#Thread for Funnel Up Content Changes

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sonic hollow
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I agree with that, also fix the logistics issue and make it easier to carry large quantities of things around.

undone path
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I think they mentioned rebalancing brico, buffing roads, and adding cargo interfaces for building interiors, so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time

dull vault
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I saw the changes proposed to fix some of the issues players have with the changes made yesterday, I'm glad the devs are listening and are willing to make changes that players are asking for. it's reinforced my trust in the devs, and my belief that the game will end up being amazing

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if we could get an interim reintroduction of increasing tool power for better tools, it would be perfect for me. but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what changes the devs are working on for tools and sense of progression

rough quail
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I wanted to make a post in here in addition to the announcement. I appreciate the feedback everyone gave here.

I've seen a lot of criticism here on things like traveler trades, hex coin inflation, friction of trade, food not being useful, flat tool power, clothing being cosmetic and not crafted, lack of ability to play solo, etc.
I wanted to assure you guys that I am first in line to criticize the current state of these as well. We have a small team and things take time to design and fully implement, and each alpha test has focuses of things we want to bring to and validate in the game.

While Alpha 2 had a large focus on adding empires, there is stuff we have been cooking on from learnings since Alpha 1, which wasn't ready to ship in Alpha 2, that is in line with a lot of this feedback and our own team's thoughts on the game.

I know it can feel like we aren't listening sometimes when things are said many times and nothing has changed yet. We do our best to acknowledge what we think needs work, and share about what we are working on (especially in the developer videos), but we can always improve this more. I just wanted to say that we are listening and agree with most of the feedback we see, it's a complicated production dance of trying to finish the things we've started and planning how to address the most pressing issues as soon as we can.

Cheers!

dull vault
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I know you guys are busy, but it would be amazing to have a mid-alpha Q and A livestream

rough quail
dull vault
undone path
noble crater
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I've made Bitcraft friends I will probably only play with in Bitcraft, I solo play everything else ._.

jovial parcel
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I'm guessing I don't have to do the time calculation now that the numbers are going to change?

gloomy mist
inland flame
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I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but hey here goes.
I thought about this for a while, and this is what I came up with.
So, the idea is to promote trade and cooperation.
I disagree with the funnel mechanic because once you get to higher tiers then even doing normal day to day things becomes so tedious that it’s not fun. My wife and I Duo’ed to tier 3, It was a lot of effort, but it was a lot of fun. I feel like the funnel up on the old rares was perfect, yes it gets crazy on higher tiers but guess what, tiering up is meant to be hard. It’s meant to feel like an achievement. And with the old way it promoted trade, once we finished farming up our T3 codex we had so much stuff left over I was going to start up a trading post and sell the left overs.
With the new funnel system you have created a system where if you want to progress you can never have an excess, if you want 1 T6 item you MUST go and get every other tier before, this leave so little to trade, why would I trade away my t1 planks if I know that I need to keep them for when I move from t6-7 and again need to start farming from t1 all over again?

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You said you want more trade; the problem is you have a small alpha, you cannot expect widespread trade before people have not gotten settled and a group or groups of players have not yet setup a player run trading city or area, this will happen in time and 5 weeks of testing is not enough time unfortunately.
I fear with this new funnel system forcing resource hording, it will take even longer to get a large-scale trading post setup.
My suggestion, leave tier ups as they are, needing to gather so many materials makes tier ups hard yes but you are building a game that should be played for months or years, there is no need to worry about people getting to T10(thinking ahead here) in a month,
Remove funnelling for standard items, rather than making us consume them to make higher tier standard items why not look at a way to convert items up, 1:3 or would be the min I would say as I did the math before shows this ratio should make sure that its not viable to just stay in a t1 zone and go to t6 for example. This will make it that having extra lower tier items means that you can sell it to higher guys that live deep in high tier areas and don’t want to come farm them, This change also means that there can be extra materials to sell or convert up and make.
Give us a reason to trade not a reason to horde our supplier.
Note, I love this game, I’m very excited for what It will become. I hope you continue to listen to your community and think things though. (sorry for the ramble, not saying take my suggestion, just saying think things through 😊 )

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Ratio Math from earlier mentioned
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

astral fiber
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@rough quail In what context do you mean economy?
Are you talking about player to player trading or using the word in a different way

dull vault
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with the changes being pushed tomorrow, it would simply just double every tier

rough quail
neat oak
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I don’t like that animal hair needs to be combined with straw at a leatherworking station to make textile.

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I appreciate the desire to balance refined cloth against the other refined items, and I’m okay with the addition of textile, but forcing it to go through leatherworking is a little annoying.

sly fog
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fully expected them to keep funnel in the game tbf just because i have never in the past 15 or so years of gaming seen a game dev admit they were wrong full stop

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So not at all surprised but I am disappointed. that said i am hopeful for A3 since a lot of what was said alludes to A3 having systems to support the change

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I still stand by funnel being a bad system though even if it had support. I just feel like there are simply better ways.....dragonprinces said this pretty well

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and many others

undone path
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This was a misstep, but it’s part of the process, I’m sure they’ll figure it out

sly fog
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I'm negative because I feel like I have seen this cycle before, and it usually always goes wrong. But that said it isnt as if everything I feel about the game is negative. I wouldnt care nearly as much if I felt as if bitcraft was going to be some small project to the side nobody is going to play or that I felt wasnt going to bring something new to the MMO industry

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I really think the developers have created something special here and it feels genuinely bad that the main concern of excessive travel time is still in full effect with these changes. The ratio isn't as bad as before, sure. But it remains that you do still need to visit every zone at every point of the game which just feels really bad especially as a solo player. For bigger clans i dont think this has nearly the same impact.

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Bitcraft remains to be likely one of the most prominent upcoming MMO's for me and i really do wish the devs success.

mint musk
mint musk
sly fog
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I appreciate the understanding but I am not afraid to admit I was being harsh, maybe even too harsh. I apologize for this but it does come from a place of concern for the community of the game

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Seeing a lot of people say they are leaving, those among my friend group included was not a good feeling

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I am really excited to see how A3 goes though, the game is fantastic and I want the game to do well. You guys deserve the success bringing something new to the genre

mint musk
# sly fog I appreciate the understanding but I am not afraid to admit I was being harsh, m...

It's OK! I understand the reaction. It's unfortunately what many games in the industry have taught us to expect. This is a sandbox game though, I'm not afraid to admit there is a lot of potential routes we can go down, and not all of them may be the correct one. I appreciate everyone who's played our game and given feedback, both good and bad. This alpha has been amazing so far at identifying problems early on, even if we don't have time to get to all of them right now. ❤️

shell citrus
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Exactly with this. What you guys are doing is absolutely great. I haven't spent these kind of hours in such a short time in any other game in the last decade. That being said, I'm fully invested in the future now and will absolutely be wanting to help shape it in any manner I can.

strong tiger
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speaking of identifying problems... this isnt related to the funnel up thing, but, have you made any progress in making the game run a bit less hot? some biomes in particular are really bad with this and I feel like I have to avoid them/limit my time in them for the sake of my GPU 😔

sly fog
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I can safely say optimization is a priority of the developers. It's improved greatly from A1 to A2

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This will likely be addressed definitely before release but maybe not in this alpha cycle

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I would maybe look at A3 but it's hard to say for sure.

covert wing
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So what did they change ? in the update

sly fog
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The funnel up specifically at first made all items from t3 onward require 2 previous tier materials, t2 required 1

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so a t3 plank would cost 2 t2 planks and 2t1 planks as a result

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now they changed it for all tiers to be 1:1 as of sometime today if it hasnt already dropped

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so a t3 plank is now 1t2 plank and 1t1 plank

shell citrus
mint musk
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Server updates aren't necessarily the same as content updates. We don't need to restart the server to update recipes. It will be done later today. ^-^

shell citrus
balmy valve
rough quail
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The funnel-up changes mentioned yesterday should now be live

sly fog
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Funnel up can definitely work i just dont know exactly what the developer vision is, and it didnt really seem like they intended for funnel up to be a mechanic

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games with funnel usually have much more streamlined resource gathering and transport

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I understand its alpha and we could definitely get that later, but the amount of rework the core systems would need just seems like a lot to me

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I would say it almost seems forced

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Its been really good so far though so maybe they are just cooking something spicy

strong tiger
shell citrus
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May I ask one more question about the upcoming changes? Do we expect the supply pack changes to be done before the weekend? We're trying to figure out how much t1 supply packs we have to make in meantime

shell citrus
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We were doing the math and I know the change was said to be coming but sharing why we are doing tier 1 only since the funnel up. These are the reworked numbers with the new 1 to 1 in case anyone else wants to see/think about it for their own claims until the change. Farming and Fishing supplies are unaffected.

Math of Smithing Supply Packs. The Following data does not account for time of gathering of additional Tiers. This is a simple break down of just the crafting at base.
Tier 1:
Requirements – 2 tier one Ore, 2 tier one charcoal
Total Charcoal Time – 15 Minutes
Total Smelt Time – 15 Minutes
Supplies = 500 (supplies per minute =16.6, hasn't changed in update)

Tier 2:
Requirements 2 tier one Ore, 2 tier one charcoal, 2 tier two ore, 2 tier two charcoal
Total Charcoal Time – 30 Minutes
Total Smelt Time - 60 minutes
Supplies = 1000 (supplies per minute =11.1)(prior to funnel up it was 22.2)

Tier 3:
Requirements 2 tier one Ore, 2 tier one charcoal, 2 tier two ore, 2 tier two charcoal, 2 tier three ore, 2 tier three charcoal
Total Charcoal Time – 60 Minutes
Total Smelt Time - 120 minutes
Supplies =2000 (supplies per minute =11.1) (prior to funnel up it was 22.2)

iron fog
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still alot, did u calculate the previous Tier 1 and Tier 2 + charcoal timer aswell

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to that total smelt time ?

shell citrus
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No its in the charcoal time

iron fog
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ah ok

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so 3h per 2K supplies on metal

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well considering u can still do multiple in 1 go aswell

shell citrus
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Yes, but the gap widens the more you do at once honestly. Its still the same value per minute per pack with a smelter have a max of 8 slots.

iron fog
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true

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but charcoal is 14 in 1 go, and metal 8

covert wing
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did they change the brico coin exchange drop ?

covert wing
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I went to brico, so actualy with the update you just make it even more harder to improve the skiff or cart

severe spade
covert wing
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well if for a T2 brick

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you need T1

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and with the fact they diden't change the 1 1 2 2 on rare material

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  • the brico trade diden't change
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mean you need more material to get the same brico pack as before

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and for remind; T2 skiff 500 coin / T3 skif and bigger cart it's 1000 coin (T1 pack 10 coin T2 pack 30 coin)

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  • you need to farm all the T resine to craft the plank on skif uppgrade ( so 20 T1 --> 20 T2 --> 10 T3) for a T3 skiff + the pack for 1000 coin
severe spade
covert wing
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well I alredy get my T2 skif but it's still a pain to help other member to get their T2

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the material I think it's ok

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but the brico pack it's a robery

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and there no different beetween T2 and T3 pack so it's stupid

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2 T2 it's 60 coin , 1 T3 it's 60 coin but the T3 pack need the 2 T2 ressources

shell citrus
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They moved the recipes around so you make it as common first then into rare instead of consuming the planks at each tier

covert wing
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and I talk on brick pack

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the rare craft diden't move yeah

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but just for regular brick now you need more

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so yeah it's worse since update

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and the logic beetween T2 and T3 pack still stupid

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cost more ressources for less coin

shell citrus
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Yep, and that was something they said they are working on over this next week and has been broke since day 1

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As for the brick packs prior recipe:
normal t1 brick into rare t1 brick then consumed with t2 brick and rare material to make t2 brick.
Now t1 brick into t2 brick. T1 rare mix into t2 mix then mix. Its literally exactly the same just how you do it changed

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The increased cost to brick pack is only in the t1 planks needed for the t2 planks

covert wing
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yeah but how you make T2 regular brick now

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with T1 brick

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so it cost more

shell citrus
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You still needed a t1 brick and t2 brick before

covert wing
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RE GU LAR

shell citrus
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cause the rare needed the t1 brick

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yes, the t1 rare used a t1 regular prior

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I absolutely get what your saying but this was tested and vetted above already. The new increase in cost is exactly 10 t1 planks for a t2 brico brick pack

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don't get me wrong. Brico is still very messed up, but no worse than he has been is all

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Any tier up pack is messed up right now. That includes supply packs, and brico because it doesn't account for the funnels. The big difference is that rare resources already had a funnel and were broken. They just extended that brokenness out to more stuff.

mint musk
tall hinge
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Hey just noticed that T3 study journals still require 2 tier 2 journals is that indtended or did they get missed when you guys changed the funnel up to 1 of the previous tier?

marsh fable
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so stone, bricks, plancks etc

tall hinge
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yeah I would classify study journals in the same category

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cause leather and ingots got changed as well

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so that's all of the 'funnel up mats' except the journals

marsh fable
tall hinge
signal plaza
mint musk
grand ginkgo
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Lol, was just coming over to comment on the coins thing. Also, the hexcoins are now harder to get, both ruins and Rumbaugh yield less, but some of the traders' prices don't seem to have been adjusted accordingly.
Also, coin yields on the surface ruins, where you can find chests out in the world, don't seem to have been adjusted either. They're still yielding 200+ per stack

marsh fable
grand ginkgo
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Ah, that makes sense, because I ran into a couple more enterable ruins with high yield coins still. In more isolated areas.

grand ginkgo
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Also, after playing around with some crafting seeing the new changes, I think they just make the logistics problem worse. I liked the way you only depended on lower level resources for the unique items, and the common resource processing was more or less independent of other tiers. I agree it makes sense for there to be an interdependence of tiers to motivate trade, but this feels forced/frustrating. As I've mentioned on feedback for previous test, I don't think that focusing the grind on resource scarcity is the best way to go, I think if the focus of the grind is more on the player skill, and the "valuable resource" is the skilled player, then that would probably encourage trading more, because it would encourage players to specialize more and trade, as resources would be readily available, but processing them becomes the bottleneck. There's a lot more to this topic, so I'll just try to get my ideas in order and add to the feedback document for the end of the test.

jovial parcel
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I've been trying to do the trading bit that it was trying to encourage, but interestingly enough what's been demanded has been things like T2 aurumite, T1 clay and stone, T1 fertilizers, and T1 flowers. I'm not 100% on the impact that the funnel up changes made to the trading demand, but I get the impression that most of that wouldn't have changed demand. Maybe made some of the demand harsher but I remember that people needed it before the changes.

It's just that while we were frantically trying to dash up the tiers, we really didn't have time to experiment with pioneering new ways of getting materials. I'd also remark that the very limited space in our personal trader stand inventory didn't make trading feel great. Cargo can't set at any rate other than a 1:1 trade, which means that preprocessing into packages is of limited use when trading, since your opposite end may not be able to process into packages... or for that material type there isn't a package for it at all. In short, the inventory space limits what the customer can pay for the material, because there's no place in the stand to put it.

dull vault
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with the stamina cost reductions, the food stamina buffs, dough/baked food buffs and tool power buffs everything is actually feeling quite balanced now (except for limited inventory slots, item stacks, and disproportionately low drop rates of resin and gypsite)

mint musk
dull vault
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yeah, i think the main thing holding back the game at the moment is a whole bunch of necessary QoL of usability improvements. but i'm not blaming the devs for not adding them, things just take time to make

dull vault
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t1: 10 > t2: 30 > t3: 120 > t4: 480 > t5: 1920

mint musk
mental lagoon
# dull vault with the stamina cost reductions, the food stamina buffs, dough/baked food buffs...

agreed. things definitely took a turn for the better after the new patch after the big funnel change, but fundamental QoL things are still missing like mentioned above and no point in repeating, things that take time, and still a few bugs here and there with some stations and stamina usage. I think there needs to be a bit more consistency still on that front and a good revision with community feedback to point those things out more specifically we'll get us there

arctic magnet
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I just had a thought: the reaction to these changes is a classic example of how you don't want your first balancing patch to be a nerf. It of course doesn't make sense to use PR tactics on how you are balancing while in the alpha, but this does show how people react to making the game harder when there have been few moves for making the game easier (the game has plenty of QOL to add).

vernal trail
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After the initial devastation of funnel up being back it honestly doesn't feel that bad. Also now when I break down old stations I can upscale those old planks instead of tossing them RumbaghReboot

mental lagoon
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sadly not with lumber, low tier lumber is just dead planks and piling up dust is the stockpiles rn

mellow sky
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yeah, would enjoy a use for the timber, even at reduced "buyback" would like to be able to use timber instead of storing/wasting

quiet kettle
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i wish there was a meal that used mushrooms but didnt need bulbs

dull vault
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(skewers)

quiet kettle
iron fog
grand ginkgo
strong tiger
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I really hope that in the future, we can get packaged forms for all item stages immediately preceding any funnel-up crafts.
Example: Leather pieces. My claim is in a location where I can find T3 animals in abundance, but not T1 or T2- those spawns are a full 30+ minutes' travel distance from my claim, and as such, I am extremely reluctant to do anything with my T3 animals except store them... because if I process them, my inventory+storage will become flooded in no time at all. Pelts don't stack, cleaned pelts don't stack, and leather pieces don't stack. At the very least, I would like to be able to package leather pieces so that I can keep my inventory under control until I'm ready/able to bring the previous tiers to my claim, or carry a shipment of T3 to another claim.