Author Topic: Availability of rare herbs  (Read 582 times)

Vissy

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Availability of rare herbs
« on: December 29, 2021, 05:13:41 AM »
Consider the "greater" type of potions that we have available, such as greater bull's strength, potions of the Sage, of the Erudite, and so on. Ingredients for these - especially Serf Grub and Liar's Tongue, but the others as well - take a very, very long time to acquire, and they are also rare to find on their own. In practice, it means that the time investment into even one potion of this variety can be in the several hour range of simply gathering ingredients, and then possibly gathering more ingredients if one fails the crafting roll.

I think that the spawns for these ingredients should be reviewed, so that these potions could be made more accessible and more available. This is not a problem that extends outside of the Greater Animal potions, in my experience - the other high-tier potions have a good balance of ingredients available to them. But as it stands, this specific area of potion-crafting is all but inaccessible due to the scarcity of materials, and the time investment means that players are highly unlikely to even want to use them. I think that there is a better balance to be found there which would allow to see more use of these potions in live play without making them too numerous.
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zDark Shadowz

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2021, 07:17:34 AM »
Cant say I know where serfs grub is and I'm sitting at 68 herbalism thinking I've looked & asked everywhere lol.

Purple moss and fiends bane could probably be a little more available, but I dont know what their spawn rates are like in comparison to nodes available and estimated percentages.

Maybe some potions shouldn't be made en masse but I'd rather not visit a dungeon more than once to be able to make one potion.

MAB77

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2021, 07:53:56 AM »
Hi Vissy!

If you could perhaps dress a list of those herbs you find are too rare (send it by private message), I'll take a look at their spawning rates and will act where I find it necessary (Serf's Grubs for instance should be spawning a tad more frequently).

Consider this however:

1) Desert herbs (surface ones), such as in Perfidus and Har'Akir are meant to be ultra rare as a reflection of their environment. I will definitively not act to increase their spawning rates.

2) Sometimes it is a byproduct of given areas being small. Places like Blaustein and Ghastria can only support limited amount of herbs spawning points. But that in itself is not an issue. There is no intrinsic need to balance the amount of herbs spawning so that a given potion can be produced as often as another. Like in real life, some herbs are naturally rare. This is regardless of the power level of said potion. Current variety is rich and diverse enough that you already have plenty of useful herbs available at any time of the year.

3) Some herbs are however purposefully kept rare because of the power of the potion they can produce. Purple moss for instance. In this very particular case, it is also kept solely where it is due to canon lore.
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MAB77

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2021, 07:59:51 AM »
[...] Maybe some potions shouldn't be made en masse but I'd rather not visit a dungeon more than once to be able to make one potion.

The error here is to believe that you should be able to reliably find a given component because you wish to craft a given potion. A notion I definitively do not subscribe to. You ought to rather seen them as rare loot drop. Don't expect them, but be happy when you find them. That isn't to say the rate of spawning cannot be revised, just that there is nothing wrong in having you to search a long time for a given herb.
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zDark Shadowz

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2021, 08:56:27 AM »
I'm not a fan of doing any content more than once to do something unique, even as I hypocritcally grind because it is an aspect of the game, don't mind me.

My father once told me that doing the same task repeatedly and expecting something different to happen each time is the definition of madness, I don't search obscure places more than a few times until new information turns up.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2021, 09:00:59 AM by zDark Shadowz »

Yesper

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2021, 09:26:09 AM »
I'm not a fan of doing any content more than once to do something unique, even as I hypocritcally grind because it is an aspect of the game, don't mind me.

My father once told me that doing the same task repeatedly and expecting something different to happen each time is the definition of madness, I don't search obscure places more than a few times until new information turns up.

That doesn't address the argument. Rare herbs are just that - rare. Unless the spawn rate is in the single digits or early teens percentage-wise, then I'd not say they are prohibitively hard to procure, even moreso with how and how quickly the areas can reset.

ladylena

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2021, 09:52:26 AM »
Considering that the basic version of those stronger ones can be easily gathered, I think the more potent ones should remain as they are. They are stronger potions, so if those herbs were more common then why bother keeping the lesser ones around?

Sure there are still plenty of herbs that I've not found and some that only grow in certain seasons or domains, I find that the need to explore and linger in places is a good roleplay chance. You can hire people to escort you to dangerous places or put up wanted fliers for rare herbs. It would be nice if some of the smaller places respawned the herbs a bit faster but, just like in reality, if you harvest herbs you have to let the plant recover so you can get more.

Beyond that, sometimes you just need to hunker down in an area and farm the ever loving life out of the herbs in that region, sucky sure, but potm is hard mode.
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zDark Shadowz

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2021, 09:56:38 AM »
I'm not a fan of doing any content more than once to do something unique, even as I hypocritcally grind because it is an aspect of the game, don't mind me.

My father once told me that doing the same task repeatedly and expecting something different to happen each time is the definition of madness, I don't search obscure places more than a few times until new information turns up.

That doesn't address the argument. Rare herbs are just that - rare. Unless the spawn rate is in the single digits or early teens percentage-wise, then I'd not say they are prohibitively hard to procure, even moreso with how and how quickly the areas can reset.

It's not an argument thats why, just a preference. If its the developers intent I just have to acknowledge it.

SevenStormStyle

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2021, 01:44:11 PM »
Personally, what I find odd about the specific animal wards situation Vissy mentioned in the OP isn't that they're "too hard" or "too rare" just for personal taste or compared to every other potion of similar worth - it's that they aren't balanced with each other.

Bull's is horrifically hard to find bordering on impossible. Bear's is able to be churned out en masse. Just for example. I do point out bull's specifically because this doesn't just *seem* to be a case of har'akir or perfidus being scant on plants for valid ic reasons - I have found one single person who says they have even seen one of the ingredients. None who currently possess one. I have never found a single one despite regularly scouring most domains, and I'm level 53 at this craft.

Potm is hard, sure. I say this as someone who has acquired almost every single herb there is through personal finding or *large* amounts of outsourcing. But this one I'm somewhat suspicious of in terms of it even working as intended.
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Yesper

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Re: Availability of rare herbs
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2021, 02:24:04 PM »
In that case, then prohibitively rare may be an apt description. Is there a list of specific herbs that need to be looked at? Would make MAB's job a bit easier (I'm not well-versed in the system enough to draft one myself).