1.5 years old thread...... and if anyone is in the belief hz's crafting is superior to most of the newer games you're kidding yourself. Its just grind grind grind with no real content, or problem model for an economy. Ryzom and EQ2 both have a much superior system, in every way except the pure bulk of craft schools..
AAO... have you spent much time crafting in Ryzom?
I did... and guess what... Spent LOTS of time digging away. If you do play Ryzom, let me know when you hit 250 dig in all of the lands, and master atleast 5 branches of craft with all the associated items. Then we can have an intelligent, informed conversation on which game is less "grindy" Horizons or Ryzom.
My opinion is that Ryzom's crafting is nifty and neat at first, but it certainly turns into one major grindfest after grindfest, after grindfest. 5 lands to master digging in, and then all of the seperate racial forms. All the forms being readily available is also one thing I didn't and still do not care for. Oh, did I mention that some of the "supreme" mats to make the "uber" gear are in PvP areas?
It tis true that crafting can be a bit of a grind here, but no where near SoRry (as I call it) Sure it can be a pain harvesting away for days and days here in Horizons, but there is more than one way to get resources. I would never of been able to hit 100 fletcher if it wasn't for the Treants wondering around just waiting to be slain, and then harvested.
This is just my opinion, and mine only. Some of the things I speak of may have changed since a year ago, so my thoughts are based upon that time frame.
Last edited by Goffy Monekin; September 19th, 2006 at 12:12 AM.
It is better to regret something you have done, than something you haven't done.
I much prefer crafting in Horizons above anything else (except UO but that sjust coz i love that game so much) I'm not looking at the Grind side of things, because, well... name me an MMO without grind. You either need 10000s of customers each day so you can level up with a reason, or you have to grind.
Yes, Horizons crafting could be more detailed, but right now I love that you can make simple items or complex (teched) items, depending on resources etc. It works a lot like UO, in that first you gather the raw resources, then you process them, then combine them into the final product (+ tech comps if necessary)
EQ2 had the right idea, with the skills to improve the craft if you were paying attention, but it was incredibly tedious. Whilst I don't really agree that the way to raise craft is to make 1000s of one item, I also don't agree to taking 15 - 30 minutes to make one cup of tea. Problem with EQ2 is you can't just go to a tea bush to get a tea leaf, you have to go to a bush and hope that one of the items you get is a tea leaf. Then you have to buy some cream and water to go with it (why can't i craft those or gather them?). Then once thats done, you have to make sure you have the right skills out, and pay careful attention for a good 3 - 5 minutes in order to get the best quality tea you can.
Not only that, but they're doing away with it anyway, so you'll literally just go out and gather all the components for the more complex recipes (e.g. swords, you used to have to make the blade and hilt seperate, all the stuff for the blae/hilt seperate and then combine them) and make the sword in one go. They're dumbing it down to be like other games.
If they'd only add in more forms and variation, Horizons would be the best crafting system around. Perhaps they could even make it a new school or skill that allows you to tweak the look of the item. Right now we can dye armour, sure, that's great. But what about having different forms or techs that allow you to put different engravings on? I'd certainly love to create a large shield for myself that was engraved with a dragon breathing fire. Or perhaps to put trims on? So you could have that fancy dress with gold trimmings.
Yes, I can see for sure ryzom is very grinding for crafting. However the system is far far better, ryzom's system is interactive and requires attention and knowing whats going, instead of hitting the gather key once in hz. The shear # of levels is excessive in the game, but it doesn't take away that its a far superior system, and you can always hunt and craft, you gain materials fast at least at my level.
You do not need to take all levels to the max, you just need to enjoy the game.
Horizons and Ryzom are not good crafting games period. There isn't a good one out and the only that can be said to be any good is UO.
Now Horizons, Ryzom and EQ2 have particular facets to its crafting system that make it ok. For example Horizons building system, very nice and it compliments the game well. But the overall crafting system sucks. Dragging a disc around and spending 99 percent of your time gathering to simply click a few times while you make 200 to 300 items to level up is hardly innovative and fun. Its just as much of a grind as anything that Ryzom offers. You have wasted classes like miner and gatherer as well. So what happened is that Horizons offers you a shell of a system that was never complete. EQ2 ? fantastic finishing process. I'm sorry but the game allows you to be actively involved in the crafting of a single item. You alone determine its quality. I would change nothing in the fabrication process of the game. I would however add the ability to add custom changes like sockets and techs from Horizons. Ryzom has its decent qualities as well but as mentioning the needing to master in each land is definitely adding to the grind factor.
In the end regardless every crafting based game out there is one massive grind because the devs it seems do not have the will nor the imagination to make a complete well considered system.
One day developers will realize that grind does not equal fun and does not equal retention in players.
1. I agree, mob spawns were changed a long time ago due to scaling back on server hardware among other things, occured post merge. Sometimes you can run around an area for a good 2-3 minutes before mobs start to spawn, in fact, you can run out of the area entirely unaware that there are/would be mobs there, eventually.Originally Posted by barmace
2. I actually like the look of the game more than many others out there, plus the UI is one of it's strongest assets.
3. Agree 100%, well, except for lairshaping/confectioner/alch/tink are the most grinding of craft classes.
4. Your suggestion on patching is great!
Mob spawns were changed not because of scaling back hardware, but because the whole world was revamped, and the servers at the time just couldn't handle (no matter how good the server) that many new mobs on all the time.
Here is the reasons for the mob spawning the way they do. From Smeglor him self.
"Um, stuff. The price paid for the script-based simulation gameplay which Amon was (rightfully) praising earlier is memory consumption. Every biote (player, monster, and various system daemons) was a virtual machine. Therefore there is the overhead of running that - each biote has its own copy of all the script code it needs. Plus, then, data storage, while very easy for developers to add to, modify, and monitor, has a lot of overhead as well. This is especially true of items (hence the big difference between monsters and players), which could be quite large as each one had to store its own entire set of details, from common stuff like name, bulk, icon, and description, to complex data relating to the functionality of the item. Each stack of items had to redefine all of that data independently. So if you had hundreds of items (scribed formula/techniques/spells are still just items in a specialized container), that added up to a lot of data.
Anytime we discussed making a new game, one of my demands was to change all that. Each item should exist in memory only once (per server), and players/monsters should simply reference them, then only have to store data that may differ from one instance to the next (quantity, custom name). That would have been a HUGE savings. However it would also be a significant change to the server to allow such a concept, but doable."
and
"It was how the server was architectured. Each biote is meant to be an "island", completely unaware and sharing no data with the others. This model can be made to work, and has its advantages, but also has its memory and CPU costs. The only negative effect it had on players, that I can think of, is that this led us to making the change to pool monster biotes rather than have all of them running all the time. Hence the monster spawn issues."
ya, thats always been how its works, never changed, except the number of potential in game mobs at any time went from small to huge overnight with the merge.
Ok, maybe I'm confused, but pre-merge, you'd run into an area and the mobs were there, they were always "there" unless killed off at which time they would respawn. Post-merge you'd run into an area and have to wait for the mobs to show up.
Also mob numbers in locations were scaled back as they were added to other locations, i.e., Dracul. Whether or not the spawn was scaled back to allow for a good spawn at Dracul or not, that was the impression I had, that they couldn't leave the spawn sizes the same and still add the numbers that Dracul supports.
Horizon's rules
I have been playing EQ2 and yup it is better but I loved the fact that you had to fight off some pretty hard mobs to keep your crafting area. Yea with the induction of Kelethin there is 1 place I know of in BB that is very hard to craft but not impossible. I ran through invis and crafted. I still say that Horzons rocks and this comes from all the other games I have played.
I actually think the Server event is unmatched what other MMORPG has done that? Freeing the Satyrs was genious!
I have not fired up Horizons since my posting almost 2 years ago but It still rings in my heart
I too agree, Horizons has a very good crafting system. That is what mainly keeps me here, secondmost.
I don't care if the craft system is boring or awful, I just want my dragon back!
the crafting system is grind... but you will always get grind in crafting. you get that in real life for god's sake. the jewel of the game is the sheer amount of schools you can have... a Paladin that has Nature spells for example. you can master any school and go right back to your older one in a flash. and then there is the Dragons. the Rites of Passage is one of the most awesome moments of the game there is. i just finished my RoP last night, and i still am awed at what i have become. the people just need to fix the lag and maintain the servers, while publicising the game. i would not touch one bit, except to add content here and there, and to do server Events like the Satyr one. the rites of passage is one reason why i keep playing this game even though i get DC;d every 10 minutes. i LOVE my newly adult dragon, and i will not tear myself away from this game. there is nothing better than flying around Istaria under your own power. what other game offeres that? WoW has mounts... whoo big deal. i FLY. HZ needs the right Publisher support is all....
I think that the uniqueness of the Characters is still #1 you can almost customize a character to your liking. I chose Shaman in the end and I love it
Spiritist / Druid LOVED IT!!!!
I forgot is there a pet in Horizons. I have found that since EQ I love playing with pets. My highest in eq is my 55 Beastlord but in EQ2 with the obvious overlooking of Beastlords I have a Necro 34 and a conjurer 36 I really do enjoy playing with pets in COH I have a 50 ill/rad controller (really no use now..where do you go?) but on the villian side i have a 40 Thug Mastermind..I really love that 6 pets WOOT! but I digress
I wish they would do something about Horizons I LOVE THE GAME.
well I keep posting hoping the DEV are watching
No pets in HZ
...............
'The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, ..., the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars' - Kerouac
shoulder pets for those lucky enough to have preordered, or to have really good friends who did
The multiclassing of schools kept me in the game.
This is one of the biggest PLUS +++ of the game.
Me being am adventurer that does not like crafting much had one BIG minus.
Then there is ONE issue that can be solved but always has been avoided due to crafter fanboi howling... THE LOOT ISSUE!
No real adventure LOOT is a BIG ---- Minus!
The game neds a engine upgrade.. so really a total rewrite with extension of what works and a elder game and loot...
It will never happen.... you must be lucky if the server stays up and running without any patches ever.. if you are lucky... In practical terms the game is dead with the current owners sinc ethey cant change anything. I even challenge them to do one significant patch changing ONE game mechanic in the code instead of only tweaking database numbers!
Rhialto,
100CHSW/100WIZ/100CON/100CLRC
The Iron Watch
Ice Server
I loved my "biped pets".... hmm gnomes......
»• Adventurer 100 | Crafter 100 | Lairshaper 100 | 100 Million Hoard | Expert Dragoncrafter | Expert Lairshaper •«
*giggles and rummages through takora's hoard; puts in a few bottlecaps, an imperial urn and a platinum helmet and takes out a brass bell and three giant chicken feathers before scampering off*
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
