Gatherer - The root of all evil

[Mensar]

Man, talk about a no win situation! I actually had increased the experience gained for doing the tasks on Miner and Gatherer tasks in a recent set of patches, and people complained. The thread is somewhere on the forums, in fact.

Sorry, Lady V. I was just trying to fix something I thought was broken.

I'll retire from this thread

Thanks everyone for your input, good and bad. (bad especially as it gave me more validation and ways to shape my suggestions).

See you in game

[Mensar]

Man, talk about a no win situation! I actually had increased the experience gained for doing the tasks on Miner and Gatherer tasks in a recent set of patches, and people complained. The thread is somewhere on the forums, in fact.

Well.. I will say one thing.

As you can see on here, most of the folks replying with negative responses have either leveled gatherer using another higher level class, or used mushrooms back when they were a much higher exp value. Very few (if any) used the exp from the quest turn ins anyway.

So very few would have any real perspective on whether that would be a viable option for a change.

I recommend you bring it back

See.. I was wrong about level 19 being 19k.. level 17 is 19k... 6 hours then what? 8 hours for 18? 20 hours for 19?.. no thanks! Definitely needs some attention.

[Shian]

After seeing the responces. I think my only real suggestion would be to make these 2 schools have base requirements to join. "Prestige" if you will. They ARE prestige level Processing + Gathering schools, although there currently is no requirements to join. (see horizons.gamersinfo.net which DOES mark these schools as "Prestige", with information that came directly from Tulga/Vitrium. They simply lack an entrance requirement).

Please no. This game is a sandbox and I'd love for it to stay that way. I'd hate for this game to get restrictive in the fact that you would have to get one of the basics first.

[Velea]

They aren't Prestige Schools, but they aren't Base (Starter?) Schools either. They are "Secondary" schools, I suppose would be the name for them. Because of that, I can see a point being made to move the trainers for those schools off New Trismus so that people first encounter them on Lesser Aradoth. The precedent has been set for that with the adventuring schools that are this "Secondary" type school.

[GalemThawn]

Because of that, I can see a point being made to move the trainers for those schools off New Trismus so that people first encounter them on Lesser Aradoth. The precedent has been set for that with the adventuring schools that are this "Secondary" type school.

If you do decide to move them, be sure to take a look through quests. I think there are a couple of adventure or training quests that require you to visit these trainers.

[Soraii]

If you do decide to move them, be sure to take a look through quests. I think there are a couple of adventure or training quests that require you to visit these trainers.

No need to move the trainers, do as the trainers in the druid camp do, provide some information on the advanced class but not actualy train or invite you to the class however still exist there for being parts in interconnected quests.

Soraii

[Guaran]

The knowledge here has been overwhelming. So much experience, yes.

And I think making it a prestige class will only make bootstrapping mandatory. The exp issue will still be an issue although you would probably get a boost through T1 which, so far, is the extent of my experience with gatherer and where I feel the source of the problem is (I really hope it's not like this once you break through to T2).

But adding "turn in" quests for the whole tier would help alleviate that dead zone on the second half of the tier.. and a small exp boost per turn in would also help a bit.

Since this is a Prestige or Secondary class as Velea calls it, bootstraping is basically intended. Same thing for say Paladin, where you must have some warrior levels to Bootstrap (join) into Paladin. More classes require bootstrapping than not. It's simply the mechanics and interplay of shared skills between schools. Multiclassing is all about "bootstrapping". If you really study and pay attention to all the skills craft schools get (examining each school one at a time) and them examine which of those skills can be used to earn EXP, you see all sorts of overlap which is where mutliclassing and bootstrapping is made possible. Short of reworking ALL schools the way Lairshaping/Confectioner now work, there will be no changing this fact. just accept that this is how the schools are intended to work. Since you came from playing a dragon where (originally) a single craft school and a single adventure school was all there was to worry about, you have not had to learn how the multiclassing works. Thats what I've been trying to point out.

I do not think miner or gatherer are "broken", they are simply more difficult (with more reward in the end. No potions needed for t5 or even t6 gathering/mining once gatherer/miner are of sufficient level for example). More quests and perhaps exp changes to the trainer tasks might be in order, I will leave that for the dev's to decide. (btw Velea I think it's great that there are Miner quests on New Trismus. But don't move him around unless you really have to. Simply add some dialog to him that explains Miner is a Secondary school meant to supplement other schools such as blackksmith, and that it is easier to learn if one first has some blacksmithing experience. I will leave that to the quest writers or whoever has been writing the brilliant stories/lore lately we get every few months in emails).

As far as EXP per level is concerned: I can offer some recent observations. In the last 12 months or so I have leveled up lairshaper, alchemist, enchanter, outfitter, jeweler, miner, gatherer, spellcrafter, mason, and now even fitter. While leveling these schools I paid close attention to exp needed per level. my observations show some heavier weighting applied to certain levels, but the amount per particular level was I believe the same for all schools. For example if I observed 145,500 exp for lvl 42 to 43 in Miner, that same exp for the same level 42 to 43 in Fitter was needed. The "weighting" I have observed directly was lvl 90 to 91, which requires more exp than 91 to 92. I have guessed that this was done since this level once gained puts the character into new armor class. I would also guess this same heavy weighting occurs on all the points where a new armor type is earned. This was observed in more than one craft school (I also believe it affects adventure schools). This would be something the dev's will have to fill in the blanks on. But at first appearance I would guess its "working as intended" and was done on purpose.

[Enter]

Hi Mensar.

I am a Noob...
I certainly have made more than my share of complaints about some of the game mechanics i have experienced since retuning to the game last month.
However, I think you are just plain wrong on this one.

And I think I found out what your real problem is:

Mensar said:
"I agree, but that's a game mechanic. You can level up to 100 outfitter and use your skill at spinning to process ironsilk and rush gatherer INSANELY fast to at least 50 or 60 in probably 1/100th of the time it would normally take to level it the right way."

Apparently, your idea of what is the "RIGHT WAY", is causing you to view the game mechanic as "broken".
Who are you to decide what is the "right way"?
It's great to make suggestions for changes, but to sit here and argue with other players because they value the current mechanic is silly. Your just turning this in to a religious/moral debate about right and wrong.

Even a noob like me can see the POWER of Gather/Miner. They are slower to level because they are more powerful than the other classes.
I was a beta tester for Horizons and I can tell you for a fact that this was widely discusssed in the beta forums and set up this way intentionally.
As others have discussed, once you lvl either Miner or Gatherer to 100, you can bootstrap every other craft class to 100 VERY quickly. This is the true power of these two classes!

Personally, I choose Miner which I now have at lvl 56.
Thanks to MANY kind players who have made tools and equipment for me along the way which I could not make myself.
If I was dual boxing and already had a high level Dragon to bring me Gems I would have been lvl 100 weeks ago...

[Zexoin]

All I want to add is that Miner or gatherer, even if they are powerful classes, are a horrible grin to me and I have absolutely no fun raising them.

[Mensar]

I hear ya Zex

[Mensar]

Hi Mensar.

I am a Noob...
I certainly have made more than my share of complaints about some of the game mechanics i have experienced since retuning to the game last month.
However, I think you are just plain wrong on this one.

And I think I found out what your real problem is:

Mensar said:
"I agree, but that's a game mechanic. You can level up to 100 outfitter and use your skill at spinning to process ironsilk and rush gatherer INSANELY fast to at least 50 or 60 in probably 1/100th of the time it would normally take to level it the right way."

Apparently, your idea of what is the "RIGHT WAY", is causing you to view the game mechanic as "broken".
Who are you to decide what is the "right way"?
It's great to make suggestions for changes, but to sit here and argue with other players because they value the current mechanic is silly. Your just turning this in to a religious/moral debate about right and wrong.

Even a noob like me can see the POWER of Gather/Miner. They are slower to level because they are more powerful than the other classes.
I was a beta tester for Horizons and I can tell you for a fact that this was widely discusssed in the beta forums and set up this way intentionally.
As others have discussed, once you lvl either Miner or Gatherer to 100, you can bootstrap every other craft class to 100 VERY quickly. This is the true power of these two classes!

Personally, I choose Miner which I now have at lvl 56.
Thanks to MANY kind players who have made tools and equipment for me along the way which I could not make myself.
If I was dual boxing and already had a high level Dragon to bring me Gems I would have been lvl 100 weeks ago...

At first, I was going to respond rather abrasively to this post.

But all I'm going to say is.. congrats. I hope you figure it all out since you have the power of specifying what's right and not right Kinda like what's broken and not broken.

Folks I'm not checking this thread anymore, so please don't respond to me directly. I've had enough misplaced negativity for awhile.

Thread wasn't about right/wrong broken/not broken, etc etc etc etc.. The only thing it was about was what nobody discussed.. suggestions for increasing the exp for quest turn ins for gatherer.

Dev said they've already done this, and whether or not it made it live, that's all the validation I need.

[Weston]

I found this thread troubling enough that I decided to check for myself. On one issue, I owe Mensar an apology. He SHOULD legitimately question the assumptions and practices of the other players, devs, and game mechanics anytime he enounters one that just doesn't seem to jive...

I incorrectly assumed that when a dev gave a hint, shove, push, etc. that they were doing so based on a deeper understanding than I have.

Hey, Mensar...

Tannins.

I hereby recant my support for Otter's hint. I decided to take the bull by the horns, and test some aspects of Mensar's hypothesis. So, I took a newb character, still on Spirit Isle, and set out to be a Gatherer.

I started as 4 Blacksmith, 3 Scholar, 3 Outfitter. Since I would be 'soloing' a tough tradeschool, I made the following concessions.
1) I levelled Blacksmith and Outfitter both to 6 to earn enough tokens to buy two important forms. Fishing Pole and Fishing Line.
2) I got a complete set of starting Bronze/Cedar/SS tools for Gatherer, and chucked the Training ones.
3) I visited the Confectioner Trainer in Sslanis and bought the Beginner Prepared Fish formula.

From there is was off to the races. Started Gatherer in New Trismus, eventually moving to Parsinia, after running to attune from Kion. Somewhere around level 8 I got a Standard Cargo Disk (level 5), and at level 15 I got a mostly complete set of Flaxen Cargo, and a Deluxe Cargo disk (level 15).

My experience was as follows: Total time from level 1-20 was 8 hours, 50 minutes. Could have done it a bit faster, or a lot slower. Your choice. ;p

Levels 1-10 took somewhere around 3 hours of play time. Was finding my way around a bit, so might have reduced this time. These were solely off of trainer quests.

Levels 11-13+ took 35 minutes with one disk load of minnows.

Level 14 - 30 mins.
Level 15 - ~45 mins. Was having some kind of difficulty here. *shrugs*
Level 16 - 30 mins.
Level 17 - 40 mins.
Level 18 - 40 mins.
Level 19 - 80 mins. <--- tried Tannins. Don't. See below....
Level 20 - 50 mins.

The last 10 levels, except for 19, were done either with Minnow Filet quests, or with Cedar Board quests, or with Fungus Strips. I tried Hide Tannin at level 19. Opt Skill for this starter Tannin is around 425, so I assumed I'd get some decent xp. Wrong... at my skill level (at 19), it took 4 Bark and 4 Water to make 1 Hide Tannin. That gave a paltry 4 xp per batch. Compare that with Fungus Strips that at one point were giving like 32 xp per strip. The ONLY reason to make Tannin is if you need to earn coin, since it does give the best coin of anything you make. But I/we were attempting to LEVEL as efficiently as possible. Both the Minnows and Fungus are VERY efficient since bulk of 4 allows you to carry 1000 on a Deluxe Disk. For the record, if set up correctly, you can make 1 batch of Minnow Filets every 50 seconds, for 515 xp/batch.

I have more detail, but that'd nauseate everyone. ;D

Conclusion: I'd disagree with Mensar. It IS possible to level Gatherer without enduring undue hardship. (Level 18 complete on 1 disk of minnows, as an example.) Is IT possible to level Gatherer having no other schools levelled to bootstrap off of. In fact, having done Gatherer first, any other school requiring Gatherer-collected resources is going to go way quicker....

I'd welcome a PM from Laughing Otter... I'd like to know the reasoning behind his Tannin suggestion.

Happy Gathering!!

[Mensar]

Weston, I respect you as a player and a person, but .. ok let me rant a bit more.

Wow! That's awesome.. You had the best disk, the best cargo gear, the best tools, the best areas.. had the insight on the best things to process and even bootstrapped yourself up a few levels in the schools you knew you would be using most while you leveled gatherer.

That's amazing that you did it that fast, my hat is off to you.

But that's kind of what I've been saying over.... and over..... and over..... and over......

That nobody has been listening to me (obviously) is pretty plain.

A NEW player (someone without access to the right gear, the right disk, the right tools, the right area, the right insight, the right buffs, the right knowledge of what to level in terms of THREE other schools first and everthing else) won't know all that stuff. I mean, let's be honest.. what player would take gatherer from the start after having read this thread?

Hopefully nobody.

So that kind of cancels out anyone that would
1. Be knowledgable enough to be on the forums.
2. Know enough about the game to get all that gear and what-not.
3. Has a lick of sense after getting the right information (which I never had, but managed to figure out what could be done to try to fix it)

So saying they can gather all this stuff in advance, and do this and do that.. is moot. Nobody in their right mind is going to do gathering first especially if they have to do all this prep work and get all this gear, and get to this location and use a form you can only get from another school.. etc etc etc.

Look the bottom line is.. it was taking so long for me because I had a purpose behind what I was doing. I was leveling gatherer because I wanted a class that would give me wood gathering and cloth gathering at the same time without having to switch back and forth.. plain and simple. So as a CASUAL gamer using gatherer for exactly it's purpose.. gathering, it was taking forever. As I stated before.. I went from zero with gatherer and zero in general and got every requisite class to 15 for all the construction classes, then took all the construction classes from zero to at least 20 in the time it took gatherer to level to 16.

I had nothing to do with how "powerful" it is later on.. will I ever be a 100 crafter? Please... heck no! I'm a casual player that is doing construction classes as a means to an end.. not to prove something to myself or make the best of everything I possibly can. I don't have that kind of time which is why I have 3 accounts to help me craft.

The average joe player (or new to bipeds) would not have all that gear, know those spots, try those things, bootstrap in advance, etc. And even with everthing maxed, straight grinding with every possible amenity including.. what? 6? 7 schools you leveled in advance even confection so you could get some form for another way for exp? Rather than a controlled experiment, it sounded like a very well thought out and extremely planned attempt to beat some record, or try to prove/disprove something (the thread was about quest turn ins.. was that part of the experiment?). And it still took that long when you could have done a whole lot more in another class.

Of course.. the POINT of the thread..

Was a suggestion to help exp for gatherer:
1. To increase the exp of the turn ins for quests.
2. To increase the exp for processing of raw materials

There were more in the OP, but it got tailored down at some point and I honestly don't care enough to go back and look.

So disagree, go powerlevel out of some strange need to somehow prove me wrong instead of just providing information to folks on how to actually get the exp and raise the class. But, of course, unless they are using the class for roasting fish in a disk.. I'm kind of doubting that's going to help anyone with their gatherer exp unless that just happens to coincide with how they were going to use it. Otherwise it's just powerleveling a class. Which, again (for the billionth time) wasn't what this was about or I would tell everyone when I hit 16 I gave up on using the processing of resources.. had my dragons dump 15,000 T2 essence in a silo in 30 or so minutes and set them both in front of a high tier focuser and sent both of them from from 16 to 20 in less than an hour. But what was the point behind that? Gatherer gets exp from gathering... I guess that's what I don't get.

But bear in mind this wasn't about right/wrong broken/not broken. It was about someone thinking outside the box that saw something that wasn't making sense (and still doesn't) as far as the exp gained for a class that was just being used for the convenience of having two skills they needed.

And, as I stated before, if it wasn't broken the devs wouldn't be trying to fix it.. no matter how far in the past.

Nuff said.. dead issue.. really my last post.

Oh and as far as you saying that you'll make other levels more efficiently now.. don't forget to manually decon until you get higher than your gatherer level Yea, gatherer (for some weird reason) gives 8 salvage per level.. making it even more of a nightmare to level anything else.. much less itself.

/out

[Mensar]

And.. I'm laughing here..

You DO realize you did everything I said was mandatory to level gatherer.. you bootstrapped, you used mushrooms for some kind of hide (not a formula you're given for the class) and you power leveled/grinded it with something completely unrelated to the point of why you had the class. (I.E. if you were trying to use gatherer to be a good fisherman/mushroom hide creator.. I guess it turned out alright!)

Gatherer is supposed to level as you process resources.. NORMAL resources (can't get exp from MAKING anything.. at least not by design) or they would give you the forms you used to process fish, or the form you used to process mushrooms.. etc.

It's way behind the powercurve in that aspect. And now.. to bed.

[Sigi]

I found this thread troubling enough that I decided to check for myself. On one issue, I owe Mensar an apology. He SHOULD legitimately question the assumptions and practices of the other players, devs, and game mechanics anytime he enounters one that just doesn't seem to jive...

- deleted for the length, not for the content

Happy Gathering!!

That's a really useful post (reading it made me miss the hourly eggdrop )
Thank you!

[Sigi]

Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong but isn't fishing a specific gatherer skill (11 points per level?) so I don't see anything "abnormal" about using fish for leveling gatherer.

[Weston]

That's a really useful post (reading it made me miss the hourly eggdrop )
Thank you!

You're very welcome. If there was anything else of specific nature that you'd like me to share, please pm me.

[Weston]

Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong but isn't fishing a specific gatherer skill (11 points per level?) so I don't see anything "abnormal" about using fish for leveling gatherer.

You're correct. The fishing itself is. And the quests that ask for # of fish reflect that. The need to use a confectioner recipe for the secondary quests, tho, is not. The form SHOULD be given by the gatherer trainer as Mensar suggests, but that is easy to fix, I'd think.

On the other hand, what Mensar ignores with regard to Fungus is, that the Gatherer Trainer sells the formula for Fungal Cap Processing, which is as it should be. You're expected to spend some of the cash you earned doing the basic collection quests.

[LaughingOtter]

I'd welcome a PM from Laughing Otter... I'd like to know the reasoning behind his Tannin suggestion.

Outdated information, obviously. Nice job there, Weston.

[Weston]

Outdated information, obviously. Nice job there, Weston.

*waves* Anytime.