Does finding Reagents ever get less Miserable?

[Mordraine]

Is there some research or something down the line that lets you just synthesize them, or at least make them easier to find? Running all over the entire Abbey twice every day (some plants spawn in morning, some at night) is getting *extremely* miserable, but there are multiple things that require these stupid plants!

[kidcharlemagne]

Originally posted by Mordraine:

Agreed, they're a crutch for people who aren't smart enough to play gud. So is having three heroes, real gamers go in with just 1. Also, no real player uses items, those are for morons. Also, unequip all but one card from your deck, decks are just a prop-up mechanic for idiots. Do you play with your monitor on? That's adorable, put a little work in and you'll realize playing blind is for the big kids. Is that a mouse and keyboard I see? How cute, someday you'll be good enough to play by holding a magnet up to your HD with a steady hand!

This gave me a good laugh. So with as much as you hate the busy work, would you still recommend the game? Will you likely replay it?

[Mordraine]

I'm doing both Ernasty! Searching for Reagents (as well as the random resource drops, random Ebony spawns, random conversation locations, random abbey events, random abbey collectibles, random charlie location, and the reliably located daily chores) affords plenty of time to type and play!

[Mordraine]

Kid, I would recommend the game if you enjoy Marvel content, or enjoy turn-based (kinda, even the 'turn' aspect of it is kinda a lumpy mess), somewhat chaotic gameplay, with a card-based mechanic kinda nonsensically shoe-horned in.

I know that sounds negative in text, the game is fun (subjectively to me), it's just also a total platypus in terms of mechanical makeup. This game was definitely designed by committee, possibly with blind voting involved as well? Long story short, it is an absolute mess, but the narrative and humor are great, and the attack animations are fun (as long as you remember to change the very command line of the game to fix its graphical errors!).

I will also say, I'm increasing the difficulty absolutely every chance I get (the game drip-feeds it to you rather than letting you set it), and it honestly isn't very difficult to perform well, so that's rewarding. Its probably so easy because I've religiously collected every resource available to me, putting me ahead of the curve!

[Ernasty]

the way you're playing sounds miserable lol, but as long as you're having a good time who gives af

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Mordraine:

So to further clarify these facts for new players:

On point one, I've already had 6 events directly requiring plant reagents, and I'm still in "Part 1" of the game, so the estimation of "3 or 4" is not accurate. These events give access to story and cards you would not otherwise have access to at this point in the game (or ever, in regards to the story).

This is incorrect. There are 3 that require reagents and 3 that require blueprints, and both require some essences on top. You do not get essences from farming reagents around the abbey, although you can (as discussed) convert them.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

On subpoint 2, you can absolutely miss Wundagore if you are unlucky. They randomly put one *inside* the abbey for me, the only plant to ever do that, and it does it one time only. It is incredibly valuable, as it lets you trade around resources very early in the game, where a glut in one and having 0 of another is extremely common.

And if you fail to see it, it's still there when you pass by later. You don't actually miss out on anything by checking for them once every 10 days instead of twice a day. It is not "cancer" that makes you look for them that frequently and normal play will see you get the same benefit as obsessive hunting for them.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

On point 3, yes, you can craft gifts with them, and you get the ability to make rare gifts with them very early on, well before you get any other way to get rare or better gifts. Hangout opportunites are indeed very rare, and you get a lot of them well before you get the gift shop, much less upgrade it. All of those opportunities are hurt by not having gifts, but what do you know, you can get some decent gifts with reagents. The rarity of hangouts makes reagent created gifts *more* valuable, not less.

I absolutely had level 2 of the gift shop before I could craft epic or legendary gifts. They are fully gated behind story progress. If you do any daytime hangout without using epic or legendary you are not min/maxing, you are costing yourself friendship points, which, to be fair isn't a big deal as you can get 4 points per side mission and you can do as many of those as you like, though that's beside the point.

Rare hangout gifts give a maximum of 4 friendship points and are inconsequential given that you can find normal gits that give up to 2 literally just lying on the floor as you run about the abbey.

By day 38 I have amassed (and can produce screenshots if it matters) 48 gifts (of which 24 legendary or epic), plus duplicates where I have multiple of the same item left over, without crafting any at the cauldron. This is because hangouts are so rare and is why you should only ever use epic and legendary ones past the first couple of hangout events.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

Lastly, they do indeed create consumables that can be useful, and are unique from the other crafting station. If you use a build that relies on any of these consumables, the reagents become even more valuable. If you don't want to use one specific hero and his one specific, pretty mediocre ability on 100% of the missions in the game, they become even more valuable.

The point being clarified was how it was unfair to say the only significant use of reagents was to min/max combat consumables. This is min/maxing combat consumables, and yes, they do help with that.

You just don't need to trawl the abbey grounds twice a day to get that benefit. Indeed doing two laps of the abbey per day will not help with this one iota more than doing one lap every few days when it rains will. You get the exact same benefit - assuming you do indeed really want to rely on a few specific consumables and not replace them with Doctor Strange, which you can alternatively do.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

I'm not sure whey this thread is devolving into an attempt by people to argue "Oh just ignore that aspect of the game mechanics, put your blinders on, don't get your full money's worth or engage in the full game, don't try to benefit from mechanics that were put in place as part of the intended difficulty curve and tactical layers"

You're replying to me and I haven't said anything of the sort. People are mostly just pointing out that you don't need to take the actions stated in the opening post "Running all over the entire Abbey twice every day" to get the benefits you want, and that even if you ignore the system entirely (which you don't have to do, there's a lot of middle ground between hardcore min/max for 30 minutes for each mission and do literally 0 minutes for each mission) you will still be fine.

[Overlord Byron]

Originally posted by Zebedee:

Originally posted by Overlord Byron:

You're implicitly acknowledging the tedium of the mechanic. "Yes it's bad, but it doesn't bug me so don't complain about it" isn't much of an argument for the status quo. Neither is referring to it as a crutch when the mechanics of the game encourage their use.

If you're running round the Abbey twice a day then I'd imagine it will be quite tedious. I'd personally suggest not running round the Abbey twice a day for something which isn't central to gameplay if you find it tedious.

Running around the abbey at all is tedious, because the abbey is both boring and large. Most secrets you can hunt for are either one and done pick-ups (journals, cards, words, etc), or are marked on your map (chests). Regent hunting is an exclusive activity; if you're hunting for regents, you probably have bugger all else to do in the abbey, eating time so you can gather 30+ ingredients for maybe 2 consumables tops.

Again, you're being obstinate. "Don't run around the Abbey twice a day." Okay. Nobody's suggesting we do that. We're saying running around the Abbey for ingredients at all is a numbing and un-fun busy work.

You've made it clear that you both A) recognize this is a boring activity, B) don't use it and thus don't care. That's a fine stance to take. I don't begrudge you that whatsoever. The proper course of action in that case, though, is to abstain from engaging with the related discourse. You've no horse in this race, so demanding that the issue go unaddressed is rooted in nothing but contrarianism.

[Mordraine]

Get your logic out of here Overlord Byron!

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Overlord Byron:

"Don't run around the Abbey twice a day." Okay. Nobody's suggesting we do that. We're saying running around the Abbey for ingredients at all is a numbing and un-fun busy work.

I broadly agree with you, except the opening post of this thread does literally suggest that, in as many words.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by kidcharlemagne:

Thanks a lot for all the detail. That helps a lot.

No problem! Glad to help.

[Army of Optimists]

Originally posted by Mordraine:

On point one, I've already had 6 events directly requiring plant reagents, and I'm still in "Part 1" of the game, so the estimation of "3 or 4" is not accurate. These events give access to story and cards you would not otherwise have access to at this point in the game (or ever, in regards to the story).

You need resources for two of the clubs. I only ever picked up resources while running around for other things, never dedicating myself to "reagent runs", and I always had enough to turn them in when asked. They really do not ask for an enormous amount and don't give particularly incredible rewards - a single rare card given a few missions early isn't going to totally change your game.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

On point two, yes, you can use plants to make resources. At the point in the game where you gain the ability to do this, you are *not* going on missions that give 500 resources a night, and most of the cards you are getting are more valuable as upgrades than as burned for resources anyway. This is also a point in the game where you are very, very starved for resouces (as with all tactical RPG's, resources are tight at the start, and useless at the end). The plants give you access to more resources at the start of the game, when they are the most valuable.

Even early in the game, doing a mission that has an artifact or resources in the rewards box is going to give you far more resources than crafting them. A single common artifact gives like 25-30 of every essence, which is three crafts, on top of the booster pack which nets you two cards (you did build the better boosters research immediately, right?) you can salvage for another 30-60 essence each.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

On subpoint 2, you can absolutely miss Wundagore if you are unlucky. They randomly put one *inside* the abbey for me, the only plant to ever do that, and it does it one time only. It is incredibly valuable, as it lets you trade around resources very early in the game, where a glut in one and having 0 of another is extremely common.

Salvage cards, don't hunt for plants, if you're that hard up for resources. Hunting for Wundagore to get less essence than burning a single common card is ridiculous.
Credits are tougher to come by, but are still easily gained by doing missions. There's no doomsday clock ticking down, forcing you to be incredibly efficient in mission choice. If you need credits, hit up the table, find which mission has a credits reward, and do it.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

On point 3, yes, you can craft gifts with them, and you get the ability to make rare gifts with them very early on, well before you get any other way to get rare or better gifts. Hangout opportunites are indeed very rare, and you get a lot of them well before you get the gift shop, much less upgrade it. All of those opportunities are hurt by not having gifts, but what do you know, you can get some decent gifts with reagents. The rarity of hangouts makes reagent created gifts *more* valuable, not less.

You can get the gift shop unlocked really early on, too, and then you're on easy street since you just buy the gifts with the plentiful gloss you get from missions. A legendary gift costs 90 gloss and you get 150+ from one mission.

Also, gifts are actually kind of superfluous because friendship points are infinitely farmable by doing missions (+2/day), training (+3/day), or giving compliments (+3-6 each).

You won't get a 15-20 point bomb from a single hangout, but... so? You're not on a timetable. There's no compulsion to do an activity you actively hate (farming reagents) when you could get similar rewards by playing the part you like (doing missions.)

Originally posted by Mordraine:

Lastly, they do indeed create consumables that can be useful, and are unique from the other crafting station. If you use a build that relies on any of these consumables, the reagents become even more valuable. If you don't want to use one specific hero and his one specific, pretty mediocre ability on 100% of the missions in the game, they become even more valuable.

This is the only correct point. If you want to use consumables on every mission and they happen to be the cauldron-crafted ones, you'll have to engage with the system. I can't tell you how needed this is on Ultimate III difficulty, but on Ultimate I, I barely use any consumables and I do fine.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

Anyway, this is a tactical, resource driven RPG. *EVERY* resource in the game has value. Those resources should be challenging to acquire, because they have value. Reagents are not challenging to acquire, they are miserable to acquire, it is a very big, easily defined gulf between those two things, not a fine line.

It's not really resource-driven, though. This isn't XCOM where you're on a doomsday clock and every moment spent suboptimally is dragging you into a failure spiral. Where missing resources prevents your research into new weapons and risks falling behind the progression curve. You can spend as many days between story missions as you want. The difficulty can even be changed at any time, so if you do find yourself at a point where you can't complete missions without chugging every item you brought and it's making you miserable keeping them stocked, just tap the difficulty down so you can ignore it.

Originally posted by Mordraine:

I'm not sure whey this thread is devolving into an attempt by people to argue "Oh just ignore that aspect of the game mechanics, put your blinders on, don't get your full money's worth or engage in the full game, don't try to benefit from mechanics that were put in place as part of the intended difficulty curve and tactical layers", but I'm more than happy to say "screw that, reagents matter, because every part of the game I purchased matters to me, please make getting them less miserable, or let me know if it isn't as miserable as I thought because I'm missing something!"

Because one of the fun parts of RPGs is the customization aspect. Letting you choose your own path through the game and, yes, ignore the parts you don't like. If I hate the Dark Souls magic system, I don't force myself to play the game as a pure mage just to "get my full money's worth" despite the miserable experience I'll have. Similarly, I don't really enjoy Ghost Rider's gimmicks, so I don't use him much.

Your suggestion is that one should force themselves into activities that make them miserable out of a perceived maximizing of value. I find enjoyment valuable, so I'll make the decisions that maximize it instead. Maybe you should examine your own habits and try to focus on the things you enjoy, too, instead of chasing value into misery.

[Mordraine]

No, the opening post said I was doing it, and was literally asking if it was necessary, because the game does not explain Reagent mechanics *at all*. Nobody ever suggested it, the entire point of the post was me desperately hoping someone would suggest NOT doing it, which they have, and explained that suggestion in detail. That being said, Overlord is correct, even having to do it once every few turns is still miserable and un-fun because of the *way* in which Reagent spawns work. Which is why I was also hoping eventually the game would provide a better replacement method for gathering reagents, which does not seem to be the case unfortunately.

As for your post Fringe, suffice it to say, we must be playing a different game. I've done 3 EK activities and 3 Shop activities, ALL SIX have required components that are 2 plant types, and an essence type. I wish I had known to take screenshots to prove it, but I'm not really seeing any point in lying, so believe me or don't.

On reagents, there's no clarification on if only "X" number of a plant can spawn at once, so if you're not collecting them, will more and more spawn until the entire map is covered in them? I doubt it, which means not collecting them means missing them. Also, are there a limited number of spawn locations? If so, then if you don't collect from a point, a new one cannot spawn in that point. I expect this is the case, but don't know, because *reagents are poorly explained and implemented*.

I personally was able to craft rare gifts a very long time before I even had the gifts shop at all, and I continue to have a gift shop that only produces 1 rare gift a day, likely because the gift shop levels off of Friendship level, which means, again, the early reagent made gifts *are even more important to me*. You subjectively believe the difference between 2 and 4 is negligible, I subjectively believe it is not, especially when friendship levels start at 10 and 15 points, where 2 additional points is a significant percentage of the total.

I think our disjunct is still that your argument is "Once you're 60 hours into the game, reagents hardly matter, so they don't matter, so it doesn't matter if they're miserable to collect, just never collect them!", while my argument is "When you are 5 hours into the game, Reagents are extremely important, can they please be less miserable to collect?"

I definitely appreciate now knowing to go out once a day each time it rains, that's objectively better than when I thought we had to check each morning/evening. It still isn't *good* because there are so many factors making reagent collection miserable, and I'd rather investigate ways to make it less miserable than just write off a whole section of the game. Hopefully additional discussion on this might provide even more ways to reduce how rough reagents are!

[Zebedee]

Originally posted by Overlord Byron:

Again, you're being obstinate. "Don't run around the Abbey twice a day." Okay. Nobody's suggesting we do that. We're saying running around the Abbey for ingredients at all is a numbing and un-fun busy work.

It's quite literally the OP. I'm not interested in a 'is the Abbey boring' discussion, sorry.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Mordraine:

As for your post Fringe, suffice it to say, we must be playing a different game. I've done 3 EK activities and 3 Shop activities, ALL SIX have required components that are 2 plant types, and an essence type.

That is not true. Shop class requires blueprints. But honestly, I suspect we both have better things to do than argue over just how big of a deal it is if the number was not 4 and is actually 6.

I've genuinely tried to help you with your problem, but I feel like we are just butting heads now. I don't want that. Best of luck to you.

ETA: No pressure, but if you're interested, here's a guide explaining the shop class requirements:
https://nightlygamingbinge.com/midnight-suns-shop-class/

[Mordraine]

Originally posted by Army of Optimists:

Because one of the fun parts of RPGs is the customization aspect. Letting you choose your own path through the game and, yes, ignore the parts you don't like. If I hate the Dark Souls magic system, I don't force myself to play the game as a pure mage just to "get my full money's worth" despite the miserable experience I'll have. Similarly, I don't really enjoy Ghost Rider's gimmicks, so I don't use him much.

Your suggestion is that one should force themselves into activities that make them miserable out of a perceived maximizing of value. I find enjoyment valuable, so I'll make the decisions that maximize it instead. Maybe you should examine your own habits and try to focus on the things you enjoy, too, instead of chasing value into misery.

Thanks for the great response Army, the only thing I would say back is your final point is you arguing against your own point.

My argument is that I *also* want to choose my own path through the game, which includes *not* ignoring mechanics. I don't want to be forced to ignore mechanics because they are poorly implemented, and I don't agree with people saying "just don't play the full game", when I would hope we would instead say "let's find ways to suggest/find improvements to this so we don't have to skip it!"

I'm not suggesting anyone should force themselves into something, I'm disagreeing with other people suggesting I should just abandon whole parts of the game, which is in fact forcing *me* into something.

You find enjoyment valuable, I find value enjoyable! I find improving my team to the absolute limits possible in the game incredibly motivating and exciting, that is how I personally choose to play the game. When there is an entire mechanic in the game that is necessary to do that, but has been designed to be (subjectively) way, way, way more miserable than it needs to be, I find value and enjoyment in working with the community to try to find ways to make it less miserable, so that I can still engage in it, rather than missing out on it entirely!

Long story short, you're agreeing with me (or I was in agreement with you before you ever even posted), but you think we're at odds. We're not, we both want people to play the game they want to play the game. It is only people telling me "just don't do that part of the game" who are instructing others on how to play their game! Win win!

[Army of Optimists]

Originally posted by Mordraine:

Long story short, you're agreeing with me (or I was in agreement with you before you ever even posted), but you think we're at odds. We're not, we both want people to play the game they want to play the game. It is only people telling me "just don't do that part of the game" who are instructing others on how to play their game! Win win!

No, I think we're still at odds. In fact, I think you're rationalizing to yourself. You say you find value enjoyable, but then you made this entire argument about how much you're not enjoying it. I don't know you, but I'd say you obsess over value, not enjoy it. I used to be the same way about achievements - I'd force myself to try to 100% every game even though most of them weren't any fun to chase. Eventually, I broke that habit and I'm happier for it.

Maybe I'm wrong about you. Either way, we'll just have to live as internet strangers that disagree. Sorry.