Raise min/max harvesting results please

Canul · 04-05-2008, 10:20 AM

I thought I would post a thread over here.

From my post on the Official Forums:

Quote:

To the crafting community:

I am proposing the following immediate change in harvesting:

Raising of minimum and maximum quantities of common materials harvested, and scaling it to match each tier where significant increases in material input are required.

Some thoughts:

I have been a crafter since launch, firstly a jeweler now 80 (also T8 transmuter), and then more recently I have Alchemist 30 (transmuter 100), Sage 38 (transmuter 100), Woodworker 65.

I have seen the history of crafting and I feel that there are still many things which could be done to make the system work more efficiently and add enjoyment. What brings me here is the fact that I can go through any particualr tier now on my adventuring toons, and not gather anywhere near sufficient ressources to supply a tradeskilling toon for that tier. I am maxed in my harvesting skills in short order, and even though I still beat away at ore nodes, I still am left with a large deficit in required materials. Is this right?

I am sure I don't neeed to bring up the outrageous prices being paid by crafters (including myself) for common harvested items (roots, ores, etc). With limited gaming sessions, it stands to reason that people like me would not like to have to spend 5-6 hours gathering in order to have materials for only a very few levels of crafting. Writs, as any woodworker, armorer, weaponsmith or <insert other class here> will tell you are a good thing to actually disguise the fact that there is a sad grind for many folks.

I am not asking for more rares, more of my rares, or more rares on Sundays. I am only asking for more common harvested materials. It's very logical that one should see an increase in these equal to the increase in material required to craft. Now, I will grant that in an effort to make the early levels appealing (or too easy depending on your point of view), that not having folks have to harvest a lot to gain enough stacks of common materials to then go and tradeskill out to level 20 or 30 is a good thing. And maybe there is room for adding some challenge/difficulty after this to keep this system interesting.

However, we are now at a point where players spend way too much time in the crafting system (i.e. 80/20% harvesting/crafting just to throw some numbers out). I really don't know the real numbers, as I am not a pure crafter. My girlfriend, whose crafting achievements easily double mine, could tell you specifically, because she does gather for all her crafting and even for that of some of our guildmates. She does not get to visit these forums much (maybe because she is always gathering?). Now, I would not ask her to do gathering for me... because I think it is too onerous under this current system. I pay for my materials, and through the miracle of markup, someone else pays me. Still, there ARE limits to how much I am willing to pay.

I am levelling my woodworker because I need to be able to make my own arrows for grouping/raiding. Yes, I am part of that other money sink besides crafting whcih is called Ranger-ing.

So what is the result? The result is that you have all of these part-time crafters skulking back to lower zones on higher level alts to gather ores and roots for their crafting. Fresh air is good... No aggro is great! But, do not be fooled. Beneath that veneer of pleasant smiles and jumjum wine induced stupor.... lies the beating heart of a very frustrated crafter.

So, people are griefing each other...

NOT OVER CONTESTED RAID MOBS!
NOT OVER QUEST NAMEDS!
NOT OVER SANDSCRAWLER GOBBIES IN SS!

YES! OVER LITTLE NODES IN RIVERVALE! (and any other T4+ zone)

I know that you are going to say: What a big surprse that is?!

Yes, I have been playing since launch, so I know the feeling of running around 6 or more instances of the Forest Ruins looking for ONE den to maybe get a skill up off of. I remember going 15 dens in Antonica without ONE skill up! In short, I know gathering has been stressful and griefing is part of it! I know it still should be somewhat stressful in newly opened areas. But, haven't we learned anything at all?

So, lets take a positive step toward curbing this node griefing and solve this problem at its source.

Let's raise the minimum and maximum quantities of common materials harvested per attempt, and scale it according to tier.

This is a short term measure to deal with the problem as I see it.

Another idea:

There are other threads dealing with changes to recipe requirements in order to deal with the issue of scarcity and proper balancing. These are complementary things.

I myself, being a socialist, who still remembers when any rare metal/gem could make any spell/skill upgrade, would like to posit my own modest solution, which would not require reworking any recipes.

You say: Impossible! ! Blasphemous!

Well, no. You just need to have more 'government involvement' in Norrath. In particular you need the deep pockets of her Tradeskill Factions to turn water into wine. I am suggesting that these intitutions be allowed make direct trades of ressources in a particular tier for different ressources within the same tier. This could even be applied to rares!

If direct trades are not possible, or too messy to code, then these Factions would serve to give players CREDITS for common harvestables. These credits could be spent at the same merchant for stacks of new ressources.

All perfectly legal, of course.

The only losers would be those traders who have been servicing the needs of (or extorting from) the player base. The winners would be anyone who can reach any node in Norrath.

Would you trade a small immersion loss for not having to worry about the price of materials in your sleep? Would you like to see Domino in more in-game events because she won't have to balance as much anymore? weee.... ok, maybe she can spend that time to work on the rest of our laundry, but it could be fun, no?

Please discuss here, or if you feel like going over to the dark side, you can discuss my post on the Official Forum. Thanks

Respectfully,
Canul
<Renegades> AB

TANGARTH · 04-05-2008, 01:45 PM

paraphrase it, because some people just aren't going to read all that

Merlonus · 04-05-2008, 02:57 PM

there are much more important issues this game needs to fix besides harvesting nodes..IMO

but even other then that from t1-t8 to max harvesting skills takes about a day..if you think it is bad now, please remember when the game came out and it got pretty bad arguing over nodes and shit...right now i dont see that much of a problem.

Slippery · 04-05-2008, 05:21 PM

Basically he is saying there needs to be an increase in the number of commons you harvest to match the increase in commons used throughout the tiers. The result is to try to make it so commons don't cost so much on the broker or that you don't have to spend 4 years harvesting to be able to craft for a few days.

I agree, especially with the rareness of nodes in T8. In t7 I would have disagreed, because in T7 you could actually harvest. Harvesting anywhere other than TT blows ass.

Canul · 04-06-2008, 06:18 AM

I believe they revised the raw requirements in T8. I will need to check ingame with my guildies, but I believe some if not all classes have reduced requirements. This would suggest that there is an issue.

From my post on the official forums:

Quote:

In conclusion, my concern is fairness and making it easier for players who have less playing time to get some enjoyment from crafting/harvesting time spent in game (for argument's sake, let's say 6-10 hours on weekends and maybe 0.5-1 hours per day during the week). They should be able to help their guilds level using crafting writs and also make the slow trek towards level 80 crafting. These people represent a good number of subs for SOE, and they make up the backbone of a good number of guilds here, though they may not visit the forums as much as more active players. If it is SOE's wish to keep players spending more time crafting/harvesting, then there has to be a fairer way of achieving it, that can also address the issue of prices for harvested materials.

And yeah, I know a lot of stuff sucks at the moment, but in terms of tradeskills and those who currently spend their time on them, I think this is fairly important.

If this still doesn't deal with the pric of harvestables, then I am also advocating a move to a ressource exchange system.

Canul

MonkeyBob · 04-08-2008, 11:05 PM

I made a similar suggestion in this thread a few months ago...

http://www.eq2flames.com/tradeskills...y-request.html

About 3 or 4 posts down I think.

Wrathful · 04-09-2008, 09:27 AM

I do agree with the idea that some harvestables should be increased to match that same tier tradeskill material requirements. I only really see a big issue with a couple tiers though. T1-5 isn't really a big issue since the mats required aren't exactly a huge jump from the previous tier. The only issue i've had in t5, which is where my one Jeweler is atm, is being forced to harvest in Feerrott due to my adv lvl only being 40. EF and LS just aren't feasible due to the number of heroics in the zones. Much safer and far less aggro doing Feerrott as far as i've seen. T6 is the huge problem area that i've noticed doing 6 or 7 tradeskillers through that tier. With tailor in this tier, towards the latter levels it gets brutal with something like 11 or 12 roots per combine. I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone who's harvested SS/Lfay that materials aren't exactly abundant for that tier, especially when you get a few other people in the zone harvesting along with you. Root/pelt quantities for this tier still suck royally, I spent more hours harvesting than I did tradeskilling as I wasn't about to pay 75s a root when I needed 11 per combine lol.

T7 isn't really a problem, I had no issues with getting enough materials on any of my tradeskillers for that tier. As for T8, once you know where the best places are to gather certain materials, it's pretty easy to get enough to go through a tier, aside from maybe roots.

So I don't really think *every* tier needs to be increased, mostly it's just t6 that i've noticed most people have serious grief with obtaining enough materials to get through that tradeskill tier.

foozlesprite · 04-10-2008, 11:20 AM

T6 on my tailor is horrid for roots. I can do a rush order (6 recipes, for anybody here that doesn't know) and use up 50-70 roots depending on what recipes it asks me to make. A *common* robe or pants costs 10 or 11 roots to make. Add to that the fact that these succulent roots are fairly rare resources even after the 'fix' for them, and always seem to give a low number of roots per node, and you have a recipe for disaster.

There are only three zones to harvest these in as far as I know: Sinking Sands, Pillars of Flame, and Lesser Faydark. The nodes are spread out in all of those areas but in PoF it's the worst. Sinking Sands is OK to harvest them in, but everybody knows that so there are always a ton of people there fighting for nodes. The roots are spread out all over Lesser Faydark too, there seems to be no pattern except a few permanent spots where they spawn.

It's not only this tier, and this resource. I think that maybe an exchange service within a tier would be good, but would requre a lot of work. I'd say just adjust the drop rates for the nodes that everybody needs (roots) or the number of raws required per recipe. It's annoying to spend 40 minutes scouring the Sinking Sands for roots to find 3 nodes, have each of them drop 3-5 roots, and then realize that you have enough to make ONE robe for 1.2% xp.

Flaming Homo · 04-10-2008, 04:14 PM

Just put an NPC in the crafting halls who gives out common and 'rare' harvest items for free. End of problem.