Vanguard - Harvesting writeup

[Elgonn]

From - Vanguard Crafters

HARVESTING

We started off getting ready to go over the harvesting aspect of the game. Here is what I learned about harvesting. First of all, calling harvesting a "battle" against the resource is a fair and apt description. I was shown a harvester, level one, chopping down, or attacking, a tree. The tree wasn't very big, and it was in the newbie area. The tree was described as being one of the less challenging tree types, so our character should be able to handle it. We got out our axe, targeted the tree and started swinging. One of the first things you notice is that it's not the frenetic, chop chop chop of other games. The character is deliberate about getting the resources out of the item. Why? Because as a harvester, you will need to be able to use special abilities, address problems that arise, and make adjustments to your approach as you go. While the game is perceptively slower at this type of interaction than other games it is necessarily so as to keep it from becoming too twitchy. While our persistent harvester continued to chop at the tree, it was explained how there were basically 5 different kinds of items that would be harvested. These are: Metals, Minerals and Gemstones, Textiles (cotton, etc.,) Herbs, and of course our ubiquitous wood.

CLASS ENVY

Some of the details of the different classes were also explained. The Foreman, as stated before, focuses on Quality. A Reaper focuses on quantity. You wouldn't naturally think that these two classes could benefit themselves and each other by cooperating. Oh, but you would be wrong. Here is why the combination of harvesters working together is important:

Scenario A: Foreman working alone. If a foreman were to wish to harvest trees solo, he could certainly do so. Being that he has a focus on quality, he would maximize the quality of the primary ingredient that the tree may yield. For example, our newbie Oak tree. Should the Foreman chop one down and do it very well, he'd have a pretty good chance of getting that "Heart of Oak, Grade B" that he was hoping for. I'll explain grades and the different levels of the drops in a moment, so please just bear with me. He'd also yield small amounts of secondary and tertiary products from that "attack" on the Oak. High-Quality items will be necessary for making the best armor, weapons, or anything else that has "stats," since the quality of the ingredients will have a direct effect on the quality of the resulting crafted item. More on that in part 2.

Scenario B: Reaper working alone. A reaper out playing lumberjack would have a distinctly different experience. First of all, he's not interested so much in the quality of the yield he gets. His customers aren't making fine Axe or Sword handles. They are building houses and ships. What do those customers need? Lots and lots of resources. The reaper is their man. He attacks the tree, and does a good job, and yields several board-feet of generic wood, in addition to the secondary and tertiary resources.

PRIMARY, SECONDARY, and TERTIARY.

Before I give the next scenario, let me tell you a little more about the system. I've mentioned Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary resources that will be yielded from a session. In the above examples, the "heart" would be a primary resource. The boards may be a secondary resource, and a tertiary resource may be tree sap. Each of these has its own purpose in the world of Vanguard and in the lives of the crafters that these harvesters are supporting. The high quality wood would be used as mentioned in making higher quality gear. The boards may be used in the construction of a ship for transport, and the sap may have healing properties or make an extract that is excellent glue. Perhaps it could be used in a buff potion or a debuff. We'll get more into the P, S, and T later.

OBSTACLES TO A SUCCESSFUL HARVEST

While our intrepid harvester is chopping at his tree, he comes upon a small knot in the wood. One important thing to know is that when you begin a harvesting session you are allowed a maximum number of "Action Points" to be used in completing the task. Each swing of the axe uses some of the points, and depending on how skilled you are, takes away from the structural integrity of the item you are harvesting. Think of the "Structural Integrity" as the HP of the tree in this case. When his Structural Integrity (SI) reaches zero, the proverbial tree falls in the forest. You have special moves you can use, as well as combinations, that will help you achieve your goal. You want to do it in such a way that as you reduce the SI of the tree while not affecting the quality or quantity that you are looking for with reckless or wild maneuvers. The combinations happen in three parts; The Open, Bridge, and Finish. OK, back to that knot in the wood. When the knot is encountered, you can choose to ignore it and keep chopping, or you can address it. If you don't address the problem, you will lose a large amount of your effectiveness and you won't damage the tree much even though you may be using a ton of action points. Here's the rub; if you run out of action points before you successfully defeat your tree, you will suffer the harvester equivalent of the death penalty. Your character may not actually die, but you will certainly lose XP should that occur. You also have to be careful that you don't ignore warning messages along the way. "the tree makes a creaking sound," "the tree looks wobbly," " the tree looks like it is about to collapse," might be warnings that you are about to fail horribly, and may just want to evacuate (tree failure messages are mine, these are not actual in-game messages, just examples.) If that happens, disengage and run! /sigh That knot is still in the tree, isn't it? OK let's say you do decide to counter that knot, and you have a skill or spell that you are able to use that reduces the time that the knot is there, and how many times it impedes your progress. In old-school EQ terms, the knot on the tree is the tree buffing itself, the persistence of the knot depends on how many counters are on it, and the removal of the knot is accomplished when all the counters are removed. You can remove the counters by any of the means that were mentioned above, i.e. chopping (slow, and uses action points,) debuffing (casting a spell uses action points, but not as much as flailing away does,) or using a combination with another character. We'll get to that in a minute. During the demonstration I was given, the harvester came dangerously close to a failure, so it can and does happen.

Scenario C: Foreman and Reaper working together. One of the harvesters (let's say it is the Reaper) starts to chop at the tree. The first stroke is true, leaving a gash in the tree. Our Foreman helps keep that gash open by using "place wedge," and places a small wedge in the poor tree's gaping cut. The Reaper swings again. The Foreman starts to sing a working song which helps to invigorate them. Another swing. A knot appears. The Foreman quickly sets a larger wedge, leaving the reaper the space to place his next swing. It's accurate, and a combination is used, so the synergy of those actions taken removes the knot (counters,) and allows the harvesters to continue. As they work the tree, the Foreman continues to bellow his hearty tune, and the Reaper swings along in time. Their energy (actions points) diminishes slowly. The Reaper sees the quantity and quality of his primary yield rise, and the Foreman notices that the high quality parts he needs are there in ever greater quality as well. Both harvesters benefited from working together.

SO WHAT SHOULD I WEAR TO THIS LITTLE PARTY?

Harvesting uses its own set of stats to determine how easily you can accomplish your tasks. Just like adventuring armor, your harvesting gear will give you boosts to the stats that are only used when you are in that sphere. If you think you might want to harvest during a hunt, adventure, or raid, then you better bring along your harvester gear. All that plate mail only serves to get in the way when you are trying to swing that axe or that pick. You wouldn't wear a leather apron to fight a dragon and you won't try to chop down a huge tree wearing mail.

These points bring up some exciting issues that you will have to deal with. You won't be able to fight nearly as well in your harvester gear, so you may want to adventure/harvest in groups of 6 or 8 and alternate between half of you killing off the aggro beasts that wander by, and half of you harvesting the local bounty. Like any other game where there is a risk/reward component, the better stuff is going to be in the most dangerous places.

OK, SO NOW I JUST PUT THIS LOG IN MY BACKPACK, RIGHT?

Wrong. A log won't fit in your backpack, and even if it did you sure wouldn't get anything else in there. So how are you going to carry all of this stuff back to town? Well you will probably have your trusty pack horse/mule with you to carry the big stuff. Your backpack isn't nearly as magical as it was in previous MMO's. It's more like you remembered if you have played other games of the genre, both on computer and the dinner table. Items and packs are volumetric. That is to say that what you can carry depends on the size and weight of it, not just the quantity. Well that makes it hard, you say. You bet. It was hinted that inventory management will be a game within the game. Start thinking now of how you are going to store all that stuff. It sounds to me like crafters are going to be the first to need houses and horses in the game.

It really sounds like Diplomacy, Harvesting, Crafting, and regular combat will all be very similar in how they operate.

Diplomacy - Shake your booty
Harvesting - Place wedge
Crafting - Salt Metal
Combat - Mighty Strike

I wonder how 'optional' each sphere is.

[Kolle]

Crafting sounds like a major pain the in ass. Need more details to be sure.


Ignore my dyslexia of case obvious.

[fuvi513]

while it's certainly not traditional, it sounds interesting. the whole process seems to be quite slow. that's fine because the process has depth, but how long 'real world' time are we talking about here? 5-10mins to work on this tree in the newbie area? if you work with others, does it speed the process up or just yield better results for each party member?

as an aside, i saw that 6 or 8 people in a party would be possible there. what is the current max number of people per group? does that number change if you are adventuring vs harvesting/crafting in the field?

[Cybsled]

You wouldn't wear a leather apron to fight a dragon

This man obviously never played a shaman in EQ ;(

It does sound interesting, although the concept of people running in terror from a tree because it's going to give them XP loss is kind of amusing ;p

[Dynalisia]

They're moving away from harvesting like WoW's "Lalala I'm a mighty warrior *bang bam slash*, HEY! That's a vein lets mine it quick! *mine mine mine*, ok back to fightin!" and are going into a direction where you really have to set aside the occasion for it, like doing a dungeon. I bet it will cause a lot of people to not do tradeskills because they're too busy fighting and adventuring, making them somewhat more special.

[The Bog]

the concept of people running in terror from a tree because it's going to give them XP loss is kind of amusing ;p

I see that not so much as "OH NO IT'S A TREE," but "oh crap, I think the thing is going to hit me."

[Torrid]

Originally posted by Dynalisia
They're moving away from harvesting like WoW's "Lalala I'm a mighty warrior *bang bam slash*, HEY! That's a vein lets mine it quick! *mine mine mine*, ok back to fightin!" and are going into a direction where you really have to set aside the occasion for it, like doing a dungeon. I bet it will cause a lot of people to not do tradeskills because they're too busy fighting and adventuring, making them somewhat more special.

Which is why I'll like Vanguard. They are doing things everyone else is afraid to.

Heaven forbid anything should be casual gamer unfriendly. Although secretly I believe a lot of casual gamers like a hardcore game, even if they don't realize it.

[fuvi513]

Originally posted by Dynalisia
I bet it will cause a lot of people to not do tradeskills because they're too busy fighting and adventuring, making them somewhat more special.

while that could very well happen, you could look at this as an early 'aaexp' type of system. obviously has nothing to do with getting xp for alternate advancement points, it's giving you something to do from the jump besides leveling as usual. one main reason i stopped playing WoW was because there wasn't anything to do in the game once you were 60 and when you were not raiding. making an alt is fine to take up this time occasionally, but i'd like to be able to 'advance' my character in other ways except through items from a raid. that may include tradeskills, aaexp or whatever as long as there is something to do

from a business standpoint, whether or not everyone loves this new tradeskill idea, it will keep people playing. when people see a reason to log in during times that you are not raiding, you've found a good carrot for the time being.

[Cybsled]

I see that not so much as "OH NO IT'S A TREE," but "oh crap, I think the thing is going to hit me."

That works for a free, but what about textiles? The only thing I can see is

"You harvest cotton"
"You harvest cotton"
"A king cobra appears and hisses!!!!"

It's not like the cotton balls are going to explode off the plant, lodge themselves in your throat, and choke you to death.

[Bralkan]

Originally posted by Cybsled


It's not like the cotton balls are going to explode off the plant, lodge themselves in your throat, and choke you to death.

But god, wouldn't that be funny.

[Dynalisia]

We gots them dayngerous cottons in this ere vanguardia, yes siree!

[Coladar]

Originally posted by Dynalisia
I bet it will cause a lot of people to not do tradeskills because they're too busy fighting and adventuring, making them somewhat more special.

I'd have to disagree there. As the article states...

His customers aren't making fine Axe or Sword handles. They are building houses and ships. What do those customers need? Lots and lots of resources. The reaper is their man.

Everyone and their red-headed step-child is going to want to have their own house. Sure the adventuring is going to be the main focus of the game, but you better believe every "hardcore" player is going to want to own the biggest house on the block. So long as the trade skills are tied into things that people are going to obsess over obtaining like houses and boats, I see a lot of players spending a lot of time harvesting and crafting.

That said, hopefully it isn't, as someone else suggested earlier, going to be 5-10 minutes on one tree. As the article pointed out, inventory is going to be limited to what a horse could reasonably carry... So it's not like one tree will yield a truck load of lumber. I'm hoping we're talking about 1-2 minutes a tree. Getting in "fights" with trees that last as long as killing Vulak might get old after a while.

[Cybsled]

Houses and ships will vary in quality I'm sure as well, based on the mats.

Compare an old house made out of oak and pine and whatnot, as opposed to some newer house made out of plywood and sheetrock. If some guys come by with weapons, they will have to work alot harder to demolish the house made of quality materials vs. the house made out of low quality materials.

More permanent structures, status structures/boats, and ships that have to brave dangerous areas/see alot of combat will want the hardier materials.

If you are looking to make a temporary production town/boon town near a resource area, or are looking to make a fleet of ships quickly, or you are just poor, then you can settle for lower quality goods.

[Lenaldo]

IT would be nice to have tradesklls be seperate from fighters. I remember in UO you got to know the tradeskill playerbase and they had their only community seperate from the pvpers/pvers. Even in EQ, you had people who were mainly blacksmiths and people who were mainly adventurers.

IN wow... everyone can do everything... its kinda lame in a way, but i guess it works for the casual crowd.

[Velk]

The Foreman starts to sing a working song which helps to invigorate them.

Ooooh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok !

.....

Hmm, having trees falling on people for not using the right abilities could very well lead to the greatest number of confused newbie corpses since Kelethin.

Speaking of which, what are our chances of getting a treetop city filled with narrow arching walkways with no handrails in Vanguard ? ;p