To be honest I've enjoyed harvesting in pretty much every game I've played. For some players like myself I'd rather be harvesting any day out of the week vs. crafting.
I've enjoyed harvesting in EQ2, VG, GW2, and AA. This is how I make money just like how crafters use crafting to make money.
Some people enjoy crafting and I usually hate it.
Some folks hate harvesting and I love it.
Some players even enjoy playing the market and turning a profit.
Everyone enjoys different things.
Kaydis said:
Horizons, of all games had a pretty good harvesting system. It was simple in concept, but the implementation worked out to be pretty good. Resources were divided into 6 tiers, every time your skill level went up 20 you opened up a new tier. Resources were clustered in patches rather than spread out all over. Lower tier resource patches were generally near cities, while higher tier ones were spread out farther and farther in the world, became more rare, and became more risky to collect. Each type and tier of resource had several patches where it could spawn. One a node was harvested in one patch it could spawn in any patch for that type and tier. This meant that if you harvested in just one patch the nodes would become depleted and become harder and harder to find as they spawned and filled up the other patches.
Crafting required harvesting so it became like a mini game, knowing where all the patches were, knowing when to move on to the next patch, setting up routes to go hit up different patches. It was still wack-a-mole, but the way resources were located and how they spawned kept it interesting.
You may be amazed how much that sounds like the Vanguard system.
Angrykiz said:
OK so far here is what I have taken away from this discussion...
Nodes are probably OK if the graphics blend in way more with the environment... Different shaped rocks nodes and species of trees/bushes. Please make trees fall over like Vanguard.
This would really be nice to see. I have yet to see a game do it as well as Skyrim, maybe alittle easier to see and differentiate, but big turd shaped nodes as we so often see are not as pleasing for sure. Also for players liek yourself that find nodes rather distracting, making them part of the environment would seem to be a great compromise.
Sometimes it might be fun to have a mob guarding some prime resources so you can combine adventuring and harvesting.
Another idea is make many mobs harvestable, such as Treants in Vanguard, or Golems in vanguard as examples. Of course hides are best handled like this but no reason any mob that could be a resource isn't made harvestable. This melds what you are saying very well. Especially if Pantheon implements group harvesting.
Harvesting should never be mandatory for end game questing.
I wouldn't say that, but it needs to be much improved over your good example of how is should NOT be done from vanguard. The Shawl quest in EQ comes to mind for a great epic quest that brought all three spheres together brilliantly, harvesting, crafting and adventuring. I woudl very much love to see such things in pantheon.
Alternative means of gathering large amounts of resources ... like raiding a mining or logging camp and cleaning them out would be fun.
You may be on to something here, but needs to better fleshed out, but the concept could be used to create quests, or raids for certain very rare resources those groups desire.
Some people like to harvest when they are on for a short time or just feel like soloing around a bit. On the flipside of that some people liked the group harvesting mechanic that Vanguard had but I don't really have much to say about that.
Harvesting was relaxing, well it was until you undertake Guild Hall creation in Vanguard lol. The group harveting mechanic is a greay social tool, as well as a great way for guilds to work together to build up supplies for members, as yields were much greater for time invested. Would be nice to see this in pantheon.
Thanks for all the input so far,
Your thread has spawned some good discussion.
Kiz~
Snuck my comments in red, but a very good synopsis.
Exmortis said:
You may be amazed how much that sounds like the Vanguard system.
I didn't get as far in Vanguard, but it was different in subtle ways. When I think about it they were very similar on paper but felt very different in real life. I think it's just an example of how it's not always the ideas that matter but how they are implemented that can make all the difference :)
OK, that and flying from patch to patch as a dragon is just cool.
Angrykiz said:
What if instead of whack-a-nodes for harvesting it was instead more like EQ1 foraging.
Like you could have the skills Foraging, Logging, Mining, Fishing, Scrounge Water and
depending on your skill level and the area your in you would just get a common, uncommon,
or rare when you clicked it. The items you get could be different depending on what zone your
in just like Foraging in EQ1.
This gives players something extra to do during downtime without having to run around looking
for nodes.
To keep everyone from just raising these skills maybe you can only specialize in one or maybe the
tools could be very expensive and break a lot. These skills would also go up very slowly and could
have cooldowns attached.
Thanks for reading,
Kiz~
I've liked harvesting in a number of games, I think I prefer it to foraging in EQ. Not that some resources wouldn't be better if they were foraged for.
I think a lot depends on implementation, Elder Scrolls Online had wack-a-mole nodes, but they were "hidden" by making them look like other things in the environment. You learn to recognize them by color or shape, but they were often hard to see. You could raise a skill to make them easier to detect at farther and farther distances. Of course if you put skill points into that you didn't have them to put in other places.
As I mentioned in Horizons they did locating resources pretty well. For obsidian for example, there would be only 3-4 spots in the world. mostly rocky areas, sometimes protected at higher level by obsidian goloms. You'd find a patch and start harvesting. Pretty soon all the nodes would be gone and none would be respawning. That was your cue that there had to be another patch and it was filling up. So you'd ask around and find out where that one was. You didn't really run around looking for them because they did not spawn in 99% of the world, but you did have to know where to find them.
Do I remember that EQ2 had something like specialization, you could only harvest a subset of available resources. So you tended to pick things that aligned with the crafting professions you wanted, or at least with the type of armor or weapons you needed. I think that's a good idea because having to make choices is always more interesting than being able to do it all.
Kaydis said:
Exmortis said:
You may be amazed how much that sounds like the Vanguard system.
I didn't get as far in Vanguard, but it was different in subtle ways. When I think about it they were very similar on paper but felt very different in real life. I think it's just an example of how it's not always the ideas that matter but how they are implemented that can make all the difference :)
^^ True Wisdom ^^