing maxed out players in starter areas with their sweet gear gives me motivation to get on the grind as well.
suppose u have 2 deposits: ressource A and ressource A+B… where are u going to mine? which locations are u going to search for? do u throw ressource B away or are u using it in materials for ur build and for alloys?
That’s kind of his point, though. If you want to get diamonds, are you going to go where there are only diamonds, or are you going to go where you get diamonds, gold, and iron (and coal, but that is a little different)? Obviously the latter. But because those materials spawn more, you end up with a ton of them. Sure, you can use them in your build, or craft with them. They have value to you. But the economy as a whole devalues them (I don’t agree that they have no value, but their value does approach 0 as more players mine more efficiently).
So how is someone just starting out with Iron tools supposed to enter the economy? They are so much less efficient at specifically farming their tier of mats vs. higher tier players that get them incidentally, but the entire economy has to price the item at the most efficient value, which prices out lower tier players entirely. While I don’t love the idea of strict tiers (only copper on T1, iron on T2, etc), some sort of tighter bands might help to somewhat stratify the economy and allow a niche for lower tier farming. If you suddenly couldn’t get Iron on T6 worlds, would you go mine it yourself on a T3? Maybe, and that’s fine, but that does allow more room for you to say “My time is more valuable than my coin” and buy the iron from someone or put out Buy Baskets for it.
Edit: This all presumes, of course, that the economy is an important part of the game. I am not convinced this is the case.
Talking about ressources, the more high is the tiers, the more dumb it become. I tried to mine some titanium earlier. Ended with tons of coal and copper (like…months-worth supply of these). And 30 titanium.
Except all resource here, which have an A+B, all drop some level of A+B.
Sapphire and topaz always, also, yield huge amounts of tech components and devices. More than you could ever use compared to the ratio of sapphire. One mass craft of adv. power coils for example takes, at base, 360 rough sapphire but only 108 tech components. I think I walked out from topaz mining yesterday with a literal smart stack of tech components just from the ones I happened to hit on the way to the topaz. That’s what I’m talking about.
As a new player in MMOs, seeing maxed out players in starter areas with their sweet gear gives me motivation to get on the grind as well.