Regen bombs on exoplanets should be okay because an atlas will tell you there’s no resources there.
A lot of the complaints coming up around exo worlds are at odds with each other. For example some players are mad they can’t efficiently forge 3x3 AoE umbris tools. And others are worried exo planets will be strip mined by pro players who get there early. It will require fresh thinking to find a solution that works for both types of complaint.
And the larger trend I see is just how much the game has been revolving around the 3x3 AoE mining technique. It’s how players expect to get all their materials and also all their levels. This patch contains lots of design decisions implicating AoE as a source of balance issues across multiple areas of the game. Clearly the devs are worried. I think we should let these changes go thru as they are minimally invasive tuning changes that can always be buffed or reverted by changing a number in a data file. And then start a fresh discussion on what kind of AoE changes could be made to the game. With a more balanced approach to AoE the devs wouldn’t need to worry so much about forge efficiency and crafting xp values.
I will agree there is a problem and it is the 3x3 AOE tools and not the xp from actually playing the game which is what crafting the rocks is. We will not agree on this and I am pretty upset, none of this is really aimed at you personally. It just seems that every other release pushes the game to take more and more time to accomplish even the basic things like leveling. Add more ingredients to recipes, take away xp from the basic crafting, when does it end?
As someone who lacks gameplay time, stone grinding was really the only way I would ever get the plots needed for a large sized build. My build plans just went from a year to three.
This game is just digging itself farther away from the casual player with a job and a family. This game needs private server clusters.
I’d be completely fine with nerfs, or even removal of aoe, if there was a more accurate way to locate ores.
The atlas is fine for what we have, as a large area can be mined in a reasonable time.
But if the aoe is not as efficient, then some way of knowing exactly which direction the nearest ore is, including altitude, would be almost essential.
Lets say as an example, a hand held bleeper that points in the direction of the ore, and also pings more frequently the closer you get.
If rock to stone gets instant craft time it puts it in line with timber. People who like using timber to build never got xp for their work albeit was instant craft time but still gotta spam that button lol.
A good way to have cut down on the mass quantities of rock gained could have been to make aoe tools give stone instead of rock. So that way xp stays with the rock to stone but you can’t get mass quantities of it in a blink of an eye
I think the root cause needs examining. People cheese stone because levelling the “right” way takes a long time and is frustratingly unrewarding for some professions. I’ve asked for rebalance in other areas before, so have others. I don’t feel like the positives in these changes balance the negatives - how about more in gathering XP or similar?
They could have reduced the 3x3 AOE to 1x3 and reduced the amount of rock created. They could make 3x3 AOE only able to be crafted from rift or the other rare materials. Instead they again focused on the end game players who have the AOE tools and punish those without in my opinion.
I think a lot of the uproar over the stone xp would have been a lot less if it had simply been halved for now then a few months down the line reduce it to zero with instant craft like wood at least that way it wouldn’t be such a drastic change and eventually we would still end up with the same result but probably less fallout.
I’ll agree to disagree then. Maybe adding +1 xp to breaking stones resolves the discrepancy? Still, seems like 3x3 hammers overly gain from that. Or some other xp make-up scheme. Just the same this does not seem (in my humble opinion) to be as game breaking as people fear, and is amply compensated for by other xp gains.
The problem isn’t the mining xp, it’s the low xp gains from some other activities that I supplement with rock crafting. For example hunting for glowcaps and other stealth-gathering-friendly surface resources nets me maybe 5k xp in the same time as my miner gets 50k xp. If I want my gatherer to get lvl 50 any time soon I need to use rock. These xp holes should be fixed before nerfing the rock workaround.
Nah it would be better if they reward actual plots for levelling up, and achieving certain tasks. Not cubits, but 4 plots per level, and you can buy them with cubits, i think i would have enough land for what i want to do.
Exploit what in this game? Has anyone sold an account for real money? So what a person power levels, since there is no pvp or competitive casual gameplay experiences, how does a persons level effect the others?
The change is just more grind.
A reskinning of he old assets and calling it new, is not content in my opinion.
I will agree they do still overly gain from that, so is the problem the xp from crafting stone or the AOE tools? Is the leveling from xp only a symptom of the real problem?
Honestly the xp for everything should be doubled, or required xp should be halved. Maybe in a couple months the devs will see a true lvl when most casual players quit and start making the game more inclusive for them.
A few thoughts on this… yes using stone to level was OP… but it also gave rock value (at lest to me it did) without exp I don’t even want to pick it up and I seriously would want a filter to prevent it junking up my inventory… I also wouldn’t want it laying all over the ground hiding things in the floor =/
For the exp side of things I would say 1 exp per stone and change the recipe to 2 rock per 1 stone (making each rock worth 0.5 exp each)… exp would still be quite nerffed, it would increase the value of stone a bit and it make stone useful as a quick way to condense your rock collection. Recipes that use Stone could also have their amount halved to compensate.
On the value side of things, I thing we need more reasons to want to pick up rock. First thought that comes to mind is some sort of way to recycle / convert rock into other resources… I’d happily dump a smart stack of rock into a compactor to crush out 1 to 3 gems or some other ore/coal/fossil etc
Another interesting thought would be some sort of skill / buff that would consume the rock instead of picking it up to some sort of end… like to add duration to buffs, feed your character, heal or restore energy, or to charge up novel buffs like gain extra power/action speed/durability drain etc for a short period of time after consuming x amount of Rock… this could also make mining a bit more interesting by giving it more ebb and flow
