Snowfall slate field

[Blue Hasia]

can the slate field in snowfall be beefed up, it can barely support 3 people their digging

[AmonGwareth]

Blue, there are lots of slate fields across Istaria.

[Blue Hasia]

snow fall is a popular place to gather slate, expert machines right at the field for the low lvls and is close to mag.

[AmonGwareth]

snow fall is a popular place to gather slate, expert machines right at the field for the low lvls and is close to mag.

I can beef it, but if I do I'm going to add golems to it.

[Raptress]

I can beef it, but if I do I'm going to add golems to it.

Please don't. I and I'm sure many others would much rather Snowfall remain golem-free, even if the spawn is troublesome at times.

[Shian]

I don't know if it's just me or not, but I do remember two years ago, it could support 3 and 4 diggers comfortably. What changed?

[velveeta]

it's not you shi...
i have been out there doing construction, and it is noticeably more sparse than even a year ago.......
thought it was just a need to reboot the server thing until the server was rebooted and there was no difference....
kinda sux, as i need a vast amount of slate in snowfall and i would feel guilty about snagging it all, if there was anyone else harvesting there....

[kynadre]

Did you check under the trees and the sides of the hills off the main gathering area, sometimes even as far down as the buildings below? Sometimes I find a great deal accumulated there that people don't know exist. Once I gather that, they go back to the field and there's plenty again.

[Shian]

No, it's not like that. There used to be enough resources for many people to be digging at once. It's more than just resources hiding under trees. I have trees turned off so I can see the whole field regardless if things are hiding or not.

[Chasing]

From what I have seen, the snowfall slate spawn became sparser/scarcer right around the time of the t2 revamp.

[Sigi]

Definately a sparser spawn.

[velveeta]

yeap checked everywhere - very very familiar with the snowfall field, thanx to el's godplot right there, and it is def much sparser with the total nodes, not just new places to hide them......i can wipe out the entire field myself filling up one t6 silo, and it usta take 3 of us to do that.....

[trcroyle]

Wasn't there a patch note recently that they had 'tweaked' the Snowfall field?

[Blue Hasia]

today 6-7 dragons were trying to mine snowfall slate, slate field could not keep up with demand.....

[AmonGwareth]

today 6-7 dragons were trying to mine snowfall slate, slate field could not keep up with demand.....

Some of those dragons should find another place to mine then. Sorry, just because lots of people are using a field doesn't mean it should be adjusted upwards.

Looking at the spawn locations other than Snowfall there are quite a few - Dalimond Peninsula (three distinct areas in fact), Scorpion Island, Abandoned Island, and Lesser Aradoth.

[Kesqui]

Some of those dragons should find another place to mine then. Sorry, just because lots of people are using a field doesn't mean it should be adjusted upwards.

Looking at the spawn locations other than Snowfall there are quite a few - Dalimond Peninsula (three distinct areas in fact), Scorpion Island, Abandoned Island, and Lesser Aradoth.

I know there must have been a logic behind removing the tier I materials from "around every non-player town" (when I came back to Istaria after a five-year hiatus, I couldn't understand why I couldn't find the Tier I gems around Chiconis) and had always assumed that was to *force* players to play together, in the same place (Starting in New Tris, then Lesser Aradoth, and progressing around the world in sequence with everyone who started at the same time as you), so that there was more player interaction.

Is it not the case that the developers want people to cluster in the same areas and would prefer to spread us out across the game world instead?

The Abandoned Island slate spawn is not amazingly convenient for anyone - the primary spawn area is a five-minute (or more, depending on disk and burden) flight across the island from the processing machines, and if dragons are using it, they may need the services of the anvil up at the top of the mountain as well. Because there are no lairs there, there's not even the chance of having someone build a set of processing machines up that way. I must admit I do use the AI spawn, but that's mostly because I can put Kesqui on auto-fly and have a putter on the laptop while I wait for her to cross the island both ways.

The Sslanis/southern Lesser Aradoth spawn's not a bad one, especially since it's right next to a processing machine (though I cannot remember if it has both a cutter and a stoneworking table there) - but again suffers from poor access to an anvil/scalecraft space.

Not sure where the Scorpion Island spawn is or how close it is to any plots where someone could put machines - Scorpion's a place I don't really go as it doesn't have convenient direct portal access to Chiconis, where I'd be taking any processed materials (I'd rather make just one expensive portal jump when possible).

I can only think offhand of one Dalimond-Peninsula spawn, but I don't remember it having convenient access to processing machines.

I like convenient access to processing machines because trying to go up a level or two isn't, at its heart, much fun. Dig, walk, process-process-eat, walk, repeat - not as rewarding as, say, being able to complete a full set of your very own crafting or adventuring scales for the next tier or seeing a new lair chamber pop. Getting my very own hall finished is going to keep me on the game for months regardless ... so I'd personally enjoy the game more if it felt less like work to do it (resources with no easy access to machinery) and more like play (Plenty of resources in convenient areas where I can also meet and talk to other players - the way I currently play, Horizons might as well be an offline RPG - right down to going places that are a bit less convenient because it means I don't have to worry about whether I'm hogging the whole spawn).

Competing for limited, ideal-location resources isn't much fun - you feel bad if you're filling a disk and not leaving anything for anyone else, and you're not going to make friends that way either.

[awdz]

Let me see if I can understand both sides here... I'll be guessing at a lot of the developer stuff and I'll be speaking as a player from Order shard, since I do not really know the others.

Players want enough workable stone areas that sharing is not frustrating. By workable, it is defined as having stonecutter, stoneworking pedestal, and a scaleforge/anvil in reasonable proximity.

For slate, we have gotten accustomed to the ease of harvesting and processing at snowfall. Since it got busy, we look around at other areas. Due south of Slate Crest and northwest of South March is a lovely new stoneworking shelter, all built, but no machines (coords 23083/20245). Even with the golems at the nodes right above it, this could be workable. Someone owns a nearby lair - if we can convince the owner to plan a scaleforge (not currently in the design), build it, and get the machines in both the lair and the shelter activated, then it would be an ideal alternative spot. BUT, I've been told there's a bug with the shelter machines from the revamp that has not been able to be fixed, which makes going there kind of frustrating. At least South March has the stoneworking pedestal and anvil, and is a safe run from there, but we still need the stonecutter... and other areas have related issues too.

For granite, the issue is lack of a nearby scaleforge/anvil, though if the plot with the stoneworking & scholar shops right by the granite canyons in Drift Point ever got razed we would have a greater problem. As far as I can tell, the lair in Drift Point does not have a scaleforge planned. I do not know if dragons would consider it worthwhile to make tier III spells to level there instead?

Those who can, have invested a lot into our plots and are not generally in a position to move and/or take on another one. Talking someone else into buying a land-owning subscription for our convenience does not generally work well; most of us who own plots for community convenience are long-time players who have long since passed most need for the lower tier resources. To say, "Just buy a plot and build it," is frustrating because we already would have if we had the means.

Developers have put a huge amount of thought and effort into creating a land with ample resources and opportunities for players to impact the game. It is frustrating to see fields designed in ways that were once lauded now being ignored because of established convenience. I think there is also a resources drain for maintaining said fields.

It used to be that we had to run across Istaria to find multiple materials of a given tier; now developers have made it so that crafters can find same-tier materials closer together, yet players complain that it is not even easier yet. It used to be that unguarded resources did not exist except on the training islands; now there are unguarded locations for resources of nearly every tier, and still players call for more convenience.

It used to be that other than racial cities, you had to attune to the few settlements that there were before being able to port anywhere for free. Now there are many convenient portal destinations which do not require attuning, and players complain if resources are not close enough for a short port to their projects.

Crafting has long been a major time sink for this game. Players who have learned all the shortcuts available clamor for more shortcuts, and then complain when they run out of things to do. The developers have made it much easier over time for players to craft, and whenever they try to take back some of the (from game balance view) overly done easiness, players scream foul. Thus, developers have learned to give less and use stealth for minor changes because they cannot readily undo what players insist on keeping.

Requests for machines are a staff-time demand compounded by the fact there's a bug that has yet to be undone that prevented the already constructed machines from being activated. New community machine structures are not likely to be considered until that is worked out.

Net, both sides have reasonable viewpoints which currently are at odds. In time, hopefully both can work towards a happy compromise (not "we pay so you have to cater to our demands no matter what" and not "we designed it, take it or leave it") where a good balance is achieved between system capabilities, player experience, and appropriate time-invested requirements. We as a community have gotten there before, after all. :-)

[Steelclaw]

I can see why Snowfall has become popular for slate and why people would get upset about its "adjustment". But, let's put that aside for the moment and try to get something productive going before this thread gets locked too.

The attractiveness of a location for resources depends on how optimal the location is (including the storage and machines in and around, portals, pads, mobs, and other resources) for what the resource is going to be used for. Some locations appear to favor "one off" jobs, like Abandoned Island, where the slate can spawn close to the portal. Other locations like Snowfall favor extended grinding for both XP and construction.

Also, let's assume that the following statements are true:
- There are multiple slate fields with different spawn attributes
- The designers want those slate fields to be used too
- The players want an optimal (or close to optimal) solution so they're not wasting time
- The Snowfall field spawn won't be increased
- Expecting to duplicate the level of "optimality" of the pre-revamp Snowfall field is unreasonable

Nobody is going to bother with what they perceive to be a non-optimal approach, so it's natural that people will tend to congregate at a location that appears to be optimal to them for what they are doing. One approach then, is to make multiple locations appear to be equally optimal -- thus making those locations interchangeable. This is the approach I'd like to explore.

So, what can be done to the other fields to make them more attractive?
Throwing out ideas: closer portal out, bigger plots, cheaper plots, other resources, closer pad in, linked fields... Be reasonable though.

[velveeta]

what steel sez goes ditto for me...
what we can't cure, we must endure, as they say...i only do slate at snowfall (for all the reason steel stated), so i am not even really aware of where the other node fields are. i am totally in favor of any positive changes that can be made to make them easier to harvest, tho!

btw - the upper augh granite field has a complete sws (ped of course, no 'draggy' machines) and is my fave place to harvest that stone. on blight, there are some plots with public silos down the hill from the port pads.

[Dracaena]

I never understood the fascination of the Snowfall field myself. But my main got past t2 dragoncrafter back in the day when the only scaleforges were on the starting islands, Dralk, and Chiconis. Player lairs didn't exist and it wasn't possible to craft on an anvil. I hauled many a load back to Chiconis or else worked blighted stone and made them into spellshards at the end. This screaming it is x number of feet to a portal just baffles me. My disk couldn't port back then either. My newer hatchling alts use metal and when they get up to it, the metal/stone scales for leveling same as I did with my main. With the changes to orb requirements in spells I don't see that as real viable anymore.

But one thing that might help with the clamoring. Get that loading screen tip that says for slate to go snowfall off the lineup. Maybe that will help get people to use their eyes and brains to see the other options. My personal favorite is the south field at Slate Hills. My biped hauled all the slate blocks for the plot out of there. Partly because at the time my properties were on Scorpion Island. But I am still going there for the slate work on my lair at Drakul.

Seriously, things are so much better now then they used to be for leveling dragoncraft. I just don't understand the complaints about one single field that is really an oddity considering the placement.


Dracaena