Impressions of Chapter 1 from ATS: of special interest to those who forage.
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:16 am
After Stigian and I spent some time exploring Chapter 1 on the Advanced Test Server here are our impressions of the forthcoming changes:
1. Kudos to Nevrax on the design of the magic gloves. We took some screens of the Medium & High Quality Magic Amps posted to our guild forums at http://www.minyatur.net. We're very excited to have them on the real servers but are not looking forward to gathering the mats required to craft them as will be pointed out later in this post.
Stigian with the Medium Q amps:
Me with the High Q amps:
2. Being able to buy player made goods is a big boon. One suggestion that I do have is to segregate the regions as has been previously mentioned. It makes merchanting an option for those who like to buy low and sell high. Also, as of right now there is no way to select multiple items to sell at once.
When grinding craft, I make more than several hundred items at once and would like to easily be able to choose the direct sale to NPC method. The system currently implemented in the vendors on ATS requires several clicks to do this and the process must be repeated for each item. Perhaps if the option to sell direct to the NPC should be set as default instead of vice versa. This would fix this problem.
3. The MP3 player is a very nice feature, but it vanished my hardware option enabled mouse (you can enable hardware mouse control in the interface options under game options). So hopefully they fix it soon otherwise I will be using winamp as per usual.
4. The encyclopedia window is in but empty. Content soon I hope!
5. VERY happy with the new Poison spell effect. It looks much cooler than the original animation and comes with a wicked snake hissing & rattling effect. Lightning has been redone as well and looks absolutely fantastic too.
Shockwave & Fire have not been modified.
6. NOT happy with the lack of ostentatiousness of the Living Pike versus the Burning Sword of the Fyros, the Waving Sword of the Trykers or the Electric Lance of the Zorai. Comeon Nevrax make Living look like something better than tiny drops of acid
Snake animations like the Poison spell perhaps?
7. Loading window music is very dramatic and well done. Same goes for the in game spell effects & sounds.
8. Blind and other afflictions have been fixed and do what they were supposed to do as intended.
9. Land specific mats can only be used in race specific crafted items, one exception being Prime Roots mats which can be used for any race's craft. I feel that this is as it should be.
10. Now we come to Foraging. Foraging has gone from my favourite past time to my most hated skill. This is why. The new changes FORCE people to group in order to adequately ensure that a source does not run out before materials can be pulled.
This is due to the fact that the stanzas making up an extract brick are so prohibitively expensive on focus & material sources die too quickly if you don't have a careplanner.
The use of careplanning is a MUST at the Q150 mats we were harvesting on the server. Now that is fine except for the fact that:
a. Careplanners get bupkiss in terms of XP compared to the actual person pulling the mats.
b. The -32 focus credit is gone with no intermediates in between -24 and -64. This in combination with the increased costs of stanzas that make up the brick make a forage pull extremely expensive on one's focus pool. In a team of two using adequate level appropriate speed, rates, quality & careplans the both of us completely drained our focus pool of 1500+ on ONE pull that took in all of 5 mats of Q140. This barely gave me 300 XP and the puller 1100 XP. This is absolutely unacceptable in terms of meeting material needs for crafters & meeting an XP rate for decent character progression especially for the careplanner.
I realise that there was concern that foragers were levelling too quickly but this is the entire opposite end of the spectrum here folks. Those of you who have high forage and access to the ATS server should check it out immediately. If we get on the Devs case there is still time to salvage the situation. After all if anything, foragers spend a lot of time levelling as it is and melee/magic level much faster, rapidly outstripping the abilities of our guild crafters to meet level appropriate gear for the guild.
THERE IS STILL TIME TO REMEDY THE SITUATION NEVRAX, I HOPE YOU REALISE THAT YOU HAVE SWUNG FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE OTHER. There is something wrong when you have a profession devoted to providing mats (Foragers) not be able to provide them in an abundance greater than what a hunting party would bring in.
Also foraging is enjoyable as a solo hobby. Please allow those of us who enjoy this aspect of the game (and there are many) to continue. It makes no sense to drag an ability down when it could be enhanced. That is, why nerf things for people who like to harvest instead of giving bonuses for grouping such as group material increases, stability increases while harvesting in groups etc.
With warmest regards,
Cieran
High Officer of the Minyatur
The strength of many, forged into one
Please visit our website's recruit forums or contact me in game if interested in joining.
1. Kudos to Nevrax on the design of the magic gloves. We took some screens of the Medium & High Quality Magic Amps posted to our guild forums at http://www.minyatur.net. We're very excited to have them on the real servers but are not looking forward to gathering the mats required to craft them as will be pointed out later in this post.
Stigian with the Medium Q amps:
Me with the High Q amps:
2. Being able to buy player made goods is a big boon. One suggestion that I do have is to segregate the regions as has been previously mentioned. It makes merchanting an option for those who like to buy low and sell high. Also, as of right now there is no way to select multiple items to sell at once.
When grinding craft, I make more than several hundred items at once and would like to easily be able to choose the direct sale to NPC method. The system currently implemented in the vendors on ATS requires several clicks to do this and the process must be repeated for each item. Perhaps if the option to sell direct to the NPC should be set as default instead of vice versa. This would fix this problem.
3. The MP3 player is a very nice feature, but it vanished my hardware option enabled mouse (you can enable hardware mouse control in the interface options under game options). So hopefully they fix it soon otherwise I will be using winamp as per usual.
4. The encyclopedia window is in but empty. Content soon I hope!
5. VERY happy with the new Poison spell effect. It looks much cooler than the original animation and comes with a wicked snake hissing & rattling effect. Lightning has been redone as well and looks absolutely fantastic too.
Shockwave & Fire have not been modified.
6. NOT happy with the lack of ostentatiousness of the Living Pike versus the Burning Sword of the Fyros, the Waving Sword of the Trykers or the Electric Lance of the Zorai. Comeon Nevrax make Living look like something better than tiny drops of acid
Snake animations like the Poison spell perhaps?
7. Loading window music is very dramatic and well done. Same goes for the in game spell effects & sounds.
8. Blind and other afflictions have been fixed and do what they were supposed to do as intended.
9. Land specific mats can only be used in race specific crafted items, one exception being Prime Roots mats which can be used for any race's craft. I feel that this is as it should be.
10. Now we come to Foraging. Foraging has gone from my favourite past time to my most hated skill. This is why. The new changes FORCE people to group in order to adequately ensure that a source does not run out before materials can be pulled.
This is due to the fact that the stanzas making up an extract brick are so prohibitively expensive on focus & material sources die too quickly if you don't have a careplanner.
The use of careplanning is a MUST at the Q150 mats we were harvesting on the server. Now that is fine except for the fact that:
a. Careplanners get bupkiss in terms of XP compared to the actual person pulling the mats.
b. The -32 focus credit is gone with no intermediates in between -24 and -64. This in combination with the increased costs of stanzas that make up the brick make a forage pull extremely expensive on one's focus pool. In a team of two using adequate level appropriate speed, rates, quality & careplans the both of us completely drained our focus pool of 1500+ on ONE pull that took in all of 5 mats of Q140. This barely gave me 300 XP and the puller 1100 XP. This is absolutely unacceptable in terms of meeting material needs for crafters & meeting an XP rate for decent character progression especially for the careplanner.
I realise that there was concern that foragers were levelling too quickly but this is the entire opposite end of the spectrum here folks. Those of you who have high forage and access to the ATS server should check it out immediately. If we get on the Devs case there is still time to salvage the situation. After all if anything, foragers spend a lot of time levelling as it is and melee/magic level much faster, rapidly outstripping the abilities of our guild crafters to meet level appropriate gear for the guild.
THERE IS STILL TIME TO REMEDY THE SITUATION NEVRAX, I HOPE YOU REALISE THAT YOU HAVE SWUNG FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE OTHER. There is something wrong when you have a profession devoted to providing mats (Foragers) not be able to provide them in an abundance greater than what a hunting party would bring in.
Also foraging is enjoyable as a solo hobby. Please allow those of us who enjoy this aspect of the game (and there are many) to continue. It makes no sense to drag an ability down when it could be enhanced. That is, why nerf things for people who like to harvest instead of giving bonuses for grouping such as group material increases, stability increases while harvesting in groups etc.
With warmest regards,
Cieran
High Officer of the Minyatur
The strength of many, forged into one
Please visit our website's recruit forums or contact me in game if interested in joining.
