Don't make gathering like this....

xycrone · November 2013

Ok so there have been too many mmorpg games that have cool build and destroy features but with boring gathering functions (or even just build systems though if what you build gets destroyed then u have build and gather more).

First and oldest example is Eve. To be fair though Eve does have gathering features that you can work up to that are more set and forget. However Eve is a mindless grind when it comes to mining. If it was more like Jumpgate or SWGJTL I would enjoy it, but nope you just sit there and click a button and wait for someone to come suicide gank u because they are bored too.

I get that you need to have a function of attrition, but really you are just going to drive players away if you are not going to try to engage them in the experience. With Eve because there is no fun way to fly your ship they should just figure out how to implement npc's that you can hire to do it or just plant a drone base in an area and let it go to town while you hunt bad guys.

That would be more fun than just afk mining the way it is now imo.

Ok enough about Eve, it is really not the the worst offender.

By far the worst offender is Darkfall UHW imo. There is noway to justify the boring gathering in that game. You build gear and boats but beyond that there is no designing your own personal structure like in Minecraft or Wurm.

Darkfall could use a npc gathering system of some sort. Hell there are all kinds of "bots" anyway so why not just add legit npc bots you can hire to do it for you so you can get on with defending and capturing and kicking but. Don't make your game unattractive with a boring gathering system.

When asked by my friends in team speak, who I was trying to get to play Darkfall with me, what I was doing I had to tell them I was wacking a bush to get xp and stuff. They are not going to think that is fun, and they are completely right!

Wurm might be worse but it has the best building system I have ever seen in a game. So you can almost put up with it but your whole guild will not. Wurm again needs at least a npc system that you can work towards getting set up. A mini game while you chop wood would be nice too. But it is straight up boring no matter how you slice it to chop wood, and that is a shame because to enjoy what Wurm has to offer in the build system you have to deal with the insanely tedious gathering system.

Note to Devs: Do not implement boring gathering in your game thinking it is going to make you a ton of money! You will be disappointed 9 out 10 times.

Ok now WoW is not as bad as the rest but countless games copied it's system and it is not all that great. It's also not absolutely necessary and the same is true in some of the other games I mentioned. But the SWG system was by far superior; and any system that gives you a way to get resources that is not as boring as Darkfall's or Wurm's is what you as a dev should be aiming at.

Now lets talk about gathering systems that I liked.

# 1) is Dragon's Prophet. Yes you can collect recourses WoW style but when you get a dragon you can tell it to go gather for you. In a game that has no attrition warfare this is perfect. It lets me enjoy the great combo and dodge combat system while my dragon takes care of the really boring stuff for me. I can raid to my hearts content because I have an easy passive income. So yeah +1.

# 2) is Minecraft. Yeah I know it has manual gathering but mining is fast and fun and copping a tree is like a mini game and fast too. So yeah try it if you have not.

# 3) SWGFTL was great imo set and forget although the search for a resource was time consuming it paid off with a set and forget system that was pretty well done. Even the asteroid mining was a mini game and I felt my skill had something to do with my success.

#4) Firefall is good to try it.

# 5) is Wurm. Ok i'm running out of good examples so I will say that because mining allows you to dig in the direction you want and you are not just clicking on a static mine like in Darkfall, it is engaging. in Wurm you have to make decisions and reinforce your mine if it is to wide. However chopping on a tree in Wurm is flat out worse than Darkfall. There are some things to know about trees but in the end you just click and wait and then you have to cop up the tree after you cut it down. So yeah a lot of clicking and waiting. Not fun.

#6) Ryzom is not bad from what little I played of it.

Please just stop and think about what type of system you are going to use in your mmorpg game. If you want war of attrition go the SWGJTL or even Divergence Online way. if you don't want war of attrition go the Dragon Prophet way; and while your at it copy the Dragon's prophet combo and dodge combat style too.

Stop the trend man and end the boredom.

Unknown · November 2013

Originally posted by xycrone
nope you just sit there and click a button and wait for someone to come suicide gank u because they are bored too.

I've never seen someone describe EVE Online so perfectly in a single sentence.

I do agree with the OP though, also one game I'd like to add to the list for an interesting resource gathering system was Ultima Online, they used a system where every rock tile in the game was minable, be it the side of a mountain, in a cave, or in a dungeon. It wasn't just resource nodes, and it was up to the players to discover which of the tiles contained the rarest ore (about 1% of the total tiles in the game contained valorite if I remember right).

The disadvantage to Ultima's system is the places the rare ore spawned never changed, which could be good or bad, but it lead to a lot of libraries of locations where players would just teleport in, mine that single square and move on. So as a miner once you had your established rare ore locations there wasn't really a reason to seek out more.

gatheris · November 2013

another to add - which i would put at number one

Saga of Ryzom (or Ryzom as it is now known)

best, hardest and pretty entertaining - mats could be seasonal, night or day and weather related - and then a mini-game - and don't forget the roaming beasties to make you high-tail it for the hills

monochrome19 · November 2013

I liked gathering herbs in WoW...

I dont like having NPCs gather stuff for me.

Quesa · November 2013

Originally posted by gatheris
another to add - which i would put at number one

Saga of Ryzom (or Ryzom as it is now known)

best, hardest and pretty entertaining - mats could be seasonal, night or day and weather related - and then a mini-game - and don't forget the roaming beasties to make you high-tail it for the hills

Someone actually mentioned Ryzom! Possibly one of the best gathering/crafting systems around.

aspekx · November 2013

i love resource gathering in an mmo. for me it ties in perfectly with my typical desire to explore and see what's over the next hill.

however, i do think the OP is right in that SWG offered the best harvesting options available.

Foomerang · November 2013

I enjoy gathering in mmos because it gets you out into the gameworld, you interact with the environment without combat, you provide a service to fellow players, and you are the nuts and bolts of the game's economy. For me, the mechanics are secondary. I do enjoy the more interesting ones, but its not a deal breaker if its less intensive.

nariusseldon · November 2013

Good point .. clicking on a rock, or a plant, or whatever the gathering node is not my idea of fun.

xycrone · November 2013

Originally posted by Foomerang
I enjoy gathering in mmos because it gets you out into the gameworld, you interact with the environment without combat, you provide a service to fellow players, and you are the nuts and bolts of the game's economy. For me, the mechanics are secondary. I do enjoy the more interesting ones, but its not a deal breaker if its less intensive.

I'm not saying exploring is not fun but when you are stuck for hours of game time hitting a rock, are you really getting the most fun out of your game time?

Exploring and contribution is great but it is a deal breaker if the game forces your guild to constantly do boring operations instead of contributing to the construction of content in a sandbox game. Whether you are organizing raids on enemies or building cities. If you are constantly drawn away from the fun part of the game it is hard to retain a player base to sustain a sandboxy game. Be creative if you're creating a gather function for crafting.

Boring gathering operations are simply a bad way to spend your game time especially if you have little time to game.

For example I had the most fun I ever had playing Perpetuum before the manufacturing exploit issue resulted in a decreased insurance payout. I could no longer afford to buy mechs to fight with in pvp and instead spent most of my time mining and quickly lost interest.

These issues need attention:

# 1) is the gathering fun and are you spending too much time doing gathering when you rather be fighting?

# 2) Can pvp players afford to do pvp and/or make enough money as a combat character to avoid gathering operations if they want to? If a player can make money to sustain doing what they like by doing what they like then your on the right track to sustained player retention. You can also put in place a set and forget gathering mechanic.

Point is don't force players to do things that are not fun. You simply will not hold a lot of peoples attention or hard earned cash.

Iselin · November 2013

There are some things that are worth simulating realistically and some that are not. Gathering is in the 2nd group.

How many of you urbanites have actually spent 10 hours in a field squatting or bent-over gathering strawberries? It's mind-numbing work that will also leave you with aches for a week in muscles you didn't know existed.

The fruits of your labor are a different story. All of us who enjoy crafting in MMOs want that so we can make the things we use in the game. But the gathering itself is just a means to an end for me and I would be perfectly happy having that chore abstracted by having NPCs do it or even just buying the raw material from NPC vendors.

I would have shortened the title of this thread into "Don't make gathering"... period.

Foomerang · November 2013

Originally posted by xycrone

# 1) is the gathering fun and are you spending too much time doing gathering when you rather be fighting?# 2) Can pvp players afford to do pvp and/or make enough money as a combat character to avoid gathering operations if they want to? If a player can make money to sustain doing what they like by doing what they like then your on the right track to sustained player retention. You can also put in place a set and forget gathering mechanic.Point is don't force players to do things that are not fun. You simply will not hold a lot of peoples attention or hard earned cash.

Here's the thing though; gathering is its own style and caters to its own fringe group of mmo gamers. You are wanting gathering to be fun for people who don't like gathering. Devs did the same thing with crafting by trying to make it something for non crafters to enjoy.

You need to understand that these game systems have different playstyles for a reason. I don't want gathering to be exciting like combat or some sort of strategy game like crafting. Would you like it if I wanted combat to be more subdued like gathering? No. They are separate gaming experiences.

If you want gathering to be as fun as combat, theres an easy solution: do combat. Of course a dev is going to make whatever they want and in the end, it is our choice as to what we want to play or not. But you're taking away one of the few things about mmos that makes them unique. People playing the same game on the same server and in the same places but in vastly different ways.

xycrone · November 2013

Originally posted by Foomerang

Originally posted by xycrone

# 1) is the gathering fun and are you spending too much time doing gathering when you rather be fighting?

# 2) Can pvp players afford to do pvp and/or make enough money as a combat character to avoid gathering operations if they want to? If a player can make money to sustain doing what they like by doing what they like then your on the right track to sustained player retention. You can also put in place a set and forget gathering mechanic.

Point is don't force players to do things that are not fun. You simply will not hold a lot of peoples attention or hard earned cash.

Here's the thing though; gathering is its own style and caters to its own fringe group of mmo gamers. You are wanting gathering to be fun for people who don't like gathering. Devs did the same thing with crafting by trying to make it something for non crafters to enjoy.

You need to understand that these game systems have different playstyles for a reason. I don't want gathering to be exciting like combat or some sort of strategy game like crafting. Would you like it if I wanted combat to be more subdued like gathering? No. They are separate gaming experiences.

If you want gathering to be as fun as combat, theres an easy solution: do combat. Of course a dev is going to make whatever they want and in the end, it is our choice as to what we want to play or not. But you're taking away one of the few things about mmos that makes them unique. People playing the same game on the same server and in the same places but in vastly different ways.

I understand what u are saying but some games force u to do some gathering and Darkfall was the worst culprit by far. I find myself getting tricked into a game that looks like and is fun but then you can't really have fun unless u do some boring gathering. When the gathering is just clicking on a node, sometimes repeatedly for 5-20 min., why can't the dev's just make it totally hands free and let me do something fun for those 5-20 min.? I don't know the exact node extraction time but I do know I spent way too much time doing it ( hours at a time) when I wanted to siege and defend castles not gather for them.

I understand that some people watch a show or read a audio book, but I don't have time for that.

So yeah, if I can just not do gathering and have my sandbox too, then I'm a happy camper. But more and more it seems that sandbox = boring gathering and it's really just bad developing imo.

So now that we have plenty of boring sandgathering mmo's how about we get some action sandbox mmo's? That's all I wants.

Foomerang · November 2013

Originally posted by xycrone
Originally posted by Foomerang Originally posted by xycrone # 1) is the gathering fun and are you spending too much time doing gathering when you rather be fighting? # 2) Can pvp players afford to do pvp and/or make enough money as a combat character to avoid gathering operations if they want to? If a player can make money to sustain doing what they like by doing what they like then your on the right track to sustained player retention. You can also put in place a set and forget gathering mechanic. Point is don't force players to do things that are not fun. You simply will not hold a lot of peoples attention or hard earned cash.

Here's the thing though; gathering is its own style and caters to its own fringe group of mmo gamers. You are wanting gathering to be fun for people who don't like gathering. Devs did the same thing with crafting by trying to make it something for non crafters to enjoy. You need to understand that these game systems have different playstyles for a reason. I don't want gathering to be exciting like combat or some sort of strategy game like crafting. Would you like it if I wanted combat to be more subdued like gathering? No. They are separate gaming experiences. If you want gathering to be as fun as combat, theres an easy solution: do combat. Of course a dev is going to make whatever they want and in the end, it is our choice as to what we want to play or not. But you're taking away one of the few things about mmos that makes them unique. People playing the same game on the same server and in the same places but in vastly different ways.

I understand what u are saying but some games force u to do some gathering and Darkfall was the worst culprit by far. I find myself getting tricked into a game that looks like and is fun but then you can't really have fun unless u do some boring gathering. When the gathering is just clicking on a node, sometimes repeatedly for 5-20 min., why can't the dev's just make it totally hands free and let me do something fun for those 5-20 min.? I don't know the exact node extraction time but I do know I spent way too much time doing it ( hours at a time) when I wanted to siege and defend castles not gather for them.

I understand that some people watch a show or read a audio book, but I don't have time for that.

So yeah, if I can just not do gathering and have my sandbox too, then I'm a happy camper. But more and more it seems that sandbox = boring gathering and it's really just bad developing imo.

So now that we have plenty of boring sandgathering mmo's how about we get some action sandbox mmo's? That's all I wants.

I can understand your frustration. But honestly, there are no mmos that literally force you to do gathering. If a gathering material can be traded or sold (which is always the case), then you have a way to avoid it via other content that generates currency or other desirable items to trade. You may feel you are forced to gather because it is more convenient or accessible than paying someone else, but then that's kind of the point isn't it? You have to make s choice basedon what you want to do and possibly rely on other players to get it all done. If you don't want to do that and would rather be 100% self sufficient, then there is a good chance you will be doing things that you find boring along the way.

xycrone · November 2013

Originally posted by Foomerang

Originally posted by xycrone

Originally posted by Foomerang

Originally posted by xycrone # 1) is the gathering fun and are you spending too much time doing gathering when you rather be fighting? # 2) Can pvp players afford to do pvp and/or make enough money as a combat character to avoid gathering operations if they want to? If a player can make money to sustain doing what they like by doing what they like then your on the right track to sustained player retention. You can also put in place a set and forget gathering mechanic. Point is don't force players to do things that are not fun. You simply will not hold a lot of peoples attention or hard earned cash.

Here's the thing though; gathering is its own style and caters to its own fringe group of mmo gamers. You are wanting gathering to be fun for people who don't like gathering. Devs did the same thing with crafting by trying to make it something for non crafters to enjoy. You need to understand that these game systems have different playstyles for a reason. I don't want gathering to be exciting like combat or some sort of strategy game like crafting. Would you like it if I wanted combat to be more subdued like gathering? No. They are separate gaming experiences. If you want gathering to be as fun as combat, theres an easy solution: do combat. Of course a dev is going to make whatever they want and in the end, it is our choice as to what we want to play or not. But you're taking away one of the few things about mmos that makes them unique. People playing the same game on the same server and in the same places but in vastly different ways.

I understand what u are saying but some games force u to do some gathering and Darkfall was the worst culprit by far. I find myself getting tricked into a game that looks like and is fun but then you can't really have fun unless u do some boring gathering. When the gathering is just clicking on a node, sometimes repeatedly for 5-20 min., why can't the dev's just make it totally hands free and let me do something fun for those 5-20 min.? I don't know the exact node extraction time but I do know I spent way too much time doing it ( hours at a time) when I wanted to siege and defend castles not gather for them.

I understand that some people watch a show or read a audio book, but I don't have time for that.

So yeah, if I can just not do gathering and have my sandbox too, then I'm a happy camper. But more and more it seems that sandbox = boring gathering and it's really just bad developing imo.

So now that we have plenty of boring sandgathering mmo's how about we get some action sandbox mmo's? That's all I wants.

I can understand your frustration. But honestly, there are no mmos that literally force you to do gathering. If a gathering material can be traded or sold (which is always the case), then you have a way to avoid it via other content that generates currency or other desirable items to trade. You may feel you are forced to gather because it is more convenient or accessible than paying someone else, but then that's kind of the point isn't it? You have to make s choice basedon what you want to do and possibly rely on other players to get it all done. If you don't want to do that and would rather be 100% self sufficient, then there is a good chance you will be doing things that you find boring along the way.

I understand what your saying but in Darkfall for instance we had a city to build up and an army to outfit and crafting is expensive in most games so in the end you have to gather what you need yourself and I think most have experienced this. So to have a boring gathering mechanic ruined the game for me. I will not pay for that when I am looking to have fun. I will find some other place to spend my hard earned cash.

1 thing to note is the relatively small amount you got for your time. I get that it needs to take time for the war of a attrition but there is a better set and forget way to implement it so that it is not so boring to stay competitive.

Akulas · November 2013

I would have to say Ryzom is the best gathering / crafting around and a modern game would do well if it had a system like that

Banaghran · November 2013

Originally posted by Quesa
Originally posted by gatheris
another to add - which i would put at number one

Saga of Ryzom (or Ryzom as it is now known)

best, hardest and pretty entertaining - mats could be seasonal, night or day and weather related - and then a mini-game - and don't forget the roaming beasties to make you high-tail it for the hills

Someone actually mentioned Ryzom! Possibly one of the best gathering/crafting systems around.

My experience with it was tainted by the availability of the larva (from bosses, raids) at the time that made the whole gathering concept questionable, if not obsolete.

But i hear the sutiation has calmed down since then.

Flame on!

apocoluster · November 2013

Originally posted by Banaghran
Originally posted by Quesa
Originally posted by gatheris
another to add - which i would put at number one

Saga of Ryzom (or Ryzom as it is now known)

best, hardest and pretty entertaining - mats could be seasonal, night or day and weather related - and then a mini-game - and don't forget the roaming beasties to make you high-tail it for the hills

Someone actually mentioned Ryzom! Possibly one of the best gathering/crafting systems around.

My experience with it was tainted by the availability of the larva (from bosses, raids) at the time that made the whole gathering concept questionable, if not obsolete.

But i hear the sutiation has calmed down since then.

Flame on!

Flames about Ryzom. Lol I wouldn't think there were enough people left who care

5Luck · November 2013

See this is one of those threads that I can honestly say is ruining MMOs.

The main thing here is while your exploring mobbing or questing your not as social.

But

When I am out banging rocks yea know what I am doing?

Building comunity. Yea that whole aspect we all complain about being gone from MMOs went with hard time consuming gathering AND the people who enjoy it.

Just because it isnt spotlight worthy entertainment does not mean it has no place. Just think of all those sub charaters in the shows and movies youve watch. Now thing of the story without them....

xycrone · November 2013

Originally posted by 5Luck
See this is one of those threads that I can honestly say is ruining MMOs.

The main thing here is while your exploring mobbing or questing your not as social.

But

When I am out banging rocks yea know what I am doing?

Building comunity. Yea that whole aspect we all complain about being gone from MMOs went with hard time consuming gathering AND the people who enjoy it.

Just because it isnt spotlight worthy entertainment does not mean it has no place. Just think of all those sub charaters in the shows and movies youve watch. Now thing of the story without them....

What community can you build if everyone is gone?

5Luck · November 2013

Originally posted by xycrone

What community can you build if everyone is gone?

If you want it all to be only for you then you will be the only one left...

See thats the other side of that same "coin"

xaritscin · November 2013

ahhhhh the EVE example is perfect of how gathering should not be done. even being a miner i hate the whole industry stuff in that game (and i like that game).....but its more related to how EVE is handled, all the activities in EVE are button dependant. if we wanted a more fast paced game it wouldnt be EVE anymore, it would be any other space sim......i could say the most closer would be an X3: Online.....

out of the jokes. the problem with gathering is more of how resources are handled and the player's interaction with the environment.

examples about resource distribution are WoW's ore veins and EVE's asteroids. althought the type is random, the ore is always in the same place.

a good example of resource distribution is Entropia, out of the casino bullshit. resources in entropia have to be finded and are at random locations. both size and type are random too. and the last update seems to have changed the distribution to be more defined by geology (dont have more info about it).

the ideal thing with gathering systems would be that players would have to look for the resources, resources would be changing positions all the time after they're harvested. this of course, only applies to ores and stones.

as for wood and herbs, well, define them by things like climate, biome and location. herbs should also be able to be raised by players. giving use to farm and greenhouse mechanics.

trees should be part of that mechanic since right now they're mostly cosmetic. chopping down trees should have an impact in the world and as such they should be a renewable resource. an example of that is Wakfu, there's an ecosystem mechanics that dictates the need of having a balance between herbs, trees and fauna.

animal derive products should enter in this category, be it hunting them or taming and breeding them. the increas or loss of certains species should have an influence in the world.

ores and minerals dont really have an impact in the game, unless that game handled terrain modification (like Wurm i guess). so players would be hable to make quarry mines and that stuff and actually transforming the terrain.

the idea is to allow players to be active in gathering, not all gathering jobs have to be active, as i explained with herbs /crops and animal products. but things like wood and ores would require being in constant move AND taking care of not creating an unbalance in the ecosystem.

it would make the economy more dinamic IMO

Wizardry · November 2013

I was sort of lost,then as i read further i was painting a pretty good picture,then the Dragon's Prophet solidified m,y belief.

The OP simply wants the game to play itself and tries to justify dumbing games down even further stating all those game systems are boring,so lets just scrap them altogether or automate them.

That is the absolute worst thing i hate in games is when developers get lazy and start creating PHANTOM content that plays itself,last thing i want is to see players asking for even more.

You know what i say,why stop there why not just encourage more Blizzard and everyone stops playing games,we just buy max player,best gear and do something else with our free time.OR better yet,let's have automated crafting,gathering,leveling,travel EVERYTHING plays itself,however we still login and pretend we are gaming.

I want to see the quantity of games reduced drastically,i want to see all the lazy and cheap developers gone.I want to see ONLY those developers that want to make a game because they have a passion for it,not because it is their business and want to turn millions of dollars of profit.It is VERY easy to spot the lame developers,just look for the ones justifying their game with numbers, "Come join us,we have 5 million players" or "We have 20 million accounts,best game ever".Everything will be WE and US no YOU except to BS YOU and tell you how they made the game just for YOU.

zasten · November 2013

GW2 is painfully slow at providing ancient timber!

You have to grind away at low level crap to get items that you then salvage in to mats, with a very small chance of obtaining the desired item. Of course you could instead spend all you time getting repairs because, if your on a server with a low population, you will die just trying to get to the spawn points of the mats!

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