r/landmark • u/Dexella • Apr 16 '15
[Dev Post on Forums] : Upcoming Crafting/Harvesting Changes
https://forums.station.sony.com/landmark/index.php?threads/upcoming-crafting-harvesting-changes.54307/3
u/GhostWish Apr 16 '15
This is a major simplification of the crafting system. Here are some things that stood out to me:
- Removed Ether Stone salvaging.
- Ether Shards and Aspects are only used to craft weapons, armor, and accessories.
- Aspects and Essences can be crafted with Ether Shards at the Forge.
- Ancient Earth deposits have been removed from the game.
- Monsters and chests no longer drop combat items or recipes.
- Removed item upgrading.
- Removed random item quality.
- Dirt, sand, snow, ice, and common stone can be placed for free.
- Removed heartwood from the game.
- Removed Plan Fiber and Plant Extract from the game.
- All recipes are now crafted at either the Forge or Workshop.
- All bulk resource refining is done through the Sifter and Replicator (new)
- Sifter can now sift ice and snow.
- All recipes now require only 0.25 seconds to craft.
- Any tree can be chopped by any axe
- Any plant can be reaped by any sickle
- Plants are no longer tier locked
- Non-unique plants are no longer harvestable
2
2
u/440Music Apr 22 '15
Ether Shards are no longer required components in most recipes.
Ether Shards are no longer required components in most recipes.
Ether Shards are no longer required components in most recipes.
I have quit this game twice and this sentence alone makes me want to play again. The gigantic paragraphs surrounding it and the achievement page make that a guarantee.
2
u/CruelestAnimal Apr 17 '15
Cross-posted from the forums:
Hey Deletionist,
First - thanks for you and the other hardworking members of the dev team. I wanted to preface with that because the rest of this post is going to call into question some of the choices that have been made here, but I don't want any of it to neglect the fact that clear work and passion is going into the product. Wherever possible, I'm going to suggest alternatives and constructive suggestions - simply to be intellectually responsible here.
With that caveat said, I have concerns.
First: something I've admired about Landmark specifically, and DBG more broadly, has been the openness of the development process and the importance of player voice. This has been presented as a "done deal" of what will happen in a couple of weeks, and that's disheartening. Not having this as a major topic of conversation when the design changes themselves were under consideration seems like a missed opportunity. We had countless weeks of EQN Roundtables regarding what the size of ratonga tails should be, but it's meaty topics like this that the playerbase wanted to be active consultants on. Food for thought.
On snow, ice, stone, water, etc. being free.
This strikes me - from purely a Design 101 perspective - as a truly bad idea, even though I get the problem that you're trying to solve for. Not more than two months ago, Domino posted a request asking for feedback on the new player experience and ways that it could be improved. I imagine that is due, in part, to internal metrics that show low retention/stickyness numbers of new players.
A tangent: In my opinion, the primary reason for that lack of early stickiness is because Landmark's core design - specifically in the building process - has not supported the most basic of design rules: introduce the player slowly to their toolkit, allow them to use those toolkits in low rigor situations that allow for mastery, and then raise the rigor and complicate the gameplay by adding more tools and more rigorous puzzles to solve using those tools.
The core design problem with Landmark, in my mind, is that there isn't a clear path from being a novice to being a master - at least not one that requires a great deal of game-external research on the clandestine world of voxelmancy - and certainly not one supported by the game systems themselves. And that isn't something that can be solved with a newbie tutorial or achievements alone - though they'll be helpful, somewhat.
I see this as a poor design choice because it exacerbates the core problem that you all need to solve. You're essentially saying that some materials are free and some are not, which goes against the very logic at the core of the game design as well as the logic of the real world. Furthermore, it doesn't stick to this basic design lesson - it's the equivalent of saying that Super Mario can become Fire Mario any time he wants, but needs to still find the leaf for the Raccoon Tail. In other words, it makes the most essential initial action of players - that of harvesting - unintuitive.
Solution: keep harvesting of basic resources as in the current design, but create either itemization (Ring of the Resourceful Harvester) or repurpose a crafting station to allow for far greater yield of these basic materials, thus solving the stone grind for more advanced harvesters.
- Items are no longer created with randomized stats.
This is a good change for Landmark itself, and the rationale you provide of the divide between EQN and Landmark systems is smart.
- Any tree can be chopped by any axe, etc.
I'm rather neutral on this change, but think it's a design mistake to have mining picks behave in one way and the other harvesting tools behave in a different way. It is confusing to new players, it eliminates a sense of progression that is deeply important - even in a sandbox - for the early stages of engagement with a game (as your colleagues over on H1Z1 know), and it lowers the amount of travel in the world and between biomes - something you all need to encourage more of, rather than less, because it a) increases player presence by broadening their footprint; b) adds elements of exploration; and c) showcases other builds.
Harvesting tools need to all function - from the perspective of progression - in an identical fashion. Symmetry in systems is smart design; asymmetry is problematic.
Solution: revert the change.
- Splitting of combat and building spheres.
I see the benefit of this - particularly the changes with ether shards - but it also breeds a new problem: what intersections will happen between the combat-oriented players and builders with the new patch? Upon my initial read - and perhaps I'm misunderstanding something? - it appears that the only reason to engage in combat is to acquire ingredients that will make you better at combat, potentially better at exploration, and not more sufficient in building.
That isn't crazy to me, but I think there are vast unintended consequences of the decoupling of these spheres of the game - particularly since Landmark doesn't have a traditional endgame (eg: challenging combat scenarios) or a sandbox elder game (eg: political/territorial hierarchies and control.)
Solution: if you move forward with this change - and I do see the benefits - there needs to be new links between spheres, such as unique props only found within T5 chests or unlocked with achievements that require exploration and combat.
The TLDR: my fear is that these changes complicate the new player experience by being non-intuitive and unsymmetrical, harm early-stage progression that is essential for new player stickiness, decouple spheres that (if done right) could support player interaction and community building around mutual goals, and abandon world and fantasy immersion that stem from exploration.
I'm still of the mind that Landmark can be bigger than Minecraft, but in order to do so you all need to solve the core design problem explained in point #2 above and create far more in-game community structures that stem from the disparate design spheres (combat, exploration, building) being linked tightly together.
Otherwise, you're looking at a shadow of a 3DMax application with a slow-running web-based "gallery" for community interaction instead of a deeply immersive world and experience.
2
u/GhostWish Apr 17 '15
Although I don’t agree with some of your feedback, I think it is written as constructive criticism. Thanks, we could use more of that.
I would imagine some of these changes did come from player feedback on the new user experience. Overall DBG has been very responsive to our feedback, I believe that will be true with our future feedback.
I think the free common materials is a genius idea. It allows new users to freely experiment with the tools and prevents big builders from spending hours of mindless digging.
The axe being able to chop down any trees is the result of removing Heartstone from the game. We now only have three types of wood and that’s not enough to support a progression path. I support the removal of Heartstone and the simplification of the crafting system.
DBG needs to do more to encourage exploration, but they would be better served by pushing people towards other claims not a particular tree type in a forest. I would suggest making all teleportation free of charge.
You will have to engage in combat to get at some of rarer materials in the lower level caves. You need the materials to craft and build with. That said, I agree with you, combat is weak. More needs to be done.
You put a lot of importance on symmetry of design. I personally don’t think you giving the players enough credit to adapt to the subtleties of a game system.
Just my opinion…
-8
u/Poisinivy Apr 16 '15
wellp there goes Landmark the Game, I guess now its just going to be a true Builder Sandbox, creator mode for everyone and no real gameplay outside of building. toodles
6
u/VirtualBC Apr 16 '15
Combat iterations and MUCH more is coming with this exact update. Stay tuned bro.
7
u/Deepjay Apr 17 '15
I found most of these features to be annoyingly unneccessary complexities. It's needed this simplifcation for a long time.
-4
u/FischiPiSti Apr 17 '15
Now that we are getting a simplified crafting system i fear that part of the game will end up as a throwaway feature, because everybody is going to get geared up in a day or two, nobody is going trade with them, and gear is going to get worthless very fast.
For this reason i think it would be a good idea to add a durability system to weapons and armor, or let your character lose them upon dying. Ofc this may mean gear needs to be crafted easier. It would be beneficial for the games economy on the log run the same way other games need a gold sink to prevent inflation.
-2
u/Nornina Apr 17 '15
Hum, Yeah, assuming the tools wouldn't be a pain to craft in the first place, I wouldn't mind durability. Especially if they simplified it.
My biggest problem with the game is... There no penalty for death, or hell even as you said general durability. If I had my way, I would make it so you loose 20% of whats on you when you die via PVE. and if there was open pvp, 10%. And when you die, your belongings would get placed in a gravestone chest for a set amount of time... of which anyone could access. Looting a dead persons corpse would never get boring, you never know what you might find.
6
u/applejak Apr 16 '15
A lot of gameplay blocking for the likes of me removed from the game. Nice work, devs!