Thread for Funnel Up Content Changes

[rough quail]

Let me know what you all think of the content changes here

[silver basin]

So, if i'm understanding how it works, you need a tier 1 ingredient to make a tier 2 ingredient and so on. Is that correct?

[signal bolt]

Just as I was making a feedback document 🥹 you changed something. How much was changed to the current crafting system beyond just the codex system.

[balmy valve]

What is the change exactly?

Can you make codexes without refined materials now?

[slender glen]

Are these live? Is a restart neeeded?

[supple helm]

i was just about to start working towards my first tier-up today, so this change is fortuitous timing for me 😆 i've found some of the recipe changes already, but i'll have more detailed feedback once i figure out the specifics

[supple helm]

they are indeed live right now, check out the current recipes for refined items

[obsidian valley]

and this explains my extreme lag, its due to not having restarted 😮

[rough quail]

Changes are live no restart needed, change was pushed a minute before patchnotes post

[supple helm]

you don't need to restart

[ivory monolith]

Noooooo I was so close to getting stuff for the refined items

[balmy valve]

Mitch what exactly was made easier I’m a bit confused

[rough quail]

Summary of Changes is that funnel up is now in two places (earlier) instead of one (later)

[balmy valve]

Wait it literally just updated for me

Wait

[placid saffron]

it says you fixed some gathering needing too much stamina, but did you fix the one that required half as much?

[merry spruce]

Just as I used 80 logs to get 2 resin 😄

[balmy valve]

wait did firesand only require gypsite and shells before?

[rough quail]

Please keep this thread on topic to the funnel up changes

if you have thoughts on the other patchnotes happy to read them elsewhere

[idle saffron]

did you guys adjust braxite drop rates? i saw resin, but braxite?

[ivory monolith]

So, how does one get a textile now?

And which things are more rare now as compared to before?

[balmy valve]

WAIT THATS WHY I UNLOCKED LIKE 9 THINGS OUT OF NOWHERE

aaahhh

[obsidian valley]

so how does one actually get the recipes for the new stuff? new drops too?

[balmy valve]

thank you so much Minch I was just about to try and get to t2 and I was not excited

[supple helm]

@rough quail i had all the previous ingredient recipes and compendium information unlocked but i don't have the new item recipes unlocked, e.g. for the new Rough Textile. how am I supposed to do this? i've tried picking back up all the different existing materials

[idle saffron]

@rough quail did you touch braxite drop rates or?

[ivory monolith]

And the hair drop rates

[rough quail]

The rough textile isnt showing up in your compendium? It's like you just don't have any ingredients discovered

[balmy valve]

Omg you guys made crop oil drop easier like it used to thank the lord

[rough quail]

other than the mentioned resin there is no changes to and rates

[idle saffron]

okay ,ty

[supple helm]

correct, it isn't in my compendium. it shows up in the recipe for Refined Cloth with a question mark, but a search for text in the Items section of my compendium gets me nothing

[undone path]

Is there a more detailed list of the patch notes somewhere? The other post was kind of vague in it’s summary

[restive trout]

Thank you for giving some love to embergrain.

[balmy valve]

Wait or maybe you didn’t nvm

[quiet kettle]

COOKING ONLY TAKES 1 STAMINA NOW POOKIES???

[rough quail]

I'm purely looking for feedback here on the structural crafting recipe changes

[balmy valve]

Ye sorry I’ll stop

[mental lagoon]

From what I've seen is basically the same cost for making higher tiers HQs, what changed for example in planks, you needed flasks and planks, now you need the lower flasks to make higher tier flasks, and lower tier planks to make better planks, but making High quality only costs the same tier items

so if you have low tier HQ that's that, is this correct?

[rough quail]

The following Items which previously had funnel ups:
Refined Cloth, Refined Plank, Refined, Ingot, Refined Leather, Refined Brick
now have funnel up on the non-refined version AND they refining ingredient

Basically the cost of refined stuff is unchanged but the cost of unrefined stuff now requires the tiers below

[obsidian valley]

its really hard to comment on the funnel up changes, since all the new materials for them seems to be unobtainable? (all the rare materials now have no use according to the compendium)

[supple helm]

I have unlocked: fiber, thread, rough cloth strip, rough cloth, refined cloth, wispweave filament, and rough animal hair. i've tried picking all of these things back up, and i can't get the rough textile recipe to unlock

[rough quail]

can you DM me a screenshot because it looks correct in my compendium

[supple helm]

not being able to unlock the new recipe is proving a bit of a show-stopper 😰

[tender hazel]

doubling the work... my sanity.... is fading

[rough quail]

maybe restart your client, I'm not sure if the compendium changes update right away, I'm seeing it in mine (I re-launched after pushing the update)

[supple helm]

okay, i'll try that and let you know

[obsidian valley]

il try restarting and see if stuff appears for me too

[exotic lodge]

i have an item called "basic firesand" in the compendium which apparently i didn't unlock how to make even if i should have touched all t1 resources
now i will restart to see if something changes

[balmy valve]

I cannot tell if this makes things easier or harder honestly

[restive trout]

I restarted mine and I received a popup on the left showing about 28 new recipes.

[versed wren]

it makes everything a lot more time consuming basically

[rough quail]

We believe overall the amount of work will be roughly conserved, we are trying to make it so that the work of the lower level players isn't pointless. This is basically bringing it back to almost exactly how it worked in Alpha 1

[ivory monolith]

Which it already was. Soloing is going to be even more hard now

[obsidian valley]

restarting fixed it

[supple helm]

EYY THERE IT IS thank you Minch I'll have real feedback for you soon

[rough quail]

thanks this is good to know about, will pass this bug to the team

[inland flame]

I personally think its going to make doing simple things extremely tedious, lets look at leather quick,
Used to be able to go kill a tier animal and make leather, (excluding now other stuff like tannin)
Now, to make a t3 leather i need to first go find a light green patch n kill a chicken, carry it home and process it
THEN go find a goat and kill a goat, carry it home and process it.
finally go to another land mass go kill a t3 animal and then bring it home. all for 1 piece of T3 leather?
Personally i think this is gona make life feel crap 😦

[balmy valve]

I remember getting significantly more crop oil in alpha 1 so this will probs be even harder

[mental lagoon]

I can't help but notice the "oh so mighty" straw made an appearance as ANOTHER rare drop, and now from grain of all things, interesting. so we NEED to make grain now, which is good. BUT was flour/dough/bread and the likes balanced for a bit less of a painful experience? because I'm making 20 dough T1 for 4k work and 30 rolls for 3k, that feels weird

[sly fog]

I personally hate this mostly because its just how the game is structured. I havent discovered a whole lot of the map but it doesnt seem like theres any rhyme or reason to where tiers are located, so theres no easy way to streamline this and it just compounds heavier and heavier at higher tiers.

[mental lagoon]

no no no 😄 make that 2 chickens and 2 goats, you are missing an extra one there

[sly fog]

You're gonna be walking back and forth for literal hours for minimal gain

[rough quail]

Big Changes to food are coming in Alpha 3, baked foods should more rewarding

[sly fog]

and its not gameplay; its just walking

[balmy valve]

I will say it’s incredibly difficult for me to keep track of what I have to do lol

[mental lagoon]

so just throw the flour away, gotcha 🤣

[sly fog]

Yeah

[inland flame]

wait really?

[sly fog]

its tedious, that is really the best word

[mental lagoon]

yup, leather is now 2X like everything else

[sly fog]

I feel like there are better ways to approach this

[obsidian valley]

when it comes to food, id want to see different food buffs, rather than just "this gives x amount of stamina instantly"

[sly fog]

Im not trying to be toxic here at all, but with this change the game seems a lot less desirable to me and less fun

I play RS too, and that game has a lot of running around for sure, but this is insane to think about

[exotic lodge]

now they are showing

[ivory monolith]

While I understand the need to keep low tier players useful, this is going to make moving to higher tier biomes even harder as you will constantly need o bring even more low-tier things as opposed to before

[manic vortex]

The problem with tiering up is there is no point. Sure you can collect higher level items but to what end? You aren't any stronger to previous content and it just means you have to go farther, collect more to keep tiering up which again ultimately enables you to repeat the exact same game loop and content you already did.

[undone path]

These changes do turn ingot smelting into a bit of an inventory nightmare, considering both ingot types don’t stack. Maybe instead of fusing full ingots together, molten ingots could require the ore concentrates of previous tiers?

[balmy valve]

I do think the lack of stackable items makes this a lot worse

I wish everything could stack, maybe apart from like super duper important stuff like tools

[mental lagoon]

yup, firesand is basically the shells and gypsite combined to give cooks more work and 1 extra step like other recipes got to make high quality, because you need previous tiers for those now

[quiet kettle]

thank GOODNESS

[supple helm]

Actual Feedback a bit long but please read it all

One of my first impressions of the changes between alpha 1 and alpha 2 is that the progression system had been more streamlined into single-channel crafting. That is, each crafting profession and the steps for using each profession to progress both that profession and also your claim had previously been very interwoven between multiple professions, and in alpha 2, that interweaving had been reduced.

This recent change appears to have reversed that streamlining in the design of the crafting professions, and I think that was not the right call. While there were definitely some issues in the new system, the fact that it was less interwoven and more streamlined within the profession itself was a good change, and this update, which essentially serves only to revert that streamlining, is, I think, effectively undermining the best part of forward progress in the profession balancing

[versed wren]

I think implementing this funneling change without properly making higher tier tools have proper power differences also compounds this issue

[sly fog]

I really liked being able to play the game solo personally

I do stuff without my clanmates a lot and i am just here to have fun in a game at the end of the day

[balmy valve]

it still feels like you need to be a master at everything to really get anything done tho

[sly fog]

these changes make me feel like i need other people

[balmy valve]

im just autistic and socially anxious lol

[white slate]

Systematically requiring the lower thier to make the upper thier is at first glance a good idea.

But it takes such an outrageous quantity that in fact no one can/wants to sell it without sacrificing their own interest.

Or in this case we would need villages in the lower tiers which remain indefinitely weak and serve as farm slaves indefinitely.

[sly fog]

Biggest issue for me is how i spent 3 hours trekking back and forth between a desert for sand

90% of that time i was tabbed

Im not doing this as a gameplay staple

[balmy valve]

yeah theres 0 positive effects with that

[nova night]

I'm just sad thinking about how to inventory manage all of it.

[balmy valve]

and lugging around cart supplies searching for brico going 2 miles an hour is not fun either

[sly fog]

this was before the change mind you

[balmy valve]

its overwhelming aint it

[sly fog]

I understand some barriers here and there but this is too much

[neon willow]

Who wants to bother getting the previous tier material to craft the current tier? This is a horrible mistake. Instead of stimulating trading you make it worst, because now you always need the low tier materials and instead of selling them or trading them you will have to keep everything.

[supple helm]

I also want to recommend to everyone in this thread to please only comment on the effects of the changes, and not sidetrack this into a general balance mechanics topic.

the devs will be better able to use our feedback if we stay on topic

[undone path]

This is true, but all of these things are woven together.

[manic vortex]

The question here is why tier up? I'm still not clear on this. You don't seem to ever get "stronger", sure you can get more resources but why does that matter if you are never stronger in any way? Why not just run a Tier 1 empire, it's WAY less effort

[fair sentinel]

I think it is correct that the higher tier materials require the lower tier material so that new players are always useful, it is something that changed with respect to Alpha1 and I think that, as you said, it was necessary to return to that system

[sly fog]

funny number go up

[supple helm]

i think that this is a valid choice, you can just do this

[sly fog]

[neon willow]

then you will never exprience all of the game has to offer. Just don'tr bother playing instead.

[undone path]

I mean he isn’t wrong though

[manic vortex]

How so? I am tier 3 and tier 1 and tier 2 and tier 3 are all the EXACT same loop just takes longer and you have to travel farther. There is no "new" experience as your tiers go up it is just takes more time to do

[balmy valve]

main thing is that higher tier buildings look nice and storage stores more

thats basically it

its about making a nice village

[neon willow]

True, but then there's no point in playing. If you are not working towards something, you will end up quiting way sooner.

[versed wren]

Introducing the funneling change without properly balancing the tool tiers to give more power first feels very strange to me

[sly fog]

I tier up because i enjoy the game, the gameplay, and seeing what the next material is. Seeing whats around the next corner

[undone path]

If that’s all it is, then these changes make all the work less worth it

[sly fog]

I like to visit new lands

I like to explore and get that feeling of "oh man that goat thing is so cool!"

or "that waterfall is so beautiful!"

[versed wren]

it feels like going up to the next tier is a punishment rather than an upgrade with the funneling system, especially becasue the tools don't give a tangible benefit

[manic vortex]

My point is exactly this. The rewards for tiering up aren't worth the effort right now. They have to introduce more incentives to keep tiering up.

[sly fog]

and also the new buildings look nice

[nova night]

I don't mind the concept of needing lower tiers to make higher tiers (I'm new to Alpha 2, didn't play Alpha 1) but I think a lot more of the game needs balancing to make that concept function.

Things like ways to have faster travel between areas, bonuses for trading maybe, better inventory management and storage options.

[pine nacelle]

what about changing it only in higher tiers?

for example leave tier 1,2,3 as it was so it will be easier to progress for smaller claims
implement this system in tier 4,5,6 so it will slow down the massive ones?

and you will need T1 materials for T4 tier instead neeeing T3?

[rough quail]

A big focus for Alpha 3 is adding more long term goals as well as challenge to the game, can't share a ton now, but believe me that I know there isnt a ton of purpose to keep progressing and improving that is top of mind. This is part of being at the Alpha stage of development

[sly fog]

technically you need t1, t2, and t3 mats for t3 as it is now....

[neon willow]

Why not make it so everything requires more materials instead? Like to make a tool make it so it requires 6 ingots of the respective tier.

That way you keep people busy but they don't have to have to keep going back to lower tiers of items.

[undone path]

I don’t think that addresses the problem they’re trying to solve, IE keeping lower tiers relevant

[sly fog]

Why do lower tiers need to be relevant? honest question

and does rare item refinement not solve this?

I was fine with rare items being the only funnel source

i would argue it even made sense

[versed wren]

I think the funneling system for just refined items made more sense . I agree that with the current systems in the game, having a funneling system towards so many materials feels like a punishment rather than a challenge. I think there's a lot more systems that need to be addressed first before introducing a system like this.

[sly fog]

i would like to see more rare items made this way if anything

not just throw a blanket over all items

[covert wing]

new craft for brick, bad idea. Or at least only 1 from old tier for new tier cause 2 is to hard

[nova night]

A similar option could be using lower tier items to craft more of a higher tier with less higher tier materials needed. But an option to also just craft a higher tier itself with more higher tier ingredients. If that makes sense. (Crafting menu would be more complicated in this case, but it would give a lot of different options for gathering items and more choice to the player.)

[sly fog]

keep rare things rare, keep common things common

[arctic magnet]

My thought is this. The intention is to make new players relevant, however I don't see more than 20% of players being T1-2 (new) long term. However, T1-2 might be more than 50-60% of the work required.

[ashen sky]

Asking for clarification - was funnel up difficulty increased or reduced compared to last alpha?

[covert wing]

even for brico pack it was alredy realy hard to get, but now it feel imposible to farm it even alone

[versed wren]

Also, if a funneling system does exist in the game I would like to see higher tier processing stations process lower tier items faster for example, and for higher tier tools to actually give more power first

[sly fog]

yeah i mentioned how this just completely ignores solo players

[undone path]

I say make it for refined times and cargo items like brick slabs and wood timber. Things that are used in important recipes, but not ALL basic materials

[sly fog]

i have no clue how you progress solo now

[tall hinge]

I definitely like the principle behind the changes, think its interesting that embergrain has a use in tailoring crafting stream now, but it will take time to see how those and other changes effect game balance (will come back here later when I have more thoughts)

[covert wing]

I'm not in a solo group but I farm my own stuf when it's for my skif improbement to not eat team ressources

[rough quail]

The goal here is not to force you to backtrack but to give incentive to trading and working together. We've seen logs of cases of players just leaving gathered items on the ground because they have no value once you have passed that tier. We believe these changes (with upcoming improvements to trade) will make items of all tiers valuable.

In the medium term this should make playing solo better because regardless of your level of progress the items you produce are valuable to other players, and will make trading for what you want/need possible, whereas before you had nothing of value to offer.

[undone path]

Ideally with rented building and barter stands in larger settlements, but both of those are kinda broken right now so there’s not much we can do

[merry spruce]

Rare items are already rare, requiring lower tier rare items for higher tier rare items is bs squared, imo. Producing refined items was already hard, now it's just unbearably expensive.

[covert wing]

and even, the clay is hard to find even before the changement now it will be imposible (T2 clay was realy realy realy hard to find 5 day ago) T3 clay it's realy far in the desert and not worth the travel for a full inventory

[sly fog]

Ill speak for myself and say that doing this does not make me want to trade with other players

I leave logs on the ground because i need skill ups

i never planned to trade them

[rough quail]

just to be clear, the total item cost of refined items hasn't changed

[cerulean cargo]

if all tiers are valuable then nothing is valuable

[inland flame]

im sorry but no, what you have done here is either forced a backtrack or forced a trade interaction.

[versed wren]

i do see your vision in doing this funnel change but it feels rather short sighted to implement this change without implementing rewards for getting to the next tier first/in tandem with this change

[neon willow]

Yes, the reason there's so many matierlas on the ground, is because people are just farming exp.

[sly fog]

Oh hey, ur the person beside Juralumin (our clan) :D

[mental lagoon]

besides straw for cloth every High quality costs the same

[minor lynx]

Not necessarily. I have dumped hundreds of clay searching for the rare item

[neon willow]

true true

[crude yew]

Is it just trying to keep lower tier relevant or are you guys also try to slow down progress for higher tier settlements? Because this change makes more it difficult and labor intensive to create regular items for work stations and such? I didn't see an issue with how it was before cause imo tier 1 was still relevant in making refined goods for having to tier up.

[rough quail]

Do you have something in mind for what you mean by this?

[mental lagoon]

Either way I'll have to tst a bit more on gathering the rares if that was addressed in any way, because overflow will continue to exist since the need continues to exist

[ashen sky]

This precise mechanic is what's given me pause enough to sit back and watch during this alpha cycle - I'm very glad there is discussion and experimentation around it, but I don't have many good ideas on what to do about it. Tradeoffs with all options.

[supple helm]

We've seen logs of cases of players just leaving gathered items on the ground because they have no value once you have passed that tier.
this is a real problem but I believe the root of that problem is, as I mentioned in the alpha chat channel, the result of those items being so common in comparison to the required "rare drop" item you get similarly that their supply hugely outstrips their demand and the value drops. the problem there is that ratio of how many X you will get while farming Y

[undone path]

These changes aren’t taking into account that the tools that would help us trade and cooperate are either broken and difficult to use, or just outright unimplimented

[fair sentinel]

The change is correct but another urgent change is required, the supply recipes must be buffed, it does not make sense that with 2 ingots of ore t1 you make 500 supplies and with 2 ingots of ore t2 (which now requires the ingots of t1 plus the ingots from t2) make 1000 supplies

Furthermore, given that the workload grows exponentially, it is also urgent to solve the tool damage coverage.

[rough quail]

We have ongoing changes being worked on to better balance supplies

[undone path]

Not to mention we don’t really have a currency that has value for trading

[minor lynx]

1000% agree, I am ok with this change bc I am farming those items anyway, but it doesn't fix the rare issue so we will still be dumping stuff

[crude yew]

That's a non issue. Its called bartering

[inland flame]

refined items to tier up should be effort to do, my wife and i spent the entire weekend griding to get out T3 tier up, but now just to make normal things having to do what feels like the same grind as a tier up feels super crappy

[supple helm]

yeah. if the point of this change was to minimize people dumping common materials, then I don't think it will succeed at that goal

[sly fog]

we literally have ruin coins for this purpose

[mental lagoon]

the problem right now is that for everything else that didn't need previous tiers to exist since it was outside of the codex loop, just got exponentially harder to maintain, while the rare stuff looks like to have continued the same, which won't fix the "leftout resources" on the ground

[versed wren]

I think if you did make a funnel system it could work but higher tiers aren't rewarding enough to make this process work properly. For example higher tier tools don't give higher power beyond t2 tools. In my opinion higher tier crafting stations would need to have more slots, and process lower tier items faster. Currently, the funneling system just seems to make the game tedious, hard, and punishing. The only tangible actual upgrades are the power sources currently. Through implementing the funneling system you're just adding punishment with no reward. Put simply, we would need more reward if we're going to put more time into things. As it currently is, the game is just overly cruel feeling.

[white slate]

He has changed, and a lot !

Now a T3 solvent requires x2 T2
Before solvents, necessary to craft refined items does not require solvents from lower tier

[manic vortex]

It's not the same grind. It's exponentially more of a grind since you have to redo both the T1 and T2 grind but more items in addition to the new things for the T3.

I get the intent behind the change but this is basically sealing the fate that solo/small groups of players will only progress so far. It's simply not a realistic option to play the game at higher tiers without having to join a huge player group

[neon willow]

I still don't think this funneling system need to be impl;emented for everyday crafting recipes. Maybe, instead just make it so making the codexes for Tier up, require more materials, specially of the common variety.

[undone path]

Not all players are online at the same time. Barter stations only let you request items in your compendium. I cannot request an item or tool that I don’t already own

[mental lagoon]

you needed the previous tier High quailty 😄 which used the solvent

[celest stirrup]

I think that there is going to be a big pushback on this type of changes until there are better systems to support them
as of now the only way to get bulk quantities of lower tier stuff is having a big group, this group also needs to be made of mostly random people since its near impossible to guarantee friends you know IRL will get an alpha key (paying for support badges should be a way to support the project, not a requirement)
this would be fine if the trading wasn't basically a profession in itself with the bartering stands needing constant babysitting while providing basically 0 visibility for what you need or sell

[iron fog]

not only that, river accesability on this map is a pain.

this new update yet again limits trading even more

[crude yew]

This is totally valid but having some kind of world currency wouldn’t fix this issue :(

[noble crater]

I think 2 T2 planks for one T3 plank is overkill.

[rough quail]

Previously you required two refined items of the tier below (which was made using 2 solvents), the total amount of items hasn't changed, just moved

With the exception of the new addition, straw, the amount of items that go into refined items of every tier is unchanged

[shell citrus]

I think this change was poorly decided for this alpha given there i no travel method to make trade feasible. At this point in time we have found trade routes so difficult and inconvenient that we already gave up on trade. We want to trade but the map and mechanics work against it

[noble crater]

Exponential cost in time

[undone path]

I agree, that’s a tangential issue

[gloomy mist]

not skibidy

[arctic magnet]

I think supplies should be the universal currency

[mental lagoon]

And I think for leather too, since it was probably an oversight that it was 1 to 1 from t2 to t3, and it became 2 to 1 like all the other ones

[iron fog]

thats understandable minch, but in the old way we could trade the needed materials for the solvents easier because of inventory slots and not needing the carts/boats for trading, rn ur making it that all previous tier ingredients are gonne be used up to make higher tiers, so again Less trading since there won't be a overflow

[inland flame]

im not sure if i missed anyone pointhing this out but is change not going to kill trade? If i need ALL my lower tier stuff to make higher tier stuff that means im never going to sell anything?

[iron fog]

as trading on this map is a pain because of no river access, no continental access unless u move ur boat/cart stuff 3 to 4 times. as we can't go up certain rivers

[merry spruce]

So the "previous tier" price was moved from t-1 refined item to t-1 refinement ingredient. And total required resources are the same. In that case, what is the change about? Apart from new recipes for cloth and bricks, which did not have a separately producible "refinement ingredient".

[rough quail]

Can you elaborate, I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say

[versed wren]

Even before the change, upgrading the next tier was a lot of work with little comparative reward. It feels rather short sighted personally to add so much effort to something before you add a comparable reward to it.

[rough quail]

correct, the change primary affects the item cost of unrefined items, these now also require the items of the tier below

[undone path]

That’s.. an extremely good point

[celest stirrup]

you could sell Tx stuff for 2 or 3 T(x-1), (theoretically, ignoring the current barter stands problems)

[iron fog]

so before trading solvent materials was easier as we could just run to a trading deed with the required materials in our inventory to make the solvents and u didn't need that many basic materials, so people could trade out extra leather/planks/ the bulk stuff easier.
Now because u need double the basic materials, u need to do more trade trough carts/boats with the packs. which is impossible due to the terrain we have this alpha.

[balmy valve]

i think for each tier, the crafting stations need to provide you something other than just letting you continue the game progression to really feel worth it, cos building t2 stuff doesnt really feel good in any way rn

[obsidian valley]

Simple leather solvent t2 seems bugged, it needs 2x t1 solvent, everything else need 1x t1 solvent

[merry spruce]

Oh shi... I didn't even see that. That's interesting. Will have to play for some time to fully grasp this change.

[rough quail]

Again, just to clarify, the cost of tiering up is unchanged (codex cost is unchanged)

[mental lagoon]

sadly the low tier rares have such a bad rate either way you will have overflow, which honestly we craft into supplies, but most will continue to leave on the "side of the road" and rare items will still be needed to all the needs you needed before, with just the extra pain everything else now also needs previous tiers

[rough quail]

Looking into this

[covert wing]

( and skif was alredy hard to improve before this update) now it's imposible

[iron fog]

jep

[iron fog]

because those extra mats u had spare for the skiffs is now being used for codex

[mental lagoon]

same cost since it's High quality

[covert wing]

nah my problem is : even if you use T2 pack it mean 33 pack for 1 T3 skiff

[iron fog]

jep

[crude yew]

imo this change is killing trade and not promoting it. Its taking away excess mats and time. Instead of ppl making extra things to trade now theyll be forced to use any excess into putting it back in the claim for tier up. Not for the codex’s but for all the buildings and tools you’ll need for people

[covert wing]

getting 500 coin was alredy a pain , (and the resine farm before the improvement on the update [NOT THIS ONE] ) . Getting 1000 coin all by yourself now make me want to stop play the game

[ivory monolith]

Much appreciated for throwing fiber out of parchment creation tho, I no longer have to fight tailor for it

[rough quail]

Also just to be clear, the higher tier tools don't deal more damage but they allow you to do higher tier activities which give dramatically more EXP (even for the same dmg), you get more than double the EXP per time at T6 vs T1

[iron fog]

yeah but takes 10x more stamina to

[balmy valve]

it really doesnt feel like it

[somber wave]

this change might have the desired effect.
I do think lower tiers being needed by higher tiers can promote trading, it just takes time for people to adapt to it.
people without access to T1 or 2 in their biome might want to start trading higher tier materials for lower tier, saves them the time travelling.
but like every economical change where people have to do a bit more effort there wil be a lot who get angry. 😅

[balmy valve]

it still feels more efficient to just farm t1 stuff

[torpid pivot]

why add mroe burden to refined cloth when it still takes too long to hunt sagi birds with the current state of respawns and the hunting profession

[iron fog]

I agree to that ROnarr, IF we could trade on this map. RIver system in a flat land that has certain waterfall ways, and not having a direct access to east side of the ocean trough land demolishes trading rn.

[undone path]

Being higher level doesn’t help is much with all the low level items we need, as long as the power cap is in place

[noble crater]

Imma pause play until this is ironed out I think. T1 trunk > t1 log > t1 stripped wood > t1 PLANK... four times.... + T2 trunk > t2 log > t2 stripped wood > T2 Plank two times ... + T3 trunk > t2 log > t2 stripped wood = ONE T3 plank? Absolutely shocking.

[inland flame]

yea but when those people find out they need to keep those lower tier items to be able to move to higher tier stuff and stop selling it, then you are going to have to go and get your own T1 logs?

[versed wren]

Yes, but now upgrading to the next tier comes with such a huge burden of having to collect all the tiers more. My main concern is that the game doesn't reward upgrading to the next tier enough to incentivize this much work needed. The funneling system adds another layer of burden onto tiers that makes the game feel more that is punishing you for leveling up rather than rewarding you. Like i said before, currently the only tangible upgrades to the tiers are power sources and those don't feel rewarding enough for the work needed even pre funeling change.

[iron fog]

its like i said, before u had trading of overflow, now u don't have trading because there is no overflow

[balmy valve]

serin i feel like ur saying all the things im thinkin of rn

hero

[undone path]

Honestly I feel kinda bad for Minch with the chaos storm that is this thread >_>

[crude yew]

Feedback is feedback ig 😭

[noble crater]

Oh, no hate at all, just needs ironing. ❤️

[balmy valve]

me too but we gotta remember this is what feedback is for

[rough quail]

Can you clarify what you mean by upgrading? What specifically?

Agreed on there not being enough rewards for progressing, this is something we are cooking on

[iron fog]

with this change, Empires have the advantage over a village with 4 people.

[manic vortex]

The funnel up concept makes perfect logical sense but I see one major concern with this concept as it requires an exponential increase in demand of previous tier items that per the strategy is meant to be fulfilled heavily by new players.

The thing is it requires more and more new players constantly joining to keep up with the demand and if those players quit it undermines the supply chain.

It basically is creating a house of cards in which if the demand out paces the rate and retention of new players you risk burning out your seasoned players making them do all the farming themselves.

[versed wren]

Sorry for the lack of clarity, by upgrading I mean moving to the next tier

[covert wing]

at least rework the skif movement if you expect trade beetween player, if we can't move on lower / higter water level it's imposible to have fun in traveling

[rough quail]

What specific part of the process? Because the research cost is unchanged from these changes. or do you mean buildings / tools ?

[whole rover]

nothing prevents you from mining T1 stuff too if there's not enough produced

[obsidian valley]

on this, considering the costs of crafting, t1 is way more worth it for exp, when it comes to gathering the stamina usage, rarity and distance means exp is faster from lower tiers, the exp gain from higher ones dont beat farming a lot of lower

[rough quail]

We're fixing some of these inconsistencies with the stamina

[undone path]

As long as as rentals are too buggy to be usable, getting randoms to work together in a larger claim is a pipe dream :/

[tardy blaze]

Read the next paragraph. He specifically said the work will fall upwards and burn out people

[versed wren]

I mean in buildings / tools

[whole rover]

I am quite new, didn't experience Alpha 1, and have been invested mostly solo in this Alpha. Just got to T2 so this change is impacting me directly RIGHT now. And I think it does make sense. In the released game I intend on specializing... so running a store with all tiers of wood is what I see myself doing

[ivory monolith]

But the satisfaction people had from higher tier tools going faster

[inland flame]

@rough quail, if you have to keep this crazy funnel, can you look into stacking? because as stated before some of these items are getting so crazy that having them take up 1 of 25 inv slots is not great

[manic vortex]

Yes but if you are a T6 player are you really going to want to go mine 1,000 of a T1 one resource, 500 of the T2, 250 of the T3, etc... That is just going to burn people out. The concept makes sense as long as the source of the previous tier materials is meant to be other players

[rough quail]

What specifically is buggy? We were able to run a public claim with the trading post we made and including some random players with and without rentals. I didn't hear any issues

[cerulean cargo]

make fihs stack

[gloomy mist]

having to travel like an hour to the tundra just to get a minimal amount of fish oil since darters dont stack, travel all the way back since they changed how outposts work is actually so crazy and draining

[undone path]

Or perhaps inventory upgrades crafted in higher tiers, similar to power sources. Two birds one stone

[covert plank]

Well now there is no reason to have a base outside of calm forest/plains.

You need 16 trips of T1 and T2 stuff and 3 trips of T4 and T5 to make T5 stuff. Are you really expecting to have 3 times as many low level players compared to higher?

Also rip higher than T2 buildings. You want a slightly better house? That is gonna be 3 times the effort.

[cerulean cargo]

I need to waste 30m travelling just to get 25 t5 fihs which is not pog

[noble crater]

It wouldn't be as bad if higher tier tools processed the lower tier goods faster.

[gloomy mist]

real

[whole rover]

maybe I misunderstand, but I just crafted a T2 plank with a T1 plank as ingredient. I didn't need 2. So its 1:1 all the way up right?

[crude yew]

It’s doubles for every tier …

[celest stirrup]

nope, t3+ require 2 of the previous, t2 is the exception

[iron quail]

ill be honest, this new double upgrades with everything feels incredibly bad - now we have to get double the amount of everything to upgrade to the next tier, its making me not want to play the game.

[whole rover]

ah well in that case, that is stupid

[inland flame]

hold the phone... i JUST realised its 2xt2 planks for 1 t3??

[ivory monolith]

It DOUBLES? Not +1, but DOUBLES? Oh gods

[iron quail]

yes

t1-t2 is 1:1 after that its 2:1 per upgrade

soi when yuoui get to t4-5 its insane amount of materials

[inland flame]

fun....

[iron quail]

its just not fun

[iron fog]

so with spawns being broken and trees not respawning where u've cut them this is gonne be fun

[noble crater]

Exponential cost in time. 2 mins processing a T3 plank before will now take 2 + 4 + 8 mins, for one plank. Multiply that for the amount of planks you need, plus harvesting for each log.

[gloomy mist]

this!! i don't get the point of removing it from last alpha then adding this 😭

[whole rover]

it should just be 1:1 all the way up, then it makes sense

[iron quail]

cause they want everything to take alot longer - which i get, but its just not fun in any sense of the way

[opaque glen]

progression is suppose to take a while but I kind of think improved trading needs to be in the game for the change to not feel as bad.

[covert wing]

Alpha 1; 2 from old tier for the new tier /// Alpha 2 : rare mat to improbe, and also need old tier rare mat, /// AND NOW 2 from old tier + 2 rare mat from old tier to craft the new rare tier item

[balmy valve]

to make it take longer they need to make it enjoyable first

[undone path]

This may be a separate thread: tried to rent a store, one of the claim owners came inside to see my wares, and the game bugged and wouldn’t let him leave. They had to deconstruct all the structures inside before it would let him out, and I didn’t bother asked for the rental back after that.

[noble crater]

More time != more fun

[iron quail]

i have no problem with having a grind, but they way it is now, is not the way

[balmy valve]

same

[undone path]

Happened almost immediately

[covert wing]

I love bitcraft but this patch make me want to leave, and I think I will cause my progression feeling will be stuck on just farming low tier for my hight tier stuf (skif uppgrade)

[crude yew]

It’s going to kill off small and medium sized groups imo only large settlements will survive

[noble crater]

Im just sat in paralysis in game atm as I don't want to waste resources for when it gets tuned again.

[iron fog]

same with our team

[mellow sky]

Trading is really hard imo, if I need T1 planks, how do I know where/who is even selling them? I'm not looking to sit in global chat spamming that I need T1 planks until I find a seller that has what I need at a price I want, at a distance I'm willing to travel. If I had all that information available via the map or "trader bench" I would definitely look to source my resources instead of farming them myself.

[rough quail]

they shouldnt be able to deconstruct if you've rented it, Can you DM me and we can see if we can get to the bottom of this?

[balmy valve]

that too thats my issue

[covert wing]

even just a T4 chest will need a day of work

[iron quail]

we're strugging as tortuga with around 10-15 active people, we hit t5 the other day and were progressing to t6, now its impossible

[noble crater]

Please be wary of the folly of Haven and Hearth Devs - they tried making things take longer and it really died.

[balmy valve]

tbf this is like only the second open alpha

[noble crater]

I know, just tempering the lean ._.

[iron fog]

half my team didn't want to play this alpha as its more annoying than first alpha. with things being so game broken. sorry to say minch

its no longer a fun grind, its a tedious gameplay now

[tardy blaze]

Motivation decreasing

[crude yew]

with ShoVel a group that constantly fluctuates between 5-10 we hit t4 recently and had an entire excel sheet planned for mats… now… its joever 😭

[celest stirrup]

#1263454390602436711 happened to multiple people, me included, sent reports via the hub and logs to Alessandro already

[iron quail]

annd these early alphas are the perfect to make these changes

[whole rover]

I know this is a survival MMO. Things are supposed to be grindy. And this is absolutely only the 2nd closed alpha... so I have faith in balancing. I am assuming this choice was made too hastily and the devs will see this is TOO grindy.

[marsh fable]

what to do with so much grain? just for about 19 straw i habe 4k grain. i will NEVER process this much grain for dough with is just basically a afk crafting BS for effin nothing much

[tender hazel]

dont forget about the 10 or so closed pre-alphas

[versed wren]

The 2nd alpha has actually been a lot less annoying the 1st alpha in my opinion

[tardy blaze]

They took out the grind and added rng. Now the grind is back WITH the rng

[noble crater]

I'll await the announcement for the fix, gonna go play something else for a bit. Again, no hate for devs - this was a big step, and listening to feedback shows real character. Go team dev! ❤️

[balmy valve]

yeahhh but refining things feels a lot slower, sure the previous alpha was just random chance, but you didnt need to go through 6 steps to get it

[opaque glen]

I believe converting materials up to get better versions is a good concept, like 2 T1 planks = 1 T2 plank, but also have the previous recipe for T2 so that there are two ways to progress toward it.

This would give value to lower tier materials forever, just at reduced value, but still allow progression without needing the lower tier material. High end groups would then have the option to buy a lot of low tier stuff for cheap as an alternative to farming their "current" tier stuff.

[unreal turtle]

I'm honestly just mad that I have to undo all the low tier refining I JUST did only to lose the mats and also have it take forever. You could have at least done us the courtesy of making it take 1 effort per not 100

[iron quail]

how about instead of doing 1-1 for ingots (or 2-1 in later tiers) why not atually use metallurgy, if you want to use 2 different ingots, so you get bronze by mixing 1 tin adn 1 copper. instead of just using more things

[noble crater]

a 1:1 ratio would be acceptable - achieves fair requirement across all tiers, but doesn't exasperate the supply chain. Please allow higher tech tools to process faster than 20 power tho.

[whole rover]

yeah I was thinking this yesterday, why can't I use T1 clay to make T2 clay

[sly fog]

Im with the others tbh. It was fun, new PoE season is out so i think i know what i'll do in the meantime

[rough quail]

This is now fixed

[viscid cairn]

the supplies we get from resources is now out of balance

[inland flame]

I honestly think this is an amazing idea, This will promote trade and give people incentives to sell there leftovers from needing to make the (old recipes) tier up codexes

[sly fog]

Unironically huge idea

this would also make tools doing the exact same damage to materials despite tier make a lot more sense

[whole rover]

For upgrading to a higher tier I'd even be fine with a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio, because it doesn't impact direct production at all, it's just a way to scale up.

[sly fog]

since all tiers hold the same value in a way

[versed wren]

I agree with this !

This would undermine exploration I feel like though, as in what would be easier to do .. travel 30 minutes one way to a desert or just convert the items? Maybe it's also a fix instead.

[celest stirrup]

why would you leave the starting area if you could get t6 from trading it up from t1?

[whole rover]

This is why it might be worthwile to do the 1:3 or 1:4 ratio, it will be a massive grind

[mellow sky]

Technically you could do this already, by trading your T1 up to T6 instead of crafting it

[opaque glen]

Yea, 2 t1 to 1 t2 was just example, reduce ratio even more could make sense like he said.

[celest stirrup]

it would have to be a massive ratio to offset the travel time and the fact crit chance is higher for lower tier stuff

[versed wren]

I think ChickenBranches' idea is a lot better than the funelling system

[opaque glen]

part of the offset is also the higher exp you get from getting higher tier materials/crafting

[celest stirrup]

theoretically yes practically not until the barter stand revamp

[tardy blaze]

I was literally thinking last night... Gee, I've been neglecting Esports Godfather

[whole rover]

for any of the funneling to work properly we need a proper trading system in place

no matter how it will be implemented

I'd happily walk around with my cart fetching stuff and trading stuff... Hell I'd play trader for you if you pay me a bit, but no idea how to do that now

[marsh fable]

As a farmer and cook i am pissed, there is just even more stuff to grow and bin because the low tier mashed bulbs and grain are just useless. But you still need the rare stuff, so you grow stuff, to bin a lot of your effort ....

[versed wren]

Another issue is that the tier 1 zones would have to be exponentially larger/increased spawn rates to keep up with the demand

[inland flame]

If you look at the ratios it could be abit crazy to stay in the T1 zone.
T1|T2|T3|T4|T5|T6|T7|T8|T9|T10
1:2|1|2|4|8|16|32|64|128|256|512
1:3|1|3|9|27|81|243|729|2187|6561|19683
1:4|1|4|16|64|256|1024|4096|16384|65536|262144

[mental lagoon]

and the T1 zones have never been smaller, there really need to be a bit more planning for a next alpha map generation

[sly fog]

I already have trouble finding things in t1 zones sometimes.....

and im the only one there at times

[opaque glen]

Just pulling from another game, could add additional loot that is a tier below when gathering, but loot/cart management could be a pain. like t3 materials also has a chance to drop additional t2 material. Doesn't help much the T1 situation being discussed though.

[inland flame]

To be hones, most things would be a tedious extra grind, LEATHER will be the line that makes people quit

[shell citrus]

I am sorry but in this case Devs I think you ignored to much of the issues we've been raising and pushed forward without thinking about the impact. Travel networks do not exist because of the way the waterways and waterfalls and such work so longer distance trade is dead. Further, the respawns are so borked already that finding t1/t2 stuff is already a very tedious grind because it won't respawn and we have to hunt and hunt for it. If you don't fix your current issues your change only further hurts the economy balance not helps and I find it very short sighted.

[mental lagoon]

^ This update was really kind of a surprise bomb

[torpid pivot]

pin this comment

[sly fog]

I will cut off my fingers before i farm t1 leather up to t4 or 5

[crude yew]

^^^ amazing summary

[jovial parcel]

I do not think the T1 bird respawn rate is high enough to support this change with the number of players right now, presuming the spawn rates for them have not been tweaked. Some of the professions might have... I wouldn't say benefited, but at least absorbed the impact of this change somewhat fine, but the leather industry wasn't one of them.

[tardy blaze]

Bump

[marsh fable]

this feels like that nightmare, where you are running and running, but you can not progress. the change is just hurting especially the casual players, just because the hardcore grinding players are progressing fast. that is how it feels and it feels pretty bad.

[sly fog]

theres like 6 sagi birds in the zone near me, dragonprinces, and many others

no way that ever works

[inland flame]

i havnt touched a chicken in days! 😛

[sly fog]

yeah me neither thank god

[crude yew]

this ^^

[marsh fable]

we are grinding so hardcore, to test the stuff. normally we would not go as hard, but alphas are not long, so bigger groups put in their all to test stuff and we get punished by it, especially smaller groups get punished as it is right now with these changes

[mental lagoon]

I processed 24 T2 small stones earlier, (6 stone chunks) and not a single braxite dropped, now processed 80 T1 logs (20 big logs), not a single t1 resin drops, I think it's safe to say, drop rates stayed the same? close to nul, so this patch does indeed not solve the overflow of items such as logs, while increasing the problem of the shortage of t1 leather as already previously mentioned

[tardy dagger]

My first thoughts on these funneling changes are that the funnel up needs to be on the most basic resource to avoid the massive time sinks required to complete items like leather and ingots which take HOURS to process, only to be thrown away because of these changes
Leather should funnel up on Pelts. Ingots should funnel up on Ore Concentrate. Cloth should funnel up on twine/thread/whateveryoucallitnext.
Otherwise all you are doing is funneling up the grind and removing the enjoyment.

[marsh fable]

@rough quail with these changes the better boats are even more impossible to get to. it just really feels super bad

[mental lagoon]

I'm mostly processing the logs since I need T1 planks, but processing drop rates are abysmal, to not say non existent still, so I can't rlly blame the wood choppers for decimating whole forests and not caring about the logs

[sly fog]

Kyria is my spirit animal holy

[marsh fable]

it was already a slog to upgrade boats, but with the changes? forget it

[ivory monolith]

th bigger boats are just there to mock us

[tender hazel]

bump

[versed wren]

bumping this

[tardy dagger]

T1 leather is going to bottleneck the entire tier progression system. Nobody wants to sit and wait for birds to spawn then run around hoping someone else doesn't get in first

[rough quail]

Just to be clear here, skiffs are primary using refined items so the costs hasnt changed

[iron quail]

yup - this update has killed the game for me, hhanded over claim control and empire control as well as gave all my tools away to plp in my claim. I'm all for the grind, but not like this. I have been going hard for this, since the A2 began, which was approx 7days 20 hours ago, I have played 5days and 22 hours of that in game. This is very sad but its just not fun or rewarding in anyway, I have most if not all professions to 30-40+ which scholar being 60+ and LW being 58. I may be back for Alpha 3 depending on the changes, but this is left an incredibly sour taste with the game now.

[sly fog]

You still need the base item to craft refined. This is false

[marsh fable]

Most of our group have played for 5-6 days constantly. that is the reason we progressed fast. a lot of players very active. now that will change, since many are very unhappy

[sly fog]

Oh nvm they changed refined items

[ivory monolith]

You can now get refined items turned back to potions? Huh

[tardy dagger]

also if you want to make tools the more expensive item to craft Please let us consume the lower tier tools so they are not sitting filling boxes. They already have components that could technically be reused (metal and handle parts etc). Make the lower tier tool be a funnel up instead of a waste of storage

[iron quail]

cause you dont use the refined product to upgrade, you use the solvent etc to get to solvent t2 - whereas before it was plank t1 refined to plank t2 refined

[rough quail]

we added these for A2 so if you already refined more items than you wanted to you have a way to revert to the refining ingredient which is now needed for funneling up

[shell citrus]

I understand and feel ya. I'm calling it a night and will see what comes of this. Don't feel up to playing more tonight

[iron fog]

same here

[crude yew]

would love acknowledgment on this shared sentiment

[iron quail]

p much same, im not gonna be playing any more A2 until something changes to make it better, or we get to A3. It's just too much. We are goiing hard cause we have a limited time (5 weeks) and it just feels like we've been spat on for playing alot.

[barren rune]

I also feeling it to much also for smaller groups, we are 4-6 People and we are really active bcause we take the time but we cant keep this uptime for long, yes its a grind game but it feels to much rn, more longer i play the lesser im enjoying it because of the hustle. With these changes its even more.

[iron quail]

there is this constant push for trading, which i get, but there is no incentive for trading as it stands. We moved over to the autumn forest to get away from people to start, we barely see anyone come past at all. One thing that was discussed in our discord was have something like a NPC village central bazaar where the different towns can put down a trading stall and have to travel to there to restock etc and see what else is tradable.

[strong tiger]

My claim is in the tundra and my group has carved an entire cart-friendly path across the full span of the pine forest, all the way from the southern shores of pine forest, into the tundra. One would think that this makes trade amazing and simple and easy, but the fact is: Any time I need even a few T1 items, I have to spend a full 30+ minutes travelling south to reach a biome that has the basic T1 materials I need. That's, to be frank, excessive, and making the trip back and forth constantly has actually caused burnout among a few of my group.

If the intent is to promote trade between 'tiers', maybe the focus should have been on making transportation of goods less of a slog BEFORE making changes like this to the recipes themselves.

[iron quail]

that card track was incredible, thank you so much for doing it

[undone path]

What about the material packs you need for birco tokens as well?

[strong tiger]

I'll DM you, don't want to get too off topic here

[vernal trail]

If i might make a suggestion, if this funnel up system is here to stay i think getting tier ups for ores and bricks should not require you to 'cook' the items multiple times. for example, combining T1 unfired bricks with T2 potters clay to get T2 unfired bricks.

[undone path]

I still say the best solution would be for refined materials and cargo materials to have funnel-ups, but not ALL materials

[swift hamlet]

I'm really not a fan of these changes. Super demoralising to play for the average person. I went from being completely addicted to not wanted to play anymore

[ancient thunder]

This change wouldn't be so catastrophic if other balancing issues were fixed already to accommodate.

1. Vehicle speed increase
2. Vehicle Storage Size
3. Roads Improving Land Speed
4. Bridges
5. Larger Storage Size in Stockpiles
6. Faster Biome Recovery/Growth Rate
7. Tool Power Scaling Appropriately
8. Supply/Demand Trade Boards to Facilitate Easier Trade Between Posts

[undone path]

I don’t mind needing lower tier mats to craft a house or workstation

[ancient thunder]

The need for so many low tier items is going to annihilate the T1 area and prevent growth into higher tier areas

[sly fog]

Can we also get a despawn timer on stumps? if its already in the game i dont notice

been to ravaged expanses with a bunch of stumps and no trees a few times

[undone path]

On the upside, the lower tier mats you get from uprooting stumps have more purpose now

[marsh fable]

respawn of trees is not connected to stumps. you can get resin from stumps as well. so cutting them down makes sense, but people are lazy

[sly fog]

yeah, i usually destroy em for the resin

[sly fog]

oh reallY? well nvm then i guess

always thought trees couldnt spawn if the stump was still there

[marsh fable]

the respawn is globally, so they just respawn somewhere else. it is somewhat random, so you can end up with some more "empty spot" but in other areas it is dense then

[celest stirrup]

they block the spawn spot, but not the total number

[covert wing]

but brico pack is dead now with all the brick it request

[tardy blaze]

So, empires are RIP, right?

[covert wing]

500 took me 2 full day, now I need 1000 and the cost is double so at least 1 week of farm

[wet needle]

I don't feel like I'm making reasonable progression for my tier anymore, I wasn't blasting through either as I'm still just tier 2. I understand that the goal is to get people to work together more, but this feels like it's way too forced of an approach. It's also going to make areas barren since higher tiers can't leave the tier below them for other people to farm instead

[barren rune]

Everything RIP RN, my group just quited 😄

but i think they make the right balancing, its a alpha and those tests needs to be done, so i believe the Team and the Progress ^^

[tardy blaze]

Digress

[neat oak]

I’m kinda wondering what the ideal balance is going to look like. Yeah, eventually, if we all get together and settle in larger cities with trade in between them, what is each player’s “job” going to be?

Because right now, the ideal setup is to have enough people in a claim where one person has one task, but holy cow does that sound unfun. I don’t want my entire purpose to be “cut down trees and process logs” all night for the betterment of the claim.

But that sounds like that’s what this balance direction requires

[vernal trail]

i actually personally do want to specialize haha

[cerulean cargo]

there's a difference between a "want" and "forced"

[white hamlet]

I think changes like this would normally require a wipe, it's hard to give feedback on such a large change.

[dull vault]

I think this change would only work if there was a constant influx of new players to the game

[vernal trail]

or people who willingly gimp themselves to lower tier materials

[barren rune]

I also think there is not enough rewards for doing all this, atm we jsut doing it for the levels and for testing, but yea they will need a lot of purpose to let people grind this much.

[serene fractal]

Agreed, I feel like this funnel implementation is effectively implying there will be a nigh-infinite supply of new players, that are ALWAYS ready and willing to trade up .... for what, IDK, because there's either nothing they can actively use (beyond some t1/t2 tools), that wouldn't be useless to them within 2 days.

[dull vault]

right now, there are more people giving up the game than there are new players picking it up

[barren rune]

because there is a limited amount of Keys and player 😄

[serene fractal]

Making it funnel and rng based progression is pretty much killing any vibe I had of enjoying.

[wet needle]

You can buy keys for access, so limited free keys only

[dull vault]

exactly, so these changes cannot be properly observed, and instead just makes the game even more punishing for the players that were still sticking with it

[vernal trail]

i think the fact that there wasnt a wipe is making the knee-jerk hatred more common

[serene fractal]

even if there were no keys required, do you think there will always be massive numbers of more new players?

[barren rune]

yes buying, the mass of people will not pay for an alpha this early.

[serene fractal]

because for every tier up, you're talking twice as many required materials, so... twice as many people you're buying from.

assuming they're going to sell, since they're going to want those materials themselves...

[dull vault]

infinite growth!

[versed wren]

the new funnel system essentially is a pyrmaid scheme if it does rely on new players

[undone path]

The purchasable keys are also limited

[barren rune]

i mean there are Average 200 active Player. We dont know how it feels when there is like 10k and more.

[white hamlet]

yeah, this is an alpha, wipes shouldn't really be a surprise.

[serene fractal]

you think >50% of that 10k are going to stay at t1/t2 indefinitely?

[vernal trail]

from what i've seen there were already players laying waste to T1 forests trying to get resin, now those abandoned logs can actually get used at least

[barren rune]

no but i think people will focus on t1 stuff for trading.

[serene fractal]

so we're back to the original, 'we want high level people to hit high level stuff so they aren't scaring off new people'

[undone path]

I think that’s the problem they were trying to solve… but this really isn’t the solution

[sonic hollow]

I mean teir up does work, Eve Online essentially has light teir-up, but only 2 teirs. But Eve Online also has active PvP

[serene fractal]

it's really not comparable with only 2 tiers.

[versed wren]

the solution proposed by chickenbranches would solve this a lot more

[vernal trail]

what solution?

[versed wren]

i can't post links to their message, i will just copy and paste ^^:

I believe converting materials up to get better versions is a good concept, like 2 T1 planks = 1 T2 plank, but also have the previous recipe for T2 so that there are two ways to progress toward it.

This would give value to lower tier materials forever, just at reduced value, but still allow progression without needing the lower tier material. High end groups would then have the option to buy a lot of low tier stuff for cheap as an alternative to farming their "current" tier stuff.

[serene fractal]

then they'd just sit in t1 and outfarm anybody around them

[white hamlet]

As an Albion Online player this is nothing new to me. I think what's missing is a really good market place, but as it's a sandbox game, the players need to create it.

[wet needle]

People will still sit in t1 and outfarm if it's always needed

[vernal trail]

been trying really hard to create it haha, but i have no baseline for hexcoin worth

[arctic magnet]

I want to know why the devs think that the funnel system won't make their game fail for the same reason piramid schemes fail

[sonic hollow]

The two paths doesn't work only because players will just do whatever is more effecient, if you can use your current teir to get resources and make the next teir that's what most will do

[vernal trail]

calling this a pyramid scheme is a little extreme, no?

[wet needle]

Funnel scheme

[sonic hollow]

I assume the reason they want the teir-up system is so that new players can contribute to the overall world, even as there are players that are using high teir items/buildings

[marsh fable]

no it is not. you can only either backtrack and high tier player go and get low tier stuff or high tier player exploiting nwer players

[arctic magnet]

It relies on new players farming resources for higher level players to prosper. Eventually all your new players become high level players and can't be properly supported.

[iron quail]

people might do it for a bit, but it wont be forever.

[sonic hollow]

Or people who want to farm T1 mats for profit can do so, granted I've never seen any economy happen in either of the alpha playtests

[versed wren]

If you look at the ratios it could be abit crazy to stay in the T1 zone.
T1|T2|T3|T4|T5|T6|T7|T8|T9|T10
1:2|1|2|4|8|16|32|64|128|256|512
1:3|1|3|9|27|81|243|729|2187|6561|19683
1:4|1|4|16|64|256|1024|4096|16384|65536|262144

as mentioned by Dragon princes

[marsh fable]

with a broken logistic and trade system, you can not have a working economy

[sonic hollow]

I can see the logistic issue, I really don't think we should have travelers give carts. I think they should be make from higher-teir buildings, that'd give incentive to advance AND allow higher-teir players to have better logi OR allow them to sell the logi to people for profit

[vernal trail]

if travelers dont sell carts than there's no reason for them to be in the game

actually, i just remembered something silly

[sonic hollow]

Just repurpose the rewards. Brico also gives mallets that are useful and you can add other useful unique items

But if logi is a pain, no one will want to transport anything

[vernal trail]

many of the travelers sell refined materials packages and i dont think anyone really interacts with that

[sonic hollow]

I think the deedable trade post helps make the selling easier, though it's a bit small

[vernal trail]

agreed

[silver basin]

I think someone suggested before, but I think splitting things up like Tier 1-Tier 3 where you need 1 to make 2 and 1 and 2 to make 3. Then 3 to make 4 and then it resets at 4 so you need 4 to make 5 and 4 and 5 to make 6. The only problem with this is that it doesn't keep Tier 1 very useful for the long term. But I don't think you should need something from Tier 1 to make something from Tier 5. That's just not... logical, I guess?

[sonic hollow]

Isn't this how the current system works? T1 to make T2. T2 to make T3 etc all the way up the teirs? Or did that change somehow

[marsh fable]

i think trading up or down tiers will not work as it is right now. the lower tier claims wont get equal worth back. the stuff they could trade away, they need themself for their own upgrades. the only really viable kind of trade would be between equal tiers, like Claim A specializes on wood and claim B on stone. there a exchange would be within the same tier similar effort.

[silver basin]

I think so. My only problem with it is some stuff just needed a lot of material to make.

[sonic hollow]

Your only trade is needs to be something that makes your gathering of T1 materials faster or more effecient. Problem is that we do not have anything that is easily achievable, as logi is locked behind Birco and is a completely different system

[undone path]

I mean sure, but turning lower tier materials into higher tier ones doesn’t really sit right with me. Maybe if Rumbagh had more valuable wares, that could help? He has no purpose now that decayed tools are gone, and he buys material packs. That’s what all the NPCs are for, isn’t it? Material sinks?

[sonic hollow]

Also higher tools power got nerfed this alpha

meaning the only reason to upgrade tools is for higher teir mats

[silver basin]

Also not being able to skin goats unless your claim is tier 2. There were so many goats but I couldn't use them!

[undone path]

The message I was replying to got buried, lol

[marsh fable]

the point i made in that comment had nothing to do with the broken logistics. as of right now. there is no reason for a low tier player to trade away their gathered stuff

[vernal trail]

i mean, except for the insane excess that's made from farming profession exp

[marsh fable]

farming is plain stupid right now in low tiers

[sonic hollow]

If they're advancing that is true. But you could trade for better tools before you get access to them, theoratically if the game is aged

[marsh fable]

but the better tools right now, are not better. That is the point we are making!

[sonic hollow]

Ah, that part I agree with. The tool power nerfs was unneeded

[vernal trail]

how are you supposed to get to higher tiers if youre not farming low tier profs??

[sonic hollow]

Trade for higher teir mats with your lower teir mats

Is an option

since lower teir mats should stay vaulable forever

[brazen sedge]

Ontop of this there's very little reason for a higher tier player to sell their excess as well. While imo a change in the right direction it seems like current balancing and avalilable content doesn't let it be an effective solution. We all have the same goal, why trade if we need everything and all have the same goal?

[vernal trail]

but your profession limits you from actuallyworking with high tier mats

[sonic hollow]

but the logi issue makes that difficult because transporting large amounts of materials over long distances is painful

[arctic magnet]

This goes back to the fact that there is very little benefit to getting higher tier stuff, a problem Mitch said is a major A3 thing.

[sonic hollow]

You claim is the real limit right now. Teirs are locked behind claim teir

[somber cypress]

My sister and I play this together. We are only two people who like crafting games. We chose a great spot with T1-T2 materials away from all but two other groups. Turned out they were LOCUSTS. They clear cut and let rot everything around them - because "they were leveling". I started asking them to leave the resources right next to our camp alone when I saw them. Shortly after those groups ran out of resources near them we discovered there were no T2 or T3 resources near us. They'd cleared it ALL. While the trees respawned the lack of ore was killer. We just moved half the world away to the swamp/mountains to get away from people so we could have resources. We can't trade since there's no central bazaar option where we can see who is trading what and where. Simple solution to that would be a searchable option in the trader that allowed transactions from around the world without needing to take a boat or wagon across country hoping someone nearby is trading what you need and you have it on you. Second issue is the constant supply drain for small groups. Set the supply requirements by amount of people in a claim. Lesser drain for fewer people so your small groups aren't spending so much time just putting together supplies. Now suddenly with this update we need more resources not found in our area which will never be sold because large groups will need them to upgrade all of their stuff. I mean your base has 15 people who all need t3 gear how much aurumite is that? Enough to denude large areas as we found out. And so much stuff DOESN'T STACK! How are people supposed to keep resources around without a giant darn base? Which of course requires more supplies. And the supply stockpile is useless for stashing anything over 250 supplies. For us the new recipes requiring travel back to starting areas to get more than the occasional rare item is just too depressing and quadrupled our grind.

[proud nova]

I just want to say, thank you all for the feedback

we're taking this all into consideration

[arctic magnet]

Thank you for listening to us

[sonic hollow]

The instant-warp world trade would destroy any reason to really have a trade bazzar. For this type of game, you need actual moveable logi but it needs to be obtainable imo through progression, not a combination of two systems.

THe resource locust is more of a balancing issue, as you want resources avaialble to people but also don't want them too plentiful to make no trading possible. Honesly the T1-T2 areas around starting spawns needs to be larger

[mellow sky]

I think this style of communication is great, a single topic of focus, which will touch on connected issues that hopefully make it easy to trace to core issues. Loving the game so far!

[vernal trail]

the map was much larger in the 1st alpha

they made it a lot smaller cause they're testing other things i think

[sonic hollow]

They wanted to test Empires and have competition, I think. But I think the empire system needs to be discussed in it's own thread

[vernal trail]

Personally i thought the new refining materials was a nice alternative to the funnel up system but i guess it didn't make enough impact on gameplay? i think they should tweak that more instead of reverting to funnel up

[shell citrus]

Also one thing I haven't seen called out that desperately needs more attention because this same mistake keeps occurring and is truly hurting the balance is the upgrading of packs. For example:
Two t1 ore is 500, two t1 + two t2 is 1000, four t1 + four t2 + two t3 is 2000 supplies. This means it cheaper to stop at T2, just like it is for brico backs. We've seen this with the refined packs. This lack of balancing it through when deploying further hurts our trust in the patches and the internal QA that you may be doing. I say it that way, because this is an acknowledge issue that has been disccused many times already this alpha and it was done yet again.

[sonic hollow]

Good point, I also have had issue with how supply packs scaling works, as I see very little reason to make any of the higher-teir supply packs because they take way more than is worth

[jovial parcel]

Carpentry seems to have been balanced differently than the other crafting skills.

[vernal trail]

honestly i was happier converting low tier materials into supply packs over potentially hoarding them for making the next tier up materials

[shell citrus]

agreed and if the intent is to test empires which requires a metric ton of supplies them just hamstringing our supplies hurts that intent. I've watched empires fail and die already from the supplies required.

[sonic hollow]

To be fair, this is going to take some iterations to balance the resource generation vs consumption, especially if you want a game like this to last for years and not get dominated by those that play the longest

[vernal trail]

most skills are balanced differently from the others?

[shell citrus]

Agreed, more calling out that this is a repeat issue and that is where a lot of frustration comes from. If you want us to trust your changes making the same mistake repeatedly is going to lose that trust and get more cristicim, because it begins to look like/feel like its not being tested before changing.

To be clear not saying the devs didn't test, but actuallity versus perception are often very different and perception has a large impact on longevity. This is part of why the quality assurance position exists in DevOps roles.

[jovial parcel]

Nvm

I saw that wrong

[sonic hollow]

I do think we should give the critisim, but also remember they are still developing features so balance isn't the foremost thought. The alphas like this are great for getting the feedback, but they also have other systems they want to introduce and see their impact to things.

Just saying we should remember they are wanting all the features before balancing, and they have made some changes between A1 and A2 for the current logi to make things easier, so they will continue this trend I assume

[arctic magnet]

*This is supposed to be the test, it is not a full game.

[shell citrus]

I completely understand that it is an alpha, but in a process such as this when an issue becomes re-occuring it needs to go into the checklist to be vetted. Logic can be wrote for that. As an observability engineer I do a lot of this type of check listing and to me it feels like they are not doing that.

I 100% expect balance issues and bugs in an alpha, but once they have acknowledge an issue, I expect that the changes next sprint won't make that issue worse.

[tardy blaze]

I get the distinct feeling the Devs aren't really playing the game

Maybe testing features piece mail

[sonic hollow]

I mean they play sections while testing their code I would imagine. While that is different vs playing through all the teirs, it probably isn't zero percent

[tardy blaze]

But not seeing what progression feels like as a player

[sonic hollow]

I think that is more on whoever is balancing the resource consumptions and probably the one that decided to reintroduce the funnel-up system

I'm honestly not opposed to the funnel-up system, but I do think the reward for going up teirs needs to be more than "New buildings to process higher-teir resources"

The most I always want honestly is more storage for all the resources I need, to chests and stockpiles have been why I teir up

But that's not really super exciting

[arctic magnet]

Check this message

[sonic hollow]

Oh that's cool, I got in here late and didn't realize that was mentioned

Honestly, would be cool if we could sell better storage. Have it something like one-time deeds for lower-level players to get more storage for their resources (maybe I should add that to the idea threads)

[shell citrus]

@sonic hollow brings up a good point there. One of the balancing items that I hope to see from alpha three that this has added to is how much we throw away. With the addition of straw to grain we are gonna throw away even more grain. T3 and higher grain takes so much effort that with the 20 power tool it takes hours (grinding, making dough, drawing water, cooking secondary ingredient, oven time) to produce 100 meals (10 stacks) which gets consumed in a base of 8 people in less than 1 hour. Now we have to grow even more grain for straw that we are honestly throwing away. We dump grain by the tens of thousands before this change, because seeds are a great way of making supplies. (using grain because I started as a cook)

[arctic magnet]

It's a good idea

[somber cypress]

I'm afraid I'm not seeing how worldwide trade would destroy a trade bazaar. I'm suggesting a simple listing of who's trading, what they are trading and the ability to buy/sell it from that listing. This keeps down travel time and allows people in far flung areas to trade resources that aren't local to each other.

[sonic hollow]

One of the purposes of the big distances and different resources in different areas is to encourage exploration and establishing relationships with groups to trade. At least that is my understanding of a non-global trade network. I do think we need something to know who is trading and what in game, but I do not think there should be a global buy-sell system which discourages travel and making relationships

[arctic magnet]

I think seeing available trades from the map, probably with a range the size of a biome, would do wonders to promoting trade.

[somber cypress]

I agree that at least being able to see who's relatively nearby and selling what would be very helpful. I like exploring but it's hard to find time to do that with the grind. I'm still evaluating the new recipes and it looks like our hopes to get rid of the old base are pipe dreams now.

And with the new addition requiring more gypsum perhaps an update to it's drop rate would be appropriate.

[opaque glen]

I saw some concerns mentioned about converting low materials into higher tiers. Maybe more diminishing exp gain for lower tiers at certain level benchmarks plus recipe only being at higher tier structure in addition to recipe having level requirement could help make it a way to make lower tier materials worth more without letting them skip progression path. Could also add some higher tier material to conversion recipe if needed. Like 4 t1 plank and 1 t2 resin to make 2 t2 plank recipe at t2 structure with level 30 req? Example ratios can be tweaked

[restive trout]

Personal thoughts on these changes: Ingots, cloth, planks, and especially leather should not need to require the previous tier. Leather's already much more unnecessarily difficult to obtain since removing the ability to use knives away from a workbench.

If the goal is to slow down things like buildings and tools, there are other solutions. Tool upgrades could require the previous tier of that specific tool (as in Aurumite Axe would require a Pyrelite Axe in its recipe). Higher tier buildings could require the previous tier's items (or even something similar to codexes, but less difficult).

Supplies were already difficult to maintain on larger claims. The increased difficulty in crafting the regular items makes it nearly impossible to support a claim that's taking over 1000 Supplies per hour without completely halting progress.

The regular items requiring the previous tier does nothing positive to promote trade, either. Trading infrastructure needs a major overhaul to where it isn't necessary to seek out trades on Discord. Until that happens, it's not going to be easily encouraged.

The changes to the refined items is excellent, however. The amount of inventory space saved until the final craft is necessary and very much welcomed. I love that embergrain is getting the love it deserves, just wish either oven cook times were halved and/or oven capacity was doubled.

[plush steeple]

I don't think the trade values at some NPCs make much sense now. a T5 mythic gives 240 Mark of Heimlich, which costs 2x t4 material. The T4 version gives 150. If you aren't limited by the broken pieces you actually get much less in return for turning in higher tier items now. You are basically spending more resources [t5 (which needs 2 t4 + extra)] for 240 Marks when if you just made 2 T4 repaired instead (less resources, effort) you would get 300 Marks.

[tardy blaze]

I was just explaining this exact problem to our group. It's only worthwhile to turn in t2

Otherwise your flushing mats down the toilet for less coin

[plush steeple]

do you have a sheet with all of the prices? I only had the top tier ones written down

[tardy blaze]

It doesn't matter what you throw at us Devs, @sterile apex and I will fish t1 bait fish and enjoy it 😛

No, sorry. Was just at a heimlich a minute ago looking at prices

[fair sentinel]

I think it is better that planks, leather, ingots and cloth use the previous tier, this way new or less dedicated players will always have an important contribution to the village.

I agree with the issue of supplies, currently it is very expensive to maintain a village, while carrying out research and maintaining a war effort by manufacturing hexite capsules. I think the issue here is the need to increase the supplies that some recipes provide, currently the supply recipes of higher tiers are less efficient than those of tier 1, when the logical thing is that there would be a significant increase in their efficiency.

If we take mineral ingots as an example, making the recipe for 2000 supplies costs 2 t3 ingots (which also means 4 t2 ingots and 4 t1 ingots), that is, a total of 10 ingots (200 supplies per ingot without having take into account the different tier of each ingot). On the other hand, the 500 supply recipe costs 2 t1 ingots (250 supplies per ingot, without the need for higher tiered ingots)

[neat oak]

I know they are aware of the fundamental economy imbalance with crafting supplies (e.g., 2 batches of 2 cloth give same supplies as 1 batch of 2 refined cloth). But good to know of further imbalance with new funneling changes

[jovial parcel]

After playing and not yet seeing the impact on resources: I do not like the inventory juggling this requires.

[sly fog]

My entire friend group already quit because of this change, so you def aren't alone Shimmer.

Prospect of running around the entire map for 2 hours for 1 plank I guess wasn't intriguing to them

[jovial parcel]

I mean, I'm not the only one in my group, but we're determined to tough it out a bit longer.

[neat oak]

Yeah I’m irked by how tedious the changes sound, but I won’t be able to settle in and REALLY play until Wednesday. Then I’ll know

Still aiming to hit T3 before the end

[restive trout]

I respect your opinion, but I wholeheartedly disagree.

New or less dedicated players can still contribute Supplies regularly using lower-tier items, as you said. Better supplies are completely pointless now and wasteful. New players can gather materials for their tools if they want or even work on their own claim or rented space.

There is no need to constantly require lower tier items. This just makes it more difficult for people specializing in those skills, even if they aren't trying to upgrade their character's tools/buildings. There's no guarantee of a constant source of new players, either. A lot of people would get bored very quickly and find it pointless to tier up at all.

[sly fog]

The hyperfocus on supply issues which this very clearly makes worse anyways) and the fear of new players being irrelevant seems very strange to me

[jovial parcel]

Like, ignoring the inventory issue, the funnel up sounds okay in concept. But now we're not only using up resources for the tier up, we're also using up those resources for tools and I could have my grasp on the math wrong but it just seems like an overall increase in resource consumption period when we already don't have a great flow for T1 animals or for that matter I'm hearing ore's been an issue.

[sly fog]

The actual issues are travel times, inventory, and sustainability. All of which have been mentioned already

It's very shortsighted to see this as a good change with the game in its current state

[sly fog]

Yeah it's especially bad with leather since t1 birds are so scarce

Imagine 10 people farming them at once

God forbid more

[jovial parcel]

I mean, from our end it's been okay, we've a good spot. But we've got, what, ten members all needing some sort of tool upgrade?

We're going to end up using over three or four times as much T1 leather as we did for the tier up!

[sly fog]

Yeah and the higher up you go the more you need

[jovial parcel]

And I mean, we weren't exactly doing well, just not as desperate as some others are.

I don't think we could afford that spike in leather count.

[sly fog]

I have a smaller group which makes this just feel worse. Even if we all wanted to we can't have every resource on farm all at once, and even if we could I feel as if this wasn't mentioned yet

It's a game, I want to pursue things I want to do and find intriguing

Not be forced to go on a monotonous gather quest because of a pyramid scheme

I want to have fun, not engage with a tedious system

This is the entire point of games, and I feel like with these changes nobody at any point stopped to ask "ok but is this fun?"

[mellow sky]

Keep in mind the fundamental core of the game is still being worked on, the "fun" is what is placed on top of a healthy sustainable core imo

[acoustic turret]

There is no need to constantly require lower tier items. This just makes it more difficult for people specializing in those skills, even if they aren't trying to upgrade their character's tools/buildings. There's no guarantee of a constant source of new players, either. A lot of people would get bored very quickly and find it pointless to tier up at all.

As a gatherer main, I'm considering to stop playing this alpha.
Basically, I'm going to be stuck gathering thousands of low tier mats.
Grepster earlier mentioned that it's more efficient to have a T1 empire with the way currently things are. People normally take the path of least resistance.
There is no significant reward to tiering up, In fact, grind is punished with even more grind.

This is the entire point of games, and I feel like with these changes nobody at any point stopped to ask "ok but is this fun?"
Absolutely.

[jovial parcel]

It is, it's just that to have players stick out to actually test that core it has to be at least fun enough.

[sly fog]

Everyone is going to have a different definition of fun, but my point really is I don't think anyone would've said "yes, this system is fun" and that's the problem

[valid talon]

The most of the fun remaining is the fun for grinding, and there are plenty of other games that have a lot of grinding in them that the player can find more fun in

Like, the people that love grinding have a limit too

I’m very worried that I’d not find it fun anymore, I’m always grinding by myself since I don’t get home until midnight, and having to constantly get lower tier materials more than I already need to would really kill the game for me

[rocky orchid]

As it stands now, this just broke the game for small communities. There are two of us in our claim. We tried to get away from folks by going far away and they followed/spread and took ALL THE RESOURCES. You cannot progress with no ore to be found. Want to have animals of the correct level? Travel far and hope someone has a leatherworking bench unless you value 5 minutes of walking for 1 kill. We moved across the world and now have to go back to our original base to get T1 mats (and T2 sand) because they don't exists in the swamp. I would love to trade if there were an easier system. Instead, trading stations don't even appear on the map so you can find a community nearby trading. Given the travel time, trading isn't worth it even if it existed. After our experience with the resource hogs, there is no way we want to be nearby other people. With two people, more than 1/2 our time was spent just doing supplies for the claim before this change.
I'm frustrated that everything is harder and we keep being told we should join other people. I don't foresee playing a game that expects me to have only a couple of professions for months. What I liked about this game was being able to change to a different profession after 20 or 30 minutes when I got tired of one thing.

[neat oak]

^^ If the professions had more depth and breadth where we could do MANY different things in one profession, it would be ideal

[signal plaza]

I understand the want for trying to make trading worthwhile, but a: the number of lower level players is not staying at the right rate for this and b: it just adds so much stress to making things

even if I get all my t1 planks from someone else, I then have to likely unpack those planks first, shuffle around my inventory, etc etc

if you want to do this, ALL processed goods MUST stack

no packaging them, they simply must stack in an immediately workable state

[hollow kindle]

Or be able to have chests linked to workstations ^

[jovial parcel]

I don't know if this is universal among my group, but for me, one of the reasons why I haven't considered trading is because over the last two weeks the resources that were common are now scarce. The stability of the items I need isn't there for me to want to not hoard extra against future need - like this one, or the tier upgrades.

[signal plaza]

this too is a huge part of it

lower levels aren't going to trade off their stuff if the entire focus of the game is progression progression progression

[jovial parcel]

They're also not going to trade off their stuff if they can't guarantee a source stability.

It doesn't have to be long but the way things have progressed over two weeks is far too short.

[signal plaza]

instead of focusing on making lower levels still worthwhile, make focusing lower levels worthwhile. make it so that someone who decides they want to make a settlement in the plains where they still progress, but they only actually work on gathering plains materials is a valid playstyle

[mellow sky]

That is the intent with this change I believe, needing plains materials for higher tier things. The vision is you stay in the plains, then trade with someone in the Tundra, giving them plains goods for whatever tier you need, for example

[hollow kindle]

Nobody's gonna trade T2 for T1 when you need the T1 to make the T2

[signal plaza]

yes but you aren't going to do that right now, because actually getting them those goods is going to be near impossible

[jovial parcel]

Nobody's going to trade T1 for T2 if they can't guarantee they can get more T1 in adequate quantities to feel safe and I really don't feel safe about my ability to acquire more T1.

[dull vault]

they need to up respawn rates for lower tier materials heavily

[hollow kindle]

Respawn should be regional, not global

[jovial parcel]

I dunno about respawn rates, because what I've found is that the T1 materials have migrated to untouched regions in concentrations I didn't see when I started playing the game.

[signal plaza]

tbh this is exactly why I think resource spawn and growth should be increased around claims

[jovial parcel]

And maybe they're not quite untouched but at the very least there's no claims nearby.

[hollow kindle]

Or there should be at least some logic in the respawn timer to prioritize areas with less resources nearby

[jovial parcel]

Maybe it's confirmation bias, but me and one of my groupmates went and scoured an distant area that was flush in T1 runes clean and now we've been seeing T1 runes back at base much more often. It's hard to tell if that's someone on the dev team tweaking spawn rates or not, though.

[silent hatch]

The revert of the funnel up system to alpha 1's feels like a step back in many ways:

1. Requiring lower tier material will reduce trade and promote hoarding since there is a reduce sense of surplus
2. The increased slog required for everyday "needs" crafting, beyond a reductive sum of effort points (attention/gathering/collecting/backfilling/transporting) makes significant events such as Tier-up and vehicle upgrades feels more like a by-product rather than an accomplishment.
3. Fixing the issue with surplus littering by mandating demand via needs feels misguided. It should be fixed with "wants" (decor, non-essential buildings, and resource alternative) to drive demand for those who can afford to do so), not "needs" of everyday crafts
4. Increased gathering and storage needs is extra burdensome on smaller claims
5. The current systems do not easily support trading and logistics, so trying to promote trade in this ecosystem is putting the cart ahead of the horse.
6. Full stack material tier scaling requires an pyramidal increase in new players, which is not sustainable
7. Surpluses are not inherently bad. Only when you have surplus would you get other emergent play, such as public utilities.

I'll be expanding this in a full feedback thread with specific examples >_>; #1265125294709145682

[arctic magnet]

I just find it really weird that respawn rates depend on the arbitrary size of the map.

[dull vault]

that's absolutely how it works, there's a set level for every unique resource node in the world. when you gather it completely, it will respawn anywhere in the world where it can

eventually, by random chance, it will all end up where there are no players to gather it and push it back to where players are

[shell citrus]

Voxel kind of answered this just a little bit ago in the bitcraft chat. Essentially it has x number of t1 carvings to spawn and it randomly spawns them in a valid spot. May not be anywhere near where it was prior though

[jovial parcel]

Thanks.

[signal plaza]

Processed items need to stack

[dull vault]

the fix is simple, if you just force resource nodes to respawn close to where they were gathered from

[signal plaza]

that fixes so much

[jovial parcel]

But anyway, I feel that some sort of regional stability of item types really needs to be present as a prerequisite for trade. Another one is the ability to transport a number of items actually equal to the demand.

[mellow sky]

Then you get no travel/exploration, you will just walk the same route near your claim and gather stuff up, craft it all while you wait for the respawn, and repeat - global spawning encourages travel

[arctic magnet]

It encourages being a hermit in the middle of nowhere for your base location and the idea that groups forming around you are bad as well.

[jovial parcel]

Counterpoint: if all my resources are going to eventually spawn elsewhere, why would I trade it off?

[hollow kindle]

Why force us to keep our claims in one place if the resources we need will always be elsewhere?

[mellow sky]

When the server is up long enough people will move out to the "good" locations, populating the entire map, instead of just hubs cause they know resources will come to them

[arctic magnet]

I like Minecraft where the world is theoretically infinite, but you only need a small part of it. Having a system where "populating the entire map" is a requirement and not just bragging feels bad to me.

This system means that even if the entire map is populated, the map will need to increase, causing everyone to groan that all their resources will just respawn in the new area "stealing their resources."

[mellow sky]

With the global spawns it becomes a living world, we overfarm where we are settled and create a rise in resources in "the wilds" so now it's lucrative to make the journey that far when before it wasn't, creating variance and interest. Otherwise you're just playing cookie clicker imo if you know exactly where you are getting all of your resources from. I don't know for sure but it sounds like they are trying to create a truly dynamic world, not just a solvable progression tree with a meta.

[hollow kindle]

But you can only craft in one place, and have to stay nearby to make sure it stays supplied.

And all progression is tied to that claim, so if you want to move, you literally start over from zero.

[jovial parcel]

We would need the player population count with corresponding server capacity to allow the resources to spawn back, not to mention the time for people to move out. Do we? If not, it's going to continue to feel bad during the alpha to trade and thus any changes to the system is not, even if it normally would, going to encourage trade.

Moving feels very bad right now, because we start from ground zero in the new settlement and have to do the same exact thing, which is run out of resources again, to get to the same level.

[mellow sky]

I do think more flexibility in moving would be helpful, still costly - but losing all progress is a big oof

[jovial parcel]

So we move, extract all the resources, get no higher than we were before, and then have to move back, by which time our original settlement probably decayed.

Or we just stay where we are and ship things increasingly long distances, in which case I'm not sure what the point of trade is when it takes the same amount of effort to farm the T1s and trade for the T2s and possibly more effort as farm the T2s.

[plush steeple]

Trading would work a lot better if you could actually specialize instead of needing to be tX in everything

[jovial parcel]

Agreed on that point.

I would point out that I personally don't see anything wrong with running a place out of resources. I just feel like a two-week timescale is too short.

[valid talon]

Maybe a system for temporary outposts that allow you to use a certain few professions of the same tier as the settlement making the outpost?

That would fix the “moving” issue

[dull vault]

enforcing resources to respawn within a maximum distance from where they were gathered would still allow resource densities to shift over time, just more gradually

[bronze hawk]

trading would work a lot better if there was an actual system to help facilitate trading 🙃

[dull vault]

they did seem to like the idea of modular tier upgrades, so you can upgrade for certain tiers specifically instead of doing blanket tier upgrades for all professions

[somber cypress]

What is the point of the single base if your resources migrate elsewhere? You go to all the trouble to choose a place with plenty of resources and they go elsewhere?

[jovial parcel]

Yeah, I'm kinda not focusing on that bit, not quite my forte, sorry.

[hollow kindle]

Seems like they're trying to make that everyone's forte.

[jovial parcel]

The idea is that there are enough players that the resources will be driven back eventually, so there's a bit of a dynamic.

I think?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[hollow kindle]

Really though, making T1 resources required at all levels seems like it encourages hoarding, not trading. Why would I trade a resource that I know I will need?

And low-tier players aren't encouraged to trade it either, because they also need it to progress.

[mellow sky]

My solve for that is in the feedback suggestions - a trader skill that possibly would unlock vehicle/bag space upgrades so even if it's not "efficient" to trade you're getting trader exp and quality of life improvements by trading

[jovial parcel]

There's also the possibility of just having resources that come from T1 nodes be so common that you can't store it all but don't need it for low tier levels.

[somber cypress]

I think this game just may not be for me in the way it's designed. I don't want to share space with others. I've tried that and had all of our usable resources taken by others. I went past another area somewhat near the old base to hear a nearby group complaining when they saw me until they realized I wasn't there to steal their resources. It seems the locusts have spread further afield in their resource search. We can't trade because we can't see other traders on the map or have any idea what they are trading without physically going there.

[dull vault]

they could add special packaging and unpackaging stations, that takes time to package and unpackage but allows you to fit a lot more items into a skiff or cart

[jovial parcel]

...Actually, nevermind my comment, it's a horrible idea.

[dull vault]

and you can only have these stations in high tier (high as the resources being packaged) claims, so you can't just set up a t1 outpost and package high tier resources

[jovial parcel]

That... kinda sounds like a good idea.

[dull vault]

it's kind of like bank notes in runescape

you can hold a lot more bank notes than you can the actual items

[vernal trail]

im having the opposite problem haha, i join communities and then never ask to share resources out of fear of wasting them or being a leech. i'd rather have my own personalized space while trading for the things i dont want to grind for but the rental system broke very quickly and i had to become an officer of someone's claim in order to not lose everything

im sure a lot of my complants are just alpha jank at the moment though, still have hope for players who want their own space

[bronze hawk]

this update has my brain stuck on what direction the devs want this game to go... maybe its just me but i feel like they're wanting people to go out and trade with each other, but the game completely lacks the facilities to properly support trading.
I know its alpha and not everything has been implemented into the game and maybe im just getting ahead of myself and the systems are in the pipeline but it just seems weird that such a core aspect of the game is virtually absent.
Then an update gets pushed through to require all resources from previous tiers which is completely counter intuitive to pushing trade because any resources i collect im going to keep because now i need them for every aspect of the game to continue progressing

[somber cypress]

I'm not giving up on the game at this point. I'm just not sure that the final product will be a game I want to play. It may never have been aimed for me. If it was aimed for people who want to be in a guild together pushing to rise as fast as possible instead of a couple of people goofing off a few hours each evening then it probably won't be for me. I've done the big guild thing and I don't want a second job.

In my experience people tend to hoard resources in game if they have the space to store them. It may be optimistic to think people will be willing to trade something they might need later especially now.

[hollow orchid]

to me it does seem like a shared sentiment at this time. this change feels punishing for some who are not able to invest several hours per day hunting resources.
that said i did try to put some math to my current highest profession carpentry (and forestry)

4 t1 trunks give 20 wood logs, those 20 logs can be worked to 10 stripped wood then 10 planks. in short 4 trunks give me 1 bundle of planks
for t2 we require the same 4 t2 trunks plus 4 t1 trunks.
for t3 we need 4 t3 trunks plus double the t2 planks. so to get 1 bundle of t3 planks i need 4 t3 trunks plus 8 t1 trunks + 8 t2 trunks
so far it not too crazy. but after this it doubles up each tier.
for t4 we need 4 t4 trunks plus 16 t1 trunks + 16 t2 trunks + 8 t3 trunks.

and that's just for the normal planks. if we go into the "polished" planks we need the amber, which still seems to have a relatively low droprate, even with all the changes done to it

[viscid cairn]

the amount of resin has not changed

[hollow orchid]

in order to make t2 treatment oil (forgot the name) now you need t1. and t3 need 2 of the t2 ones. so in a way it has also been changed

[mental lagoon]

and that won't fix one of the major issues based for this update that is to make T1s more relevant, because the reason ppl still leave t1s lying around is for the rare drops, and that will continue to happen. The %s of rare drops is not equal to the amount you will use even with the new system of backwards crafting base materials, so the problem will stay the same

[hollow orchid]

if we are talking only about wood, i don't really dabble in other professions, since the last update, not yesterday's the previous one, you can also get amber resin from processing trunks into planks or tree bark. you also get a chance to get it from rotting tree trunks and the big branches that have the same drop table. so in my case, it does seem to be somewhat worth it to pick up the trunks and make them into bark/logs. even if i end up using the logs for coal or supplies.

[mental lagoon]

yeah, but yesterday make 40 planks and didn't get a single resin, and it took way longer than taking down 30-40 trees I can assure you that, and resin is the most needed since boats and carts all use planks + the personal storages, everything uses High quality planks, and the bigger your community the more needed they are, so there's rlly no incentive to trade but more like raid everything you see to get it

[undone path]

It very much feels like the current design of the game discourages trading quite heavily

[fair sentinel]

When new or less dedicated players ask what they can collaborate on, tell them to always make supplies until they reach tier 5, or in the future until t8 or t10 or perhaps more, because until that tier they cannot collaborate on the project that the village is carrying out. At that moment, these players will not feel useful or involved and will end up getting bored.

If we now need 10 t3 skins (and for this 20 t2 and 20 t1), players of all tiers can collaborate on it

[restive trout]

Common items were always consumed when going to higher tiers prior to this patch when a claim upgrades its tiers. They were heavily needed to make codexes.

There is endless potential for additional structures, decoration, etc. requiring all tiers of materials. Buckets are the most used wood product requiring a constant supply of T1 wood. Arrows could be added to give hunters additional damage using pebbles. Ingots made good supplies while consuming both ore and wood. Same with bricks consuming clay and wood. Leather was so scarce that it didn’t need further nerfs.

Some players level 60+ in skills are capped at Tier 2 claims as it is.

[jade hollow]

The reason of Funnel Up was to help T1-T2 claims sell resources to T3+ claims but imho problem is that trading system is "hidden" i think there should be a building that connects f.ex whole empire trades and allow ppl to trade without traveling to check every claim what they have, what they sell , it is stocked ? then when arrive "trading stand stock is full, cannot trade"...

Another option will be to add a map view that shows trades instead of claims

[obsidian valley]

the main problem is that it completely destroys tt2/t3 players ability to tier up, whatever would they want to trade for? t3/t4 stuff that they cannot use? There is nothing a higher tier player can trade a lower tier one that the lower tier one would have any use for 😛

[dull vault]

tools

power sources

vehicle deeds

[obsidian valley]

why would you want tools?

[dull vault]

because your claim isn't leveled up yet and you want to start stockpiling resources before you can process them

[obsidian valley]

why would you need power sources above your level, and why would a higher tier ever trade them for resources?

vehicle deeds, like ... a full inventory of resources wouldnt be worth a deed

[dull vault]

you can equip power sources at any level, for a T3 power source "Requires any skill at level 1 to equip"

[obsidian valley]

to be fair, none of those are really viable, no lower tier player would have a need or want to trade for tools, they are easy enough to make oneself, no higher tier would trade away better power sources or deeds, versus just farming the actual resources

[dull vault]

and heavily boosts your stamina/health, with extra bonuses

[obsidian valley]

yeah they are nice, but also unneeded until you are t3+ ...

[dull vault]

as a member of a t5 large claim, there are definitely things we would trade for that aren't rare materials

like charcoal, salt and potentially food soon

[obsidian valley]

charcoal is at the "not gonna trade that away" level, salt is at the "not worth farming versus just farming what i want myself" and for a large claim, making ones own food is way faster and more viable (it ieven is for solo players)

[jade hollow]

im on T3 claim, i can use T5 tools but cant make them

t5 claim can produce supplies like 2k supplies

sell them for T1/T2 planks

[obsidian valley]

which means you can make t3 tools and farm t4 resources with t3 or t5 tools

[jade hollow]

but with T5 tool crit rate is higher

[obsidian valley]

hmm, which 2k supplies is worth t1/t2 planks to you?

[jade hollow]

before update i will say bricks but now dk

[obsidian valley]

2k supplies is now pricier to make than a bunch of 200 supplies

[jade hollow]

that was just an example

[obsidian valley]

using said planks 😛

since you need to use the lower tiered resources to make em

the thing is, even if higher tier is willing to trade away, that doesnt mean lower tier is willing to trade for, it just isnt worth it ..

say you trade supplies, now if that person instead farmed t1 resources and made supplies, they'd end up with more supplies in less time, extra resources and gained exp.

[dull vault]

last alpha, there was one small claim that mass produced crop oil and was able to purchase everything they wanted

they specialised in mass producing something that everyone always needed more of

[obsidian valley]

thats why crop oil was nerfed this alpha and fish oil gets nerfed the next one though

[dull vault]

mass producing charcoal is still possible, and a viable way to trade for everything you need

[obsidian valley]

What would one get for charcoal though, what kind of trades are you doing for charcoal?

[dull vault]

not much if anything for 1 singular bit of charcoal, the value is in making large amounts of it

then you negotiate

[obsidian valley]

large amount of it is not worth it versus just farming what you need ...

thats kind of the thing

[sly fog]

So wait...they made a system to give low level players value that worked, removed it, and then added one that imposes awful grinds on everyone at all tiers instead?

I didn't play Alpha 1

[obsidian valley]

its just not viable

[jade hollow]

problem is that even if you are trading something - noone knows it, without visiting your city

[dull vault]

but it's disingenuous to say that there is nothing players would be willing to trade for

but that's not to say that there are a lot of options, or that trading itself is easy

[jade hollow]

i played other game with player driven economics, there will always be a option to trade

but we need a marketplace

[sly fog]

Albion online....

[jade hollow]

😉

[sly fog]

Devs could take a lot of notes tbh

[obsidian valley]

as long as farmiing the materials oneself is better, easier and faster than trading, people won't trade ..

[sly fog]

One issue Albion doesn't have is stack size

[jade hollow]

agreed

[obsidian valley]

and since one needs all the low materials to keep going, one will end up hoarding

[sly fog]

With stacks the way they are this change is thoughtless

[obsidian valley]

stuff like charcoal will be hoarded for ingots and clay

[jade hollow]

Marketplace should work on empire to make worth traveling between empires to exchange goods

[obsidian valley]

making a huge claim for charcoal might be "viable", but thats 100% due to charcoal stacking, not to getting good trades for it

[sly fog]

T1 charcoal or even t2 charcoal is by no means hard to make tho

The fact it stacks is a reason but like nothing is stopping somebody from making 20 t1 kilns.

Kilns are also very easy to make

[dull vault]

it just takes time, if you make many many more kilns than everyone else, plant a bunch of trees, and have a couple people helping cut down trees and chuck them into kilns, then you have a solid way to create goods that players will want to trade for

[sly fog]

The only real issue is with no global market you are at the mercy of very limited trades

Which makes it far easier to get bad trades

[jade hollow]

or no trades at all

[sly fog]

Global markets assign a general value to items all players basically "agree" upon

Because supply and demand will balance out price

[dull vault]

that's the devs intention, make trades differ based on local regions, so dedicated traders can buy goods for a cheap price in one area, and take it somewhere else to sell it for more

[sly fog]

That's an awful system

Full stop

[jade hollow]

thats why i said Empire market

[dull vault]

that is the main reason we can't teleport more freely

[sly fog]

Eso has that system and it works but that's because of the way they made markets work

Markets are located in high traffic areas

[dull vault]

they don't want travel to be convenient because prices around the world map will equalise

and there will be no opportunity for traders making profits from buying and selling goods

[sly fog]

Game simply is not in a state to support these changes

That's the bottom line

And even if it was the funnel up system would still be a bad idea for other reasons

[dull vault]

for sure, these changes are garbage in the game's current state

[sonic hollow]

I mean there are other games with manual movement of goods and local markets. It is not a bad system and works, it also reflects the real world too

[dull vault]

capped tool power is inexcusable

[sly fog]

And those games you talk about have a standardized full view map, much more storage, inventory, and stack size, a proper market, the list goes on

Why don't we add pvp to this gane too after all, other games make it work

[jade hollow]

for me its ok, but if T5 tool givex 2x damage to t4 resource, 3x to t3 resource etc.

[sonic hollow]

I agree to the logistics of this game being painful. That’s the real issue with moving things around. We will eventually get a full map due to outside exploration

[sly fog]

The fact you are using other players as an out for the clear flaws of a full view map with this system is very silly

[sonic hollow]

But to flat out say local trade is a bad system I think was just my point. It has been intended that way from what I understand

[shell citrus]

I personally like the idea of the traveling merchant role and have trade hubs appears. The real issues arise from two main things there. 1) logistics aren't possible currently and 2) we can't find the trader stands people have up without checking every claim individually each time.

[sonic hollow]

The devs intention was to make exploration a part of the game. That’s why the map is blacked out.

At least that was my understanding

[sly fog]

Ok then that automatically invalidates your point

You don't need a full map at all then ig

Thats the problem though....you do

The devs intentions go against what it reality

Without a full map open, you have no idea where you are relative to resources or even other players

Which will cause travel times to either shorter or increase based on location.

[sonic hollow]

Not sure how having a big unexplored map that then gets revealed by those that travel invalidates exploration. Especially when the live map will be much larger than alpha 1 map

[sly fog]

Essentially you are punished for just not knowing

This is a bad system

[sonic hollow]

Youre punished for trying to go alone, a little different logic

[sly fog]

Solo players don't matter then, cool

[sonic hollow]

They want to encourage cooperation and building relationships

[sly fog]

My bad

[sonic hollow]

Are you giving criticism or just complaining about how you want to play?

[sly fog]

Why is how I want to play any less valid than how you want to play?

And it has worked well up until now mind you

And I'm not the only one

[sonic hollow]

Have you played other simile games like this like Wyurm online? Or Albion? I feel this game is in the similar vein as those but is much less of a grind on building certain things up

[obsidian valley]

Encourage cooperation and punishing soloplay should never be the same ...

[sly fog]

If you think this game has less grind than Albion then there's no reason to continue this discussion tbh

[sonic hollow]

I said in certain areas

[sly fog]

I really love traveling 2 hours for a single stack of t5 planks 🙂

Really engaging!

I don't at all tab out/look at my second monitor for 95% of it

I also have 0 respect for myself and my time as a player, so I love this system

[sonic hollow]

Why not see if anyone wants to farm the other things and trade some abundance with them?

At what point do you think players should have to cooperate ?

Or do you want solo players with claims all at T10 without ever talking to someone

[sly fog]

Never, cooperation should be a choice

[sly fog]

Yes because it's obvious that they did it way slower anyways

It's not like they did it as quickly

[sonic hollow]

I think you misunderstand the goals of the game then if you think everyone should be able to get to T10 solo quickly. Why not just make this a single player game not an MMO then

[sly fog]

I am 100% okay with trading, I am 100% not okay with forced trading

Who said quickly

Find where I said quickly

[sonic hollow]

To trade, you need value. For value, you need scarcity.

Maybe I extrapolated it, but I doubt you’ll be fine IF solo could do T10 in like a year or two

[sly fog]

T10 solo will take a few months in the state it was before

That is finr

Now though yeah prolly a few years

Most of that will be travel time too which is my main point that nobody seems to want to address

Travel time is not gameplay

Not to this extent at least

[dull vault]

believe it or not, the devs do want to enable 'hermit' like playstyles, as well as individuals renting a place of their own in towns

[sly fog]

Ok well this change needs to be reverted and other avenues need to be explored if thats the case

Because that's not at all the message I am getting

[sonic hollow]

The travel time is part of the gameplay though. The distance is so it makes it valuable to have established places

[dull vault]

i don't think that's very feasible in the current of the game, but like most things about the game, it just needs more time to bake in the oven

[sly fog]

Message I got was "don't play anymore as a solo, it's not worth the time investment. Have fun on different game"

[sonic hollow]

And when logicstics get fixed, a reason to want to haul resources for trading

You have actively stated you don’t want to cooperate with others when the devs want to encourage cooperation and relationships. Not sure what to say other then that

[sly fog]

Your vision of this game is not engaging nor fun. If I showed somebody a chart saying "yeah you have to travel 30 minutes this way and back this way for 1 resource" I can promise you anything everyone would think it's a joke

[sonic hollow]

And it’s not like solo is dead. You just can’t teir up insanely fast alone. Or you can focus on one thing rather than try to do everything

To me that doesn’t mean solo is invalid, but you’re also not getting everything being solo

[sly fog]

Zaine at this point I'm kinda convinced you haven't played the game tbh

[dull vault]

i think the whole point of this game is cooperation, but that's just my opinion. I think the game would be in a healthy place if it can support and balance both playstyles

[sonic hollow]

You can check the leaderboards and in fact see I do play the game

[sly fog]

Insanely fast is a wild statement knowing how long it takes for some skills

[sonic hollow]

And I’m solo. I’m only in T2. But I’m not trying to push my view as I don’t mind sitting in a spot making Pyrelite bars like I do as I know others done

[sly fog]

So ur in t2 talking to somebody who is in a 4 man clan in t4 btw

I genuinely believe you don't quite grasp the gravity of this change

Since you have not had a need to travel like we have

[sonic hollow]

I just don’t think the entire game of an MMO should be unlockable or doable solo. Ensure there is soloable content yes, but also have group content as well. Otherwise, it should not be an MMO

[sly fog]

Closest t4 to me is like 20 minutes straight

Closest t5 like 30

[sonic hollow]

Well tell me then. If I stay at T2 and there is no funnel up, how do I stay relevant if all I want to do is refine Pyrelite?

[sly fog]

T6, also 30

[sonic hollow]

How do new players contribute besides trying to tech up

Long term if there is zero reason to need lower resources, you end up with a game where only those that started do anything useful and new players drop because no one cares

[sly fog]

That is a problem the devs need to figure out but for what it's worth I already have a few ideas

That do not involve the tier up system

[muted heath]

incorrect

[sly fog]

I think a large part of this is adding new items, maybe even rare items at t1

Like imagine mythic t1 logs or something

[sonic hollow]

Why do you think that is incorrect?

[sly fog]

Rare resources only low level players would get

And maybe these can be used for higher recipes

I think the refinement tier up system was fine

[sonic hollow]

I have played many tier up games or other mmos. The older they get, the less relevant newer players are

I’ve seen that cycle time and time again

[sly fog]

And it did enough to encourage low level mat farms

I think more refined items would be a great idea too

[muted heath]

the way the game was before patch, there were plenty of reasons to gather low tier resources

[sly fog]

Literally anything but making all resources tier up

[sonic hollow]

What ways were there? codexes were it from what I understand

And that only benefit claims trying to tech up, once everyone is max tech then there was zero reason to use T1 amber

At least that’s was my understanding

[dull vault]

i suggested rare t1 cooking ingredients that need to be processed (and can be processed by anyone, like low level cooks) such as spices, sugar and herbs that can be used to make special meals in each tier

[sly fog]

Also I think it needs to be mentioned when you make a game that makes it impossible for solo players to make meaningful progress this would also make it drop a bunch of players

I'd quit immediately

[dull vault]

it seems like most players have already given up on this alpha

[muted heath]

at "max tech" there is 0 reason for anything not just T1 amber

they are looking at adding long term stuff for A3

[obsidian valley]

its one of the things it was advertised as though, choice ...

[muted heath]

Devs have also stated multiple times that they want Solo play to be more viable and easier, this is going to have the opposite effect

[sly fog]

Solo was fine before change imo

Difficult but not impossible

[obsidian valley]

To be fair, I think this change would be way more doable if it starts at a higher tier than t2, start it at t4, that slows down mid/late game progress, without making early game players quit the game

[severe spade]

So I’ve slept on it and still feeling pretty unhappy about the changes. What do you guys think - any possibility the devs will revert them, or is this what we’re stuck with for the rest of the alpha?

[sly fog]

I mean I guess new PoE league will replace bitcraft if it's not reverted

[obsidian valley]

im expecting them to revert part of the changes based on feedback and lowered player numbers in such short time, the reined stuff and embergrain stuff is positive changes, but the basica reources needed basically makes solo or smaller groups impossible.

[severe spade]

I’m hopeful as well. I pretty much have held on playing further to see what happens today.

[obsidian valley]

i was on earlier just terraforming, not motivated to do t2 stuff needed to tier up, when tiering up is worse than just grinding t1 stuff 😛

[whole rover]

I was just thinking, as I just upgraded my claim from T1 to T2.. maybe I should make T2 1k supplies with bricks... but then I realized its less work to just make the 500 supplies T1 with bricks instead because the former needs both tiers of goods

[sonic hollow]

Choice can be also be defined as "I will not have access to X content because it not soloable." This is an MMO, not everything should be accomplishable by a single person

[dull vault]

as long as you can find t1 and t2 clay/stone/trees easily, there is essentially no difference between turning 10 t1 bricks into 2x500 supply packs or 5 t2 bricks into 1x1000 supplies (which requires 5 t1 bricks now)

except t2 charcoal and bricks take slightly longer to fire in the kiln

[shell citrus]

So a different note for the devs that we've been talking about this morning. I just want to call out that every up we tiered up we found and reported new bugs. This change will hurt the ability for us to test higher tier graphics/buildings/skiffs/etc... As a claim we had already decided T5 was outside of what we were willing to strive for so we want to get the t4 houses, and skiffs, and check out that stuff but the change has killed those goals. Since this went into effect we went form an average of 5 people online to 1. I get the change and don't think it and of itself is bad, but with the current state of the alpha I think the timing and message were poorly managed.

[obsidian valley]

if a single person is so useless, that single person won't play, there won't be any groups, sorry but the "i will not have access to do basic functions" is not what an mmo is. Pretty much every single mmo out there, solo play is viable, with group content, not "you shall not play alone" content.

[dull vault]

spoiler alert, the t4 houses are just slightly darker coloured t3 houses

t5 is where they start to look really cool

[sonic hollow]

How is a solo player viable in WoW? Or FFXIV? The questing system? Those are mmos where solo players have zero impact to anything useful, you need groups for raids. Wyurm online? Good luck solo. Eve online, you contribute solo by obtaining T1 resources needed for T2 resources so I agree a solo player is VERY valuable there. Those are the only MMOs I've played a considerable amount and they mostly focus on group-only content with zero focus on solo content

[whole rover]

Yep agree! It took me until now, playing with 1 other person, to level up to T2 casually. T3 was already out of reach which was fine, but in the released game we would eventually reach it.... (and further) but this seems cruel

[sonic hollow]

I'm not saying make Solo play undoable. I'm just warning that if solo players can do everything, larger groups can do it better

[obsidian valley]

FFXIV is 100% a solo game with group content

[sonic hollow]

I've seen that happen in many failed games

[sonic hollow]

I asked besides the questing system

Solo content in WoW and FFXIV is leveling up. Once you're max level, FFXIV has more things for solo people but it doesn't help anyone else, just yourself

[obsidian valley]

.... my brain hurts, lets stay on topic I guess ...

[sonic hollow]

Ok, how do you think solo play in Bitcraft should go then? What should be done to encourage old and new players to interact with each other once the funnel-up is removed

How should an economy be formed when only the highest tier mats are the only thing wanted until everyone is maxed out

and then how once things are maxed out, should be make everyone viable?

Old and new? If it's not requiring lower tier resources, then specific lower teir resources then? I've seen that thrown around, but even that has a limit

Do we reduce the numbers? Would that make people like the funnel-up or are we all just in favor of "no funnel up period"

[shell citrus]

I think the issue for us at least in strictly in terms of the value of higher tier items. Their is no longer a point. High tier gives worse supply numbers, the tools don't have more power, and it takes longer with more effort. Its the fact that the ideal point to stop is now T2. Going T3 and above is a punishment and should not be done because your losing value over gaining value

[whole rover]

Funnel up is fine if the ratio is 1:1

[sonic hollow]

But is that really an issue with the funnel up system or is that an issue with the progression system?

I don't disagree on any of your points about how useless tiering up has been, even in A1

the only valuable things for tiering up is storage and tools in A1, now it's just storage

[sonic hollow]

That's material ratio, but what about effort time? Should that be dropped. Should they require uncommon items as well? Should they have some collaborative component? There's more than just sayinig stop 2:1 and make it 1:1

[whole rover]

its fine if effort time goes up, it should, otherwise progression is liniar and with a survival mmo it should be hard to get up higher

[sly fog]

So there has been a lot of negative feedback obviously, and I feel as if maybe the developers are genuinely seeking alternatives due to some of Mich's questions earlier yesterday. These are just some thoughts/alternatives I have had.

1.) Add new "special" resouces to the game similar to Albion for example. Some trees drop special wood with higher rarity maybe. It will be like a tier within a tier. These items shouldnt be limited to the tier they come from. These can be used to upgrade power sources and tools so it will automatically apply to all players. Maybe they can even be used to upgrade stations. So now we are looking at not just a t3 cooking station for example, but a t3.1 or 3.2 cooking station with increased speed, or a t3.1 or t3.2 pickaxe. Again, these should not be tier locked, so your t7 pickaxe upgrade should also cost a few T1 rare resource, albeit maybe less.

2.) I would like to see more incentive for exploration in general. Currently nothing sets aside a t1 area from a t6 area but the resources alone. Albion fixes this by adding dungeons, bosses, and events. The map being locked really doesnt help anyone imo and just makes setting up an ideal base or even a base away from other players (which is what some people want) impossible since you cant see anything. I really think this will be conducive to properly utilizing the empire system as well. There is a chance that people flock to 1 spot, but if map does get revealed and posted somewhere this was already going to happen. The map being locked really just adds another layer of unnecessary tedium to the game that really doesn't need to exist. I'm fine if they stick with it i just dont believe it adds anything to the game.

3.) Tools need to just do more in general i feel. crits barely contribute to gather speed, so its just a useless stat, and tier ups dont give additional damage on anything either. I recommend crit just do more, or crit even be added as just a baseline chance of 15% or something, and instead the % chance is attributed to rare drop chance like resin. Rare drop chance can also be added to crafting benches via the points made in my first proposal. a t3.1 crafting bench maybe has a higher chance to yield shells for example. Tools should also either just have higher gather speed, or at least higher speed on tiers below the tool in general.

These are my main three points, and I'm not gonna take credit for the suggestions of others that have already mentioned things like stack size, travel, inventory/storage space, and trading as a whole.

I understand it is alpha and i really do thing the developers have something special here and I want it to be the best it can be

Not expecting crazy implementations, but It would make a lot of people happy to at least know the game is steering in the right direction

If there isnt one already, i think a roadmap for feedback would be ideal here

just tell players what is planned to be implemented instead of ghost adding it randomly one evening

The players are going to be wrong sometimes, but you have to consider some people voicing their opinions on the funnel change have likely hundreds of hours and i'd argue have some ground to stand on

Player feedback is invaluable, especially in early stages of the game

I really encourage others to drop suggestions to make the game better more often as well, and just put your opinion out there.

Maybe not specifically in this chat, but in alpha chat

[shell citrus]

Bare minimum in the meantime can we get a a hotpatch to increase the value of construction packs and supply packs and such that take this into account so we're not punished for haivng all these t4 materials sitting here.

What I am referring to is simply demonstrated with smithing
Two t1 ignots is 500 Supplies
Two T1 and Two T2 is 1000 Supplies (Might as well stayed T1 and done four there to not have to fire the ignots a second time and used more charcoal)
Four T1 and Four T2 and Two T3 is now 2000 Supplies (10 total ignots which would have given more and taken less oven times as ten T1 ignots)
and it only gets worse the higher you go with more furnance time and less value per tier

Like this T2 needs to be like 1500 supplies and T3 needs to be around 4000 supplies now to be of comparable valuable

A large part of this is because T1 things process faster than any other tier meaning in the same time for less stamina we can produce a far more significant amount than we can of higher tiers. Using anything that isn't pyrite for supply packs is a waste now

[dull vault]

resources are (technically) infinite, time is not

[vernal trail]

All due respect as someone who was in yhe 1st alpha, this collaboration idea is not as fun as you think.

[dull vault]

gathering and processing resources is actually just condensing time

I haven't seen anyone do it yet, but I would be interested to see how long some items at different tiers take to make in total time (not including gathering, which is a lot of time by itself)

I think devs should be calculating this themselves too to use as a metric, and ask themselves what is a reasonable amount of time for any item to take to produce

if a single t6 plank took 3 hours total to produce (random amount of time, I have not done the math), is that reasonable?

[jovial parcel]

I mean, I did the math about T3 furnace time and I think that totaled up to about 30-35 hours of furnace time for about fifteen people with 4 tools each. Admittedly, you'd split that up among multiple furnaces, but that's what the math is for furnace time. I was about to start poking about the math for the entire process from ore to ingot including charcoal, but haven't been able to approximate the worktime yet.

[dull vault]

it's roughly 3 seconds per hit when crafting (20 effort)

[jovial parcel]

Thanks. I'll probably go use that when I get online to check the base numbers for the work-per-item in the process.

[dull vault]

a 15000 effort craft would take about 37.5 minutes if you don't rest and disregard crits (because crits are negligible)

[jovial parcel]

And if you disregard the absolute mess queuing jobs are for cargo items.

[dull vault]

if you're good at it, you can craft them with no downtime inbetween crafts

but it requires a lot of clicking

[jovial parcel]

Yes. It's sustained attention.

[dull vault]

not allowing us to craft multiple cargo at the same time feels like intentionally making it inconvenient

[jovial parcel]

It's the inventory management games that make the time required really unsustainable.

[dull vault]

if we could, then sub-500 supply recipes could be made in large amounts quickly

[jovial parcel]

The jobs being short means that the player has to pay attention, and that means that's time the player isn't doing anything else. If someone's expecting the player to be spending 100% effort throughout the entire session... well, best expect that session to be short for most players.

[dull vault]

idle game without idling

[arctic magnet]

I have an idea to make a compromise on the funnel up. I think the funneling should be 1:1, as then your ideal is an equal number of players per tier, and then you don't sacrifice high tier resources for low tier resources and all tiers are equally relevant to going higher. However, the compromise is if you alternate between 1:1 and 1:2 every tier, it becomes less insanely punishing as you tier up, so T7 requires eight times the T1 resources instead of 32 times the T1 resources.

[dull vault]

exponential growth is excessive

[jovial parcel]

I agree. I hope I said it earlier on this channel rather another channel but honestly my brain started to short out after doing the math late last night for the furnace time, but I absolutely agree with the idea of reducing the funnel amount.

[arctic magnet]

With a 1:1 ratio, getting a higher tier feels like you are making more effective use of lower tier resources.

[noble crater]

Hiya o/. This still an issue? Sad.

[dull vault]

i can sort of understand improving a single inferior item with parts from a better item

but turning 2 inferior items and a better intermediate item into a better item makes it seem like one of those is disappearing into the void (cough cough, like buckets)

[marsh fable]

buckets just give your dough the needed fibre 😄

[jovial parcel]

It does kinda make sense for the tannin, I guess, if you're putting the same bucket down that well each time? You really don't want to put tannin down your well. But uh, why can't you use a different bucket to fill your old tannin bucket?

[marsh fable]

as a cook/farmer i already have carpentry level 31 just from buckets in time of need (when the carpenter was busy or offline)

i can easyly go through 4k buckets a day

[vernal trail]

Man I'm in the wrong professions haha

[sly fog]

Kyria is simply built different

they know what they like. very respectable

[low sierra]

Crafting seems excessively hard now. It's not a good idea until we get a better modes of transportation or at least extended pockets.
Living in higher tier locations is just not worth it now. Not enough people in there to establish a "trade and profession market" and traversing 30 minutes of distance one way just to be able to get back with few hours worth of basic building materials kills it for a lot of people

[whole rover]

I genuenly wouldn't mind being a delivery guy in this game... but there are literally 0 tools to support that 🙂

[jovial parcel]

I genuinely enjoyed being transport for T2 items back when there were still pines on the coast! But that was because we didn't need much and I could get enough for the entire day with a load or two. At this point my hands hurt trying to transport things enough to fuel the next tier.

And getting things overland is just a pain in the ass.

[ancient thunder]

I think the currency needs to be stronger and have more uses to justify that role. Real commerce.

I am not sure these folks have the economic background to prevent hyper inflation of coins though. So the economy may be ruined shortly after launch. Would be interesting to see though.

[marsh fable]

It is especially having the right people to play with and an unbeatable stubborness 🤣

[vernal trail]

I already don't know how to price my goods but in order to make trades offline I gotta set a price instead of negotiating equal materials echanges

[shell citrus]

So been thinking about how best to respond to the points listed and think I'm finally able to give a solid write up on this after reviewing and doing some of it in game. First, let me say I like this game and am just writing this as a hopes to summarize some of the major issues and how what you did is seen as major QOL set back and further damages the trust of the community.

First touching on your misconceptions post, though it is accurate to say you didn’t change them that further leaves it in the broken state it already is which was already one of our largest complaints. Doubling down on it is basically saying hammering home that you didn’t fix a known issue first.
Second, the common items more dependent on lower tiers to craft is and of itself isn’t a bad idea, but the implementation needs incentives which ties into the third point. Now the only reason to care about tiering up in higher xp. However, if we don’t tier up the levels and xp doesn’t matter. Making their 3 items and above are now net loses for claims over staying at tier one and two. This was already the case for supply packs with refined items and brico packs and now you spread the issue to normal items where it wasn’t prior. Why should I care about xp? What do I gain from it?

Going back to the main post on this patch. Slowing down progression was going to be needed long term, but was not needed this alpha. Claims were already petering out and burning out on t4 and talking about skipping T5. I have met a great deal more people the last 24 hours since your announcement and learned that we were not the only claim losing people due burn out already before these changes. We had already lost 25% of our player pushing to T4 and knew that was as far as we could possible go.

Furthermore if you want to make higher tiers more challenging and slowing then you need to increase the reward rather than punishing for doing it as we discussed above but in more detail supply packs really demonstrate s this with ignots, but it’s the same for every one of the main crafting supply packs now.
Example:
Two t1 ignots is 500 Supplies
Two T1 and Two T2 is 1000 Supplies (Might as well stayed T1 and done four there to not have to fire the ignots a second time and used more charcoal)
Four T1 and Four T2 and Two T3 is now 2000 Supplies (10 total ignots which would have given more and taken less oven times as ten T1 ignots)
and it only gets worse the higher you go with more furnace time and less value per tier. The reason this particular point is getting such a deep concern is because this was a known and acknowledged issue by support and clockwork labs members already and instead of fixing it you are spreading the issue.

Supplies was already a major concern that has ended empires this alpha because of the current deployment and another reason why I believe doing this patch when you did is distasteful. We just from getting 5000 supplies to getting 2000 supplies and it takes three times longer to make the 2000 supplies. Son when you factor time in your more talking taking us from 15,000 supplies to 2,000 supplies. You have to see how to the player base that is a massive QOL issue to us. Supplies is quite literally the life line for players as if we don’t keep on it we lose everything we worked on and weeks of work is just gone. If you really want to test empire things this alpha what you just did was a sure way to prevent further testing of it. This a critical priority to us otherwise even the remaining people of our claim will not feel up to maintaining supplies alone and you will lose more player base.
Moving on, lets talk straw. Straw being added to grain at this stage is painful to say the least. As your own people (Jordan, Minch, and Voxel in just the threads I’ve been in) have admitted grain and flour is in a bad state and will be a focus in alpha 3. Small claims like us with only half a dozen active players are throwing away 100+ stacks of grain a day and now you want to increase that. I’m sorry, but this again just feels bad and like a QOL hit. We all eat mushed bulbs already because the farm needs to output so much. This is part of the tier up issue again where the higher tier dough and baking recipes take 3 to 4 times as long as other recipes of the same tier. Give us some means of burning this grain rather than us just making something to throw it away because we need to back farm straw that we could have been saving up as we were already farming for the past two weeks. This is just another QOL issue.

Next lets talk economy. There is none, currently. Right now your economy is designed to focus hexcoins but we can print a hundred thousand an hour and just inflate it out of control. There is no real drain of hexcoins nor any real value to them. Hiemlich and twins have a steady value that we can judge because they tie to items that we can then make a correlation. Brico is sort of the same, but as discussed above he is currently broken anyways where t3 and above loses value. Hex coins have nothing comparable. Further more when it comes to trade there is no means for finding trading partners outside your discord threads. There are many other stands that exist but we have no way of know where those stands exist let alone whats offered. With also leads into the logistics doesn’t currently any nature connections on the map that people would follow and build around. IF you look over history towns sprung up base on natural barriers and logistics like rivers, oceans, mountain paths. We’ve already beaten this horse into the ground during first day discussions but this map is anti-trade and transportation. Trading in the same quadrant can take 30+ minutes trading across the world can take 90+ minutes to trade at max 30 items.

Finally, how many times has it been brought up and how many hotfixes and patches have you applied to try to get us our lower tier items back. This has been a discussion day after day after day. So now you decided we need more of this and I’m already seeing the T1/T2 area around our low tier outpost is depleted significantly further out than the day prior. I’m already taking my cart twice as far to get T1 ore than I did 24 hours ago. If low tier resources has already been a known issue then again you need to understand this is another QOL hit.

In summary your patch made a a major QOL hit to player base while making us feel like you didn’t actually hear the concerns you said you had heard. We want to trust you, but this thread has been flooded for a day and we still don’t have a community manager response or anything that shows us you care or have concern. At this point I’m sorry but you have tarnished your image with this and reduced our trust in your decisions and testing.

[jade hollow]

I think supplies packs need to be aligned to changes that will gives some free time

[marsh fable]

they actually take a lot longer than just 3-4 times. the dough itself takes 10 times active crafting time, but all recepies with dough needs to be baked which is in the most cases between 30-60 min longer than the non dough meals.

[jade hollow]

i think for baking/smelting/kiln timers should be - kiln tier vs material tier. Same tier = 15 min; 1 tier lower material than kiln -5min (10) 2 tiers lower -10 min and stick some minimal timer like 1 min

[versed wren]

this is kind of off topic but i really agree with this. there isn't enough rewards/incentive for reaching new tiers beyond new vechiles/power sources.

[marsh fable]

no, not for baking. food is a consumable. that is different than ingots, bricks and stuff

baking for bood should generally be shorter, since it is ridicoulus to have to wait so long for a consumable which is a drop on a hot stone. vanishes into the void

[jade hollow]

I just wanted to explain my idea times need to be adjusted to each crafting tree like tailoring where all have 1 min?

[marsh fable]

i get your idea, but that is something they explicitly spoke against. since then lower tier claims and new players will be obsolete, since the higher tier claims/players can just make it faster anyway

[undone path]

As a FFXIV player, you can absolutely do things solo. If you don’t have a group to play with, MMOs have matchmaking queues for a reason, not to mention the trust system. Variant dungeons, lower rank hunts, even deep dungeons if you’re feeling spicy

For pure solo play, what about gatherers and crafters? For them multiplayer content is an afterthought, yet they drive the game’s whole economy!

Even if you don’t get involved in the raid scene, you can still experience much of the game, and arguably have more of an impact on the rest of the community

[undone path]

Guys, it doesn’t need to be such a binary. Lower tier materials can and should be used for higher tier projects, but the issue is putting them in the core crafting recipe for the basic material is way too much.

Put it on the cargo items, the NPC material packs, the refined materials. Places where they’re useful for higher tiers but not needed for everything. And definitely not in the exponential way that they are now.

[jovial parcel]

Didn't someone mention lowering the ratio?

[undone path]

Not to mention Rumbagh is clearly meant to be the excess material sink NPC, but he has no valuable trades to nobody was using him

[undone path]

Dude I don’t even know, there is so much in here

[undone path]

What do you guys mean by making it 1:1? Isn’t that how it is now? Isn’t that the problem?

I feel like I’m misunderstanding something

[jovial parcel]

It's not. You need 2 T2s for every T3, and I believe it scales up from there (although my team hasn't gotten there).

[sonic hollow]

Maybe FFXIV has changed a bit, but if you're solo you CAN do things but you don't contribute anything overall (last I played anyway). You can't classify dungeons as solo content, those are group content because you need 3 other players. Raids need 7 other players.

Only crafters that create consumable buffs are useful and I agree that is one case of a solo player able to contribute to the overall design of the game. But that contributes such a small percentage to a raid and is usually taken care of by each individual raid member.

[undone path]

Oh god

[jovial parcel]

We've gotten to T3 so I can confirm that and are a few days out from T4 even now, but yeah.

[arctic magnet]

They can get their exponential growth out of my crafting recipes is my opinion.

[undone path]

Dude. Raid gear, housing and airship items, mounts, a ton of the best glams, and so on. Crafters do WAY more than buffs. Also, trusts let you do dungeons and trials solo, same with variant dungeons and other game modes

[sonic hollow]

Oh sounds like FFXIV made crafters super useful (I haven't played since Heavensword), thats nice to hear. Not sure what a trust is, but I guess it's a way to run dungeons without interacting with people.

In relation to Bitcraft though, they want to encourage cooperation and relationship building. It seems everyone (myself included) on how much a solo person should be able to accomplish WITHOUT talking to anyone or working with anyone

[marsh fable]

from T3 onwards it is 2 of the lower ones, even for T5

[jovial parcel]

Thanks. Is unfortunately, still an exponential increase.

[marsh fable]

there is a screenshot of the T5 recepie for firesand yesterday

in #🖼️│bitcraft-screenshots

[undone path]

I really think the best solution for solo play would just be to fix and improve the barter stand and rental systems. You can go into town and buy or request what you need without needing to level every profession yourself. You can rent homes in biomes you need without needing to tier up a new base yourself. You can sell your goods from the profession of your choice or travel around selling them in locations where they’re less plentiful

Never need to speak to another soul, if you don’t want to.

The way the game is now, that just isn’t possible or sensible though

[restive trout]

I'd love if they made an additional ruin type that allows you to just see all trade listings and their locations with a searchable feature. Add filters by tier, distance, etc. Could require adding stone carvings to unlock it, could have it not rotate like the other ruins do.

[obsidian valley]

that one should have an unique map icon 😄

[silent hatch]

If we're comparing this game with any MMO, right now it's difficult to join the bitcraft equivalent of a "group raid" (big projects) on a short term (matchmaking) basis though? Claim memberships are highly opt-in, and communication is usually isolated discord based because there isn't a good way to broadcast call-to-arms. Also, when you participate in a raid everyone has a common goal with expected rewards, but if you join in on someone else's project, unless it's a public utility, only the owners get permanent benefit. Effort to join a group without tethering yourself to align with a group is fairly high.

All that is to say, not everyone wants to join a guild to do group events but the only way to do so right now is to join a guild, so those that don't solo it

[undone path]

Why a ruin? Do you mean for NPCs or players? For players it should really just be on the map tbh, or a buildable market board

[restive trout]

Just to fit the theme. It needs added in some way, but making it require traveling to a certain location to see all global trades seems to fit. Trade is too difficult to promote without being able to see what's available in-game.

[undone path]

This is why people referring to buildings as group projects confuses me. The wider group doesn’t necessarily benefit from building them, especially if it’s going to be a rental. And if we want claims with lot of rentals, won’t making the building too expensive just discourage that?

[noble crater]

Where is a Clockwork Labs update/acknowledgement?

[undone path]

This is also, tbh, this is the biggest flaw of making cross-claim factions purely cosmetic. We need more systems that help and encourage claims to work together, and we need a some kind of incentive for doing so. Honestly if the cosmetics were flashy enough it could help, but even a small incentive would make a big difference

[arctic magnet]

I think the ability for claims to specialize, like being a T4 fishing but T1 leatherworking, would help with this significantly.

[undone path]

They made a clarification post on a few things, but overall not much. It seems they’re still figuring out what to do next

[restive trout]

They’re also continuing to read our feedback on this patch. #1265028643835609261 message