Forums » Crafting and Gathering

gathering skills and 'nodes'

    • 133 posts
    December 22, 2015 10:18 AM PST

    Narben4 said:

    Thanks for all the discussion, and i have greatly enjoyed people's ideas of how accesible nodes should be and the further discussion about crafting benefit.

    however, the initial point of my thread was aimed solely at the basis of how harvestable nodes should appear in game.  It is one of those things that irritates me greatly when it is done poorly.

    I am interested in other people's views on the graphical/appearance side of harvesting?

    Do you care what the ore 'nodes' look like? should they be depicted as veins aka skyrim or different coloured globs depicting different ores aka many mmos?

    SHould there be a vast array of harvestable plants? should plants be abled to be harvested for particualr items or solely just a single plant?

    Should harvestable plant parts be used distinctly by various crafting skills?

     

     

    Sorry and yeah you are right, but the use of Skyrim is poor example:

    - Skyrim is a static single player crafteed world on a very small scale for an MMO, with everything jammed in there (dont get me wrong my 1500hrs tell you I LOVED IT)

    - Skyrim had several hundred developers

    - harvested materials only had to support you....and well you.  Things change when it must support thousands and thousands.

     

    I agree a little extra care can be taken here, like Vanguard had harvestable trees in forests.  A little "extra" grassy plains would have gave the same feel for plants in a game.

    With stone a metal I think are the most you would agree were "sticking' out in any MMO, well this becomes a graphic work out.  Skyrim had one look, dismal winter stone, most MMOs have many looks and terrains.

     

    I agree that a little more care will show here, but lets not hide them too much, we are supporting thousands not  a single player.


    This post was edited by Exmortis at December 22, 2015 10:20 AM PST
    • 68 posts
    January 23, 2016 6:28 PM PST

     

    shihiro said:

    Not at all @Pyye.

     

    Essentially, FFXIV has 3 "gathering" classes. I'll describe botanist/miner here, since they're similar (Fisher....is just odd). What happens is when you switch to the class, you get a new ability which allows you to see "nodes" in the world. Varying nodes have different levels (Level 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60), and within the nodes, there's some variance as well (Level 50 and 60 nodes have "special" nodes which proc at a special server-side time known as "Eorzean" time [ie: in game time]). As a botanist/miner, you would select which node to harvest from (A level 21 botanist can harvest from 25, but probably doesn't have enough stats for 30, so on and so forth). When you walk up to a node and click it, it opens a selection like this. Each item on the node has differing chances to drop according to your stats. Additionally, an HQ ("High Quality") item also has the ability to drop when selecting on what you wish to harvest from the node. This video shows you essentially how it works today, even though this was the alpha version of the A Realm Reborn. Gathering also comes with the ability to use skills on the nodes themselves, for things such as "this node provides double the amount of items gathered" or "your perception has increased" (Chance of HQ item up).

     

    Hope that helps.

     

     That does sound interesting. I love to craft. I have never played FF or World of Warcraft. 

    I think I would like to see something like this in the game.

     


    This post was edited by Max63 at January 23, 2016 6:29 PM PST
    • 157 posts
    February 2, 2016 5:40 PM PST

    I agree, they need to appear organicaly in the game.  I do like traveling and spotting a node in the wild.  I also like it when nodes tend to have a geographical logic to where they appear ... flowers in the sun, mold or muchrooms in the shade, lichen on the shore, etc.

    • 52 posts
    June 4, 2016 9:58 PM PDT

    Personally I always hated nodes. They became a distraction to me and I always felt I had to harvest the node. I would like to be able to buy some materials and kill mobs for others. Its a good way to keep money rotating and people can still go out and farm mats to sell rather than run around harvesting nodes. Aion is a prime example of the mind numbing harvesting that drove me nuts. Remember aether? ugh. I just prefer killing mobs for materials as its much more fun to me instead of running around endlessly looking for nodes and being able to purchase more basic mats from vendors.

    • 107 posts
    June 6, 2016 5:45 PM PDT

    Late to the party, I know, but I loved being a crafter in both Star Wars Galaxies and Vanguard -that one had to at least have an idea what one was doing. (especially SWGs.)

    I like the idea of rares, assuming they exist in the tiers, being hidden - at least until you start havesting but even better after completion. Many times while harvesting to pop rare nodes in Vanguard I have seen players running (well, usually flying) the circuit I was mining to grab any rare nodes I have popped.

    I do like veins better than nodes for a better look. While glowing nodes take from immersion, our toons should have skills we don't, so while glowing nodes in ESO were unrealistic, if one thinks of them as 'this toon has studied (it took skill points to make them glow) in order to be able to more easily identify this type of resource' it makes perfect sense: the node isn't glowing to the toon, only to us to demonstrate his skill.

    An idea would be that the veins would be hidden to those without the skill to harvest them. Instead of you dont have the skill to harvest message, you would walk by without noticing the tell-tale signs that there was ore just beneath the surface. 

    As to the more tangental parts of the thread. One thing that bugged me about the tiered harvesting in Vanguard that Kilsin references is that the fastest way to level crafting was to level adventuring. It was VERY hard to be a dedicated crafter in Vanguard because resources were not available above your level except at very high rates -one would not be able to harvest themselves. This was not an issue in SWGs since common resources were generally found in random spots, sometimes hard areas, sometimes easy. Special components such as dragon scales or rune stones, etc could still limit the better/higher level items needing components from harder/higher level areas.

     


    This post was edited by alephen at June 6, 2016 5:46 PM PDT
    • 137 posts
    June 18, 2016 6:59 AM PDT

    I feel we should allow for some harvesting to be soloable. The rare higher level items should definitely be group worthy, but as for leveling harvesting, I would think soloing to be viable. This makes for good down time when not in a group. I want groups and social interaction most definitley, but I think a good break from grouping would be to level your harvesting, fishing, cooking etc...

    • 1 posts
    June 20, 2016 3:33 PM PDT

    I have a comment in regards to the crafting gear being equivalent or slightly under that or raiding equipment. I actively played Rift for about three years before I stopped. I will also preface this entire post with I am a hardcore crafter.

    There are some items in Rift that you could only get from crafting and there are some items that were equivalent to the second highest raid available. While you could not craft and entire set of armor or weapons that were at that level there is one or two pieces of equipment per class that can be crafted. Some of the materials for these items were a challenge to earn, but could be earned from hardmode dungeons, crafting rifts (which could be earned at a weekly rate), and the lowest tier raids. This gear would be enough to perform in the highest tier raid to get the best gear in the game. This gear was quite difficult to craft, but it was every bit worthwhile and it felt like an accomplishment.

    While Rift has a far from perfect crafting system some aspects of it were quite well done. Especially on the preparation for raiding front. Anyways, those are my two cents on the matter.

     

    Edit: I do realize that this is off-topic from the nodes/skills of this particular conversation, but when I saw the comments on raiding gear vs crafted gear I had to throw in my own comment on that as well.


    This post was edited by Demavend at June 20, 2016 3:35 PM PDT
    • 28 posts
    June 28, 2016 1:59 PM PDT

    Taledar said:

    Im pretty much a crafting fiend in every single mmo I ever adventure in, and tbh, I'm Realllllly liking Final Fantasy 14's crafting system.

     

    I do like the ff14 system it's fun, makes you think at least till u get the hang of it.

    • 70 posts
    July 7, 2016 6:38 PM PDT

    Will crafted items be the best in the game, or at least comparable to dungeon drops?

    If not, then making a very hard path of having to spend countless hours to craft items based on rares that require groups to obtain, and even basic mats putting you at risk of death will not make it very appealing to be a crafter.  If it's ultra hard to do, sure the items will be rare, and retain their value, but people will just go in a dungeon and try to get drops rather than have a character fully devoted to crafting.  They won't have time to actually adventure otherwise.


    This post was edited by hackerssuck at July 7, 2016 6:39 PM PDT
    • 70 posts
    July 8, 2016 8:29 AM PDT

    Narben4 said:

    Thanks for all the discussion, and i have greatly enjoyed people's ideas of how accesible nodes should be and the further discussion about crafting benefit.

    however, the initial point of my thread was aimed solely at the basis of how harvestable nodes should appear in game.  It is one of those things that irritates me greatly when it is done poorly.

    I am interested in other people's views on the graphical/appearance side of harvesting?

    Do you care what the ore 'nodes' look like? should they be depicted as veins aka skyrim or different coloured globs depicting different ores aka many mmos?

    SHould there be a vast array of harvestable plants? should plants be abled to be harvested for particualr items or solely just a single plant?

    Should harvestable plant parts be used distinctly by various crafting skills?

     

     

    Narben4,

    I don't think any of us meant to hijack your thread lol.  Sorry about that.  At any rate, as far as the appearance of nodes goes, I am not bothered by nodes sticking up out of the ground.  This is not Minecraft, so I had not expeted to dig a deep cave to get to goods.  As far as I know, the game won't be voxel based, so I am curious as to how they could implement your idea.  I have heard Final Fantasy Reborn mining is well done in this regard.  Perhaps they could look at something along those lines.

    • 205 posts
    July 31, 2016 11:39 AM PDT

    I love to craft. I tend to be a high (end game level) crafter in every game I have played. I do like being able to farm materials and be able to craft great gear. I like crafting where the recipes are rare and the combines are unknown.Finally, combining something for a fail was frustrating but realistic for me.It made me appreciate times when the combine worked :). However, I just want more risk/reward type of crafting system.

    • 219 posts
    August 7, 2016 2:10 AM PDT

    shihiro said:

    Not at all @Pyye.

     

    Essentially, FFXIV has 3 "gathering" classes. I'll describe botanist/miner here, since they're similar (Fisher....is just odd). What happens is when you switch to the class, you get a new ability which allows you to see "nodes" in the world. Varying nodes have different levels (Level 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60), and within the nodes, there's some variance as well (Level 50 and 60 nodes have "special" nodes which proc at a special server-side time known as "Eorzean" time [ie: in game time]). As a botanist/miner, you would select which node to harvest from (A level 21 botanist can harvest from 25, but probably doesn't have enough stats for 30, so on and so forth). When you walk up to a node and click it, it opens a selection like this. Each item on the node has differing chances to drop according to your stats. Additionally, an HQ ("High Quality") item also has the ability to drop when selecting on what you wish to harvest from the node. This video shows you essentially how it works today, even though this was the alpha version of the A Realm Reborn. Gathering also comes with the ability to use skills on the nodes themselves, for things such as "this node provides double the amount of items gathered" or "your perception has increased" (Chance of HQ item up).

     

    Hope that helps.



    Yeah, I LOVE gathering in games, and FF14 has the best gathering system I've ever played.  Another nice addition is that the gathering classes can all use stealth (slows movement speed, invisible to monsters unless they're way over your level OR you get too close).  So that if you want in the game, you can forego combat all together and become basically a wilderness hunter of the land going out and finding rare nodes for materials/ore/etc.  You still have to be careful and it isn't risk free, but it gives you that "I'm a person in this world, not some combat adventurer, but rather a professional woodsman" if you want to go for that.

    Crafting in FF14 also has a minigame and abilities associated with it, which is awesome to me.

    The only thing I wish they would do is add "party" crafting where you could form a party of gatherers/crafters to get better/more/higher quality products by working together.  They kind of incorporated that a little into the guild ariship stuff, but it's not QUITE there.

    But yes, FF14 is a great system to look at if you want a crafting/gathering system that involves skill and thought rather than "kill the bear 'guarding' the mining node and then right-click the node for loot".

    ...the ONE gripe I have with it (other than Fishing) is that the nodes are still...nodes.  Like each area has four basic nodes that will respawn over and over again (except the "once per game day" nodes which are only up for a limited time and you only get one crack at them for that game day).  So you can spend a lot of time walking back and forth between the same four trees/rocks smacking them for resources.  Think of an area that has 12 rocks that are designated as four "nodes", and so when you use one up, you have to gather the other three, but once you comple the circuit, the first one has respawned at one of its 3 allowed spawn positions.  You can basically use this to level easily, which is kind of nice, but it gets boring as hell at the high levels, especially if you're grinding out the levels by harvesting nodes instead of doing Levequests (quests to get xp for your profession, in this case).

    I think in that sense, what WoW did was better since you can go around and see more world, gathering.

    But as far as the ACT of gathering (and crafting) in the game, FF14 does it amazingly better than basically any other game I've seen.  They basically designed the crafting and gathering classes as CLASSES (they have about as many skills as the combat classes) rather than as a "profession menu" where you just grind levels and then click what you want to make from a list and get the item handed to you (or a failure you have no control over).  In FF14 if you fail at a craft, it's because you didn't think it through and use your skills and abilities...OR you were trying to craft something way out of your league.  ;)  BUT...if you want that coveted HQ (High Quality) craft, you better have some outstanding crafting gear and a thorough grasp of how to use your crafting abilities to their upmost.  The game rewards outstanding crafters with a chance to stand apart from run of the mill ones - challenge and server recognition are right up Pantheon's alley, aren't they?

    .

    EDIT: Oh, one MORE thing.

    One thing I DON'T like about FF14's crafting is you learn all the recipies every 5th level.  This doesn't really distinguish crafters (while gear/skill does).  What I'd like is a system that takes the FF14 system, but then adds that maybe you get basic crafts at leveling, but you have to go to a trainer or find recepes in the world/drops/discovery (through some discovery mechanic - like maybe you pick several items from your inventory and try to craft them, and if you happened on the recepe for a real item, you can learn that item in the process) or some combination of the above.  Because it'd be nice if you as a crafter could learn something that not EVERY OTHER crafter can make to set yourself apart.

    Additionally, as I said above, it would also be nice to have group crafting ability of some kind.  Give all those guildies with the same blacksmithing profession the ability to put it to good use by combining their efforts with some rare "coperation item" to attempt to produce something more epic.

    Those and the node spawn are the only things I'd change about FF14s system.  It's otherwise VERY good for people that are into gathering/crafting.

    .

    EDIT2: Oh, sorry, original topic...lol:

    Yeah, I agree that nodes shouldn't stand out TOO much, but some kind of need to.  For instance, herbalism plants you wouldn't even be able to see if they don't stand out somewhat.  Think Oblivion.  Unless you walk right up to them in first person mode and mouse over them to try to get the hand to appear, you wouldn't even know you COULD gather them instead of them being random background plants like "ordinary" grass and such.

    Too much of a standout (like WoW's ore) and it looks contrived.  Too little of a standout (like Oblivion's faint outline when moused over) and players have difficulty detecting them, especially if they're zoomed out and in third person, much less in anything approaching combat.

    I think this is why a lot of games have some mechanic where once you have gathering skills you see nodes on your maps or the harvestable materials stand out with a bolder/glowing outline.  But, again, too much and you're reminded it's a game.  So it's a balance.

    .

    I also kind of oppose this idea of "gathering should be a life or death encounter no one can solo!!"  That's silly.  If you can sneak into a place, find the node, quickly take a few taps, and book it away, there's nothing wrong with that.  And if truly epic crafts, using rare and expensive materials, with a decent chance to fail aren't making at least raid tier -1 level of gear, no one would ever have any need to do it.  Making profession products worthless AND time consuming AND risky isn't risk vs reword.  It's stupidity vs just running dungeons for drops.  And we all know how that ends.

    And as far as material abundance - low level "common" materials (the basic 1-10 and 11-20) should be relatively easy to get and relatively abundant, though based, of course, on terrain and zone type.  THe rarest of the rare can be hidden deep in overwold dungeons or caves, be on limited time respawn timers (just like big, overworld raid bosses), etc.  But the most intrepid and creative should still be able to get them.  Though they should by no means be common.

    However, I'm also a FIRM propoent of not putting "useless" or "leveling" crafting materials in game.  While the basic level 1 copper is used to level blacksmithing, some quantity of it should ALSO be used in making the highest level crafts.  This keeps the material always in demand - in Eve Online, the basic ore product, Veldspar, is used in the hulls of space stations, ships, and the casings of ammunition (bullets, missiles, etc), meaning that this unassuming ore is still valued at all levels of building in the game.  While high level builds need rarer ores from more dangerous places (lawless space, wormholes), they still need copious amounts of the humble Veldspar, meaning even brand new players to the game have something they can reliably go out, harvest, and make a small but functional profit off of.

    Everything's a balance.


    This post was edited by Renathras at August 7, 2016 2:26 AM PDT
    • 510 posts
    August 8, 2016 6:29 PM PDT

    I like node harvesting.  I think there needs to be some clear-cut aspects added to this mechanic though.  Like mining should occur in what is typically believed to be minable areas - like mines.  Logging should obviously come from TREES.  Botny should come from plants but specific plants should occur only in what would be considered their native terrain.  Cactus in deserts, reeds in swamps etc.  Fishing should occur almost anywhere one could normally fish.  I am not too keen on fishing nodes though.  EQ2 has trapping as a means to get meats and leathers.  I don't think I like the way they did it.  I would love to see active trap use in specific areas.  Say a person makes/buys a specific lvl trap and places it in an area.  The trap is only visable by the player and is placed there until he retrieves it.  At any time the player can go back to his trap and harvest whatever is in it.  Put a timer on it so that he is only getting one random pull in about 12 to 14 hours of play (by the way, heh - as a boy I did real trapping - only checked my traps about once a day - about 70 to 80% would have something in it.  About 10% there wouldn't be anything - not even bait.  About 10% of the time there was no change to the trap status - Also, sometimes you got something you didn't expect - like wild cats (the WORST)).  I suppose if we go so far as to trap placement and harvesting would should consider farming/harvesting.  I can see where this might become tedious or even a concern for exploitation.  I think a robust TIME delay would prevent this.  Not to mention the number of harvestables one could expect on their "farm" - which only they should be able to see in an instanced situation.  Not to say they shouldn't be able to harvest foodstuffs and other plants from NOC farms, but if they do?!  I would expect them to get a beating from the farmer...

    • 510 posts
    August 8, 2016 6:33 PM PDT

    Oh yeah - one other thing - Vanguard had the ability to harvest from certain mobs.  Like getting stone from stone gollums etc.  Getting wood from Treants etc.  I REALLY like that.  I like the option of getting hides and skins from certain mobs.  I get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking about a Transcriber who is creating some low-level spells on goblin hide....

     

    I am hoping for a VERY robust system.  It would be really wild to find out that frsh shark teeth make great inscribing tools for inscribers making leather gear.  However the shark teeth isn'y worth a damn for inscribing plate armor.  Octopus ink is great for transcribing spells on paper.  But it is also used for alchemy and foodstuffs...

    • 1 posts
    August 10, 2016 6:04 PM PDT

    Any reason we won't use the drop system that was introduced in EQ with the big tiered cultural armor sets? Certain mob types dropping level appropriate crafting mats. Even the older EQ system could be a nice diversion in certain circumstances. Much time mentally zoned out while farming spider silk or some such provided something to fill the time during slow periods. Also sharpening rustys then melting them down to standard ores provided a cheap way to level smithing during vanilla. Since I usually played classes that were solo challenged for leveling this kind of farming allowed me to feel like I could get something done when grouping was thin.

    • 114 posts
    August 14, 2016 10:26 PM PDT
    I am hoping we do away with the nodes etc in this game.

    Personally I love the idea of getting stuff off a designated merchant. If you don't want to buy the materials, then they can be harvested off the mobs. Kill treats or creatures in the forest for wood, get skins off of animals, plants etc off shaman or wood dwelling humanoid or plant based mobs, and stone off mobs near mining or rocky areas.

    Just my 2 cents...
    • 510 posts
    August 15, 2016 7:29 AM PDT

    I would like to see a nice balanced system that allows all three types.  You can harvest nodes if ya want (mining nodes in a mine, wood from trees in a forrest, etc.), you can kill mobs for tradeskill items (wood from Treants, stone from Earth Elementals etc.), or yes - even BUYING goods (metal and ore from the miners that are working a local mineshaft).

    • 58 posts
    September 7, 2016 9:48 AM PDT

    personnaly i dont want the nodes to craft the more difficult recepy to be found in one area no matter the tier you're at.

    Example im making a scale plat made with animal scales.

    tier one could be done but with weaker animals but these animals are not in the same area where you would need to find your metals to make the pieces needed. 

    but as you level and get access to stronger scales then your armor would get better.

    And of course i don't want to be blocked by my adventuring level if i can raise my crafting level. If i'm able to buy stronger materials from other players and i keep crafting i hope this is an option.

    but as many mentionned not alot is out there yet until it comes out we just can speculate and give our hopes and dreams !

    beside this i enjoyed reading these threads alot of good ideas.