Way shards and crafting

[madzai]

Around 5 days ago, after a patch a started my second run in Crea and noticed a some questionable things about crafting.

In my first run about a couple of months ago a have no problem with equipping myself in level 10 gear (with some farming for maths, ofc) and had no problem to remake it a couple of times to get better gear after leveling my Craft skills.

In my second run i'm literally stuck with 5 lvl items. And the reason for it is lack of way shards (for catalysts). I never noticed lack of those before.

Obvious reason for it is that now full grown way crystals yields Way Cluster and not shards, so each newly discovered Crystal gives you 3-4 Clusters and something like 10-15 shards. But still, i think Cluster themselves aren't enough to cause such a severe shortage for shards.

Did crafting requirements changed in last patch?

In general, i think making Catalysts a critical ingredient for mid-level crafting isn't the best idea. Way crystals are hard to find in underground (yeah, i read about how this gonna be improved in incoming pathes), player can't farm them (because players can't affect their grow and the said grow process isn't very clear). So your only choice is to wait. It work well with top level crafting, but no so for mid level, especially in a game, where we almost have to remake basic items a lot to get proper gear, IMHO.

If crystals have to to stay, may some tweaks could be done?
Like making Cluster drop along with shards? Increasing number of nodes at each crystal and their grows speed? Allowing mobs killed around Way Crystals to drop some shards (if that's possible in game mechanics)? Maybe add shards to standard Merchant inventory and to chests and pots in underground?

[ravenscroftranch]

different crystals seem to act diffrently however when you mine the crystals it seems to take sevral days to grow again...
i think they are working this out..

[Jasson]

Originally posted by madzai:

Around 5 days ago, after a patch a started my second run in Crea and noticed a some questionable things about crafting.

In my first run about a couple of months ago a have no problem with equipping myself in level 10 gear (with some farming for maths, ofc) and had no problem to remake it a couple of times to get better gear after leveling my Craft skills.

In my second run i'm literally stuck with 5 lvl items. And the reason for it is lack of way shards (for catalysts). I never noticed lack of those before.

Obvious reason for it is that now full grown way crystals yields Way Cluster and not shards, so each newly discovered Crystal gives you 3-4 Clusters and something like 10-15 shards. But still, i think Cluster themselves aren't enough to cause such a severe shortage for shards.

Did crafting requirements changed in last patch?

In general, i think making Catalysts a critical ingredient for mid-level crafting isn't the best idea. Way crystals are hard to find in underground (yeah, i read about how this gonna be improved in incoming pathes), player can't farm them (because players can't affect their grow and the said grow process isn't very clear). So your only choice is to wait. It work well with top level crafting, but no so for mid level, especially in a game, where we almost have to remake basic items a lot to get proper gear, IMHO.

If crystals have to to stay, may some tweaks could be done?
Like making Cluster drop along with shards? Increasing number of nodes at each crystal and their grows speed? Allowing mobs killed around Way Crystals to drop some shards (if that's possible in game mechanics)? Maybe add shards to standard Merchant inventory and to chests and pots in underground?

This is really interesting. Has anyone else ran into this?

This is likely due to a few things. First of all, traveling across the surface of the world is far more difficult now that monsters have set levels. Additionally, the distribution of Way Crystals underground is much more structured but there are also less of them. Combining these likely means players are finding less Way Crystals and consequently cannot collect Way Shards as easily.

With that being said, we plan to make it easier to find Way Crystals underground by making the way shard plants faintly glow and have more that grow further away from the Crystals. This should make it easier to pin point the location of a Crystals while exploring underground. We may also add some additional crystals on the surface to make it easier to get access to more.

Thanks for the feedback!

[ravenscroftranch]

the way shards dont grow once mined from surface crystal spots so i would reccomend either more then max 4 shards per plant or more growth of plants and faster also they dont seem to grow when your not right there like they used to

[madzai]

This is likely due to a few things. First of all, traveling across the surface of the world is far more difficult now that monsters have set levels. Additionally, the distribution of Way Crystals underground is much more structured but there are also less of them. Combining these likely means players are finding less Way Crystals and consequently cannot collect Way Shards as easily.

It's as you said. I want to add my observation about how it affect walkthought combined with new Mob level system.

Right now after about lvl 5 you had to travel a lot to find thouse Crystals and eventually you had to wander into zones with high lvl mob just to get some. To beat said high level mobs the only real option is to pour all your mats (and catalysts too :) ) into decent weapon - so called "glass cannon" tactics. You can get armor later from random chest and from pocket dimmesions (great addition, btw). Eventually you get enought Catalysts from exploring but... you level would be around 10-12. But you armor would be around level 5 with pretty bad stats.
So, in short, right now, exploring to find enoght shards will lead to inavoidable overleveling.

I understand that new mob lvl system was released only in last path and need tweaks so i just want to add some feedback on it.

[Jasson]

Originally posted by madzai:

This is likely due to a few things. First of all, traveling across the surface of the world is far more difficult now that monsters have set levels. Additionally, the distribution of Way Crystals underground is much more structured but there are also less of them. Combining these likely means players are finding less Way Crystals and consequently cannot collect Way Shards as easily.

It's as you said. I want to add my observation about how it affect walkthought combined with new Mob level system.

Right now after about lvl 5 you had to travel a lot to find thouse Crystals and eventually you had to wander into zones with high lvl mob just to get some. To beat said high level mobs the only real option is to pour all your mats (and catalysts too :) ) into decent weapon - so called "glass cannon" tactics. You can get armor later from random chest and from pocket dimmesions (great addition, btw). Eventually you get enought Catalysts from exploring but... you level would be around 10-12. But you armor would be around level 5 with pretty bad stats.
So, in short, right now, exploring to find enoght shards will lead to inavoidable overleveling.

I understand that new mob lvl system was released only in last path and need tweaks so i just want to add some feedback on it.

Thanks madzai. Great feedback! :D