The "new" journey system... it's bad. Worse than I thought.

[Macdallan]

So I hadn't played all that much since the Sorcery update but I decided to start a new character and while working through the journey steps I learned something.

Do you want to know what I learned? I absolutely hate the way they've got journey steps set up now. It's beyond terrible, makes no sense, and I really want the old system back.

The biggest and most annoying issue is that you have to select a journey before you can progress through the steps. If I have already done multiple things that are required for a specific journey then I shouldn't have to do any of them a second time. I shouldn't have to select a specific journey, or have it active, to have steps count toward its completion. If I have done the thing you want me to do then just check it off the list. That's how it used to work and there's zero reason why it can't work like that now. It's more efficient that way, and far less annoying.

I know you can either access or place crafting stations to get credit for those steps (so you don't have to make or dismantle/place a station to get credit) and that's probably the one thing that they did right with it. Other than that most of the steps require you to do them again. I've cooked meat a hundred times but I have to cook more meat to get a check in the box? Why? I clearly know how to do that already. I have built a wheel of pain, crafted gruel, added that to the wheel, made a truncheon and rope, captured a thrall, put them on the heel, fully trained the thrall, and placed that thrall in the world so why do I need to do most of that all over again when I activate the journey? If I've crafted a tool I shouldn't have to craft another one, I mean the game must know that I've crafted tools before, right? If I've taken a drink from a well I shouldn't have to do it again. Just check them off as we do them whether or not the journey is active. It's ridiculous that I have to re-do things I've already done just to satisfy the journey's conditions.

This is why the old journey system was better. I got credit for whatever I did whenever I did it and that was much better than this "select it first and only do one tiny set of tasks at a time" system that we have now.

What the new journey system would be good for is a basic tutorial for new players to follow *IF* they want to learn something specific and be very carefully guided through the process. That way they could select the thing they wanted to learn and then could follow the steps. IA tutorial is all that this current system should have been, it should not have replaced the previous journey system.

Word of advice: If it's not broken, don't fix it... and Funcom, you've got enough stuff that you desperately need to fix that you ought to have left things like this alone.

[Jaq]

The old system was lousy and did its job poorly. The new system does a better job as a guide (when it functions correctly), which is its primary purpose. Accomplishing steps in the guide without the player doing so knowingly or intentionally defeats the instructional intent, hence the preference for locking them to a step-by-step path.

The two mistakes made here were permitting/forcing players to re-do the Journey with each new character, and tying important and valuable item recipes to the Journey system. Journey steps should be account-tracked and only provide consumables. There should be no reward for repeating them all over again on a new character. The crafting recipe rewards need to go elsewhere in the knowledge system or game world. That's how you eliminate the tediousness of this locked structure for people who already know what they're doing: You don't do it again, because you don't need a guide anymore.

[Ellorien]

Last night I was doing these journey steps on Siptah. My current Siprah character is about lvl 200 (the only mod I use is for leveling up to lvl 300) so obviously it was just a nuisance.

Anyway, I was building a trebuchet (again). So, while the arm (the last part of the “complete building the trebuchet” step) was SLOWLY building I switched the journey and went to a vault. When I came back, the arm finished building but I did not get the credit OF COURSE because the journey was not active at the time it finished building. So I had to start over and patiently wait until the damn useless thing (in my single-player) was fully built once again.

And how about having to build and upgrade yet another religious structure because the game refuses to acknowledge you already built and fully upgraded every altar to every god in this game? You can “access” the greater wheel and other things but not the altar.

[DarkFire]

When it works I think the new system provides a better experience for a brand new player as it has a bit more direction to it. I do wish that the various steps worked even if the player didn't have a particular journey 'active' though. Probably also needs a way for experienced players to turn it off.

[cattibria]

Presently there is a known issue that affects the Journey System and Achievements. The development team is aware of the issue. I do not have an ETA on a resolution.

[Xevyr]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

So I hadn't played all that much since the Sorcery update but I decided to start a new character and while working through the journey steps I learned something.

Do you want to know what I learned? I absolutely hate the way they've got journey steps set up now. It's beyond terrible, makes no sense, and I really want the old system back.

I'm sorry :D .. but I've been around the forums a while and I am starting to have trouble taking you seriously when it comes to these types of posts :)
Literally all you have done since 3.0 is complain.. "I don't like the building hammer.. I want the old system back"... "I don't like the attributes.. I want the old system back"... and so on.. we get it.. you liked 2.8 more and you're being a bit conservative in your approach, it happens.

Originally posted by Macdallan:

The biggest and most annoying issue is that you have to select a journey before you can progress through the steps. If I have already done multiple things that are required for a specific journey then I shouldn't have to do any of them a second time. I shouldn't have to select a specific journey, or have it active, to have steps count toward its completion. If I have done the thing you want me to do then just check it off the list. That's how it used to work and there's zero reason why it can't work like that now. It's more efficient that way, and far less annoying.

I sort of disagree.. while I do see how the constant switching can be tedious if you're doing them one after another, especially if you miss out on some triggers because you forgot to switch before that altar upgrades for example..

The system was clearly not designed as something that you should hammer out in a single afternoon, but rather as a completely OPTIONAL thing where you can go after a specific branch that you would like the rewards from, especially since it's character specific unlike the battle pass for example.. so there's no point unlocking things that the specific character you're playing won't use.

The devs also tried to explain that they felt like it was too random and while seasoned players knew what was up... a new player getting a notification half the time didn't have a clue why that was happening and what's up with it... like picking up a piece of star metal from a random dead body when they were nowhere near ready to use it triggering some high level journey. I agree with it, it just seemed like a random XP boost thing...

Originally posted by Macdallan:

I've cooked meat a hundred times but I have to cook more meat to get a check in the box? Why? I clearly know how to do that already. I have built a wheel of pain, crafted gruel, added that to the wheel, made a truncheon and rope, captured a thrall, put them on the heel, fully trained the thrall, and placed that thrall in the world so why do I need to do most of that all over again when I activate the journey?

For the reward ofc... if you want it... otherwise ignore it!

Originally posted by Macdallan:

This is why the old journey system was better. I got credit for whatever I did whenever I did it and that was much better than this "select it first and only do one tiny set of tasks at a time" system that we have now.

No it wasn't.. the old journey system was completely pointless.. all you gained from it was XP... which the game is already giving a ridiculous amount of to where you have to play at a minimum xp rate for it to even make sense :P

The only decent part of the old system was those few steps that guided you through the story stages, however to be fair you only needed it up to the tower of bats since afterwards the staff literally tells you what to do..

Originally posted by Macdallan:

What the new journey system would be good for is a basic tutorial for new players to follow *IF* they want to learn something specific and be very carefully guided through the process. That way they could select the thing they wanted to learn and then could follow the steps.

That's kinda what it does.. in fact for that very reason the first journey is skippable by advanced players, since that's just a basic movement and general survival tutorial..
The rest however requires you to accomplish specific things to get specific rewards... again the entire system is OPTIONAL.. you don't have to use it.
Some people simply ignore it and just play as they did before, while others enjoy it as it's a little extra something to do..

[Jethro]

I keep telling myself I’m done doing them. Then 5 mins later I’m clicking on a new one. I agree that you shouldn’t be forced to do things multiple times in order to get the check mark.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Jaq:

The old system was lousy and did its job poorly. The new system does a better job as a guide (when it functions correctly), which is its primary purpose. Accomplishing steps in the guide without the player doing so knowingly or intentionally defeats the instructional intent, hence the preference for locking them to a step-by-step path.

The two mistakes made here were permitting/forcing players to re-do the Journey with each new character, and tying important and valuable item recipes to the Journey system. Journey steps should be account-tracked and only provide consumables. There should be no reward for repeating them all over again on a new character. The crafting recipe rewards need to go elsewhere in the knowledge system or game world. That's how you eliminate the tediousness of this locked structure for people who already know what they're doing: You don't do it again, because you don't need a guide anymore.

The old system's job wasn't what you think it was. It wasn't meant to be a hand holding tutorial like we have now. That wasn't its primary purpose. Yes, the earliest steps were a bit of a mini-tutorial but it wasn't a hand holding step by step like we have now and it was better that way.

Originally posted by DarkFire:

When it works I think the new system provides a better experience for a brand new player as it has a bit more direction to it. I do wish that the various steps worked even if the player didn't have a particular journey 'active' though. Probably also needs a way for experienced players to turn it off.

Yes, and that's why the new system should simply be a separate, optional, tutorial for those that need it. Bring the old journey system back, switch this new one to a tutorial.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Xevyr:

Originally posted by Macdallan:

So I hadn't played all that much since the Sorcery update but I decided to start a new character and while working through the journey steps I learned something.

Do you want to know what I learned? I absolutely hate the way they've got journey steps set up now. It's beyond terrible, makes no sense, and I really want the old system back.

I'm sorry :D .. but I've been around the forums a while and I am starting to have trouble taking you seriously when it comes to these types of posts :)
Literally all you have done since 3.0 is complain.. "I don't like the building hammer.. I want the old system back"... "I don't like the attributes.. I want the old system back"... and so on.. we get it.. you liked 2.8 more and you're being a bit conservative in your approach, it happens.

Originally posted by Macdallan:

The biggest and most annoying issue is that you have to select a journey before you can progress through the steps. If I have already done multiple things that are required for a specific journey then I shouldn't have to do any of them a second time. I shouldn't have to select a specific journey, or have it active, to have steps count toward its completion. If I have done the thing you want me to do then just check it off the list. That's how it used to work and there's zero reason why it can't work like that now. It's more efficient that way, and far less annoying.

I sort of disagree.. while I do see how the constant switching can be tedious if you're doing them one after another, especially if you miss out on some triggers because you forgot to switch before that altar upgrades for example..

The system was clearly not designed as something that you should hammer out in a single afternoon, but rather as a completely OPTIONAL thing where you can go after a specific branch that you would like the rewards from, especially since it's character specific unlike the battle pass for example.. so there's no point unlocking things that the specific character you're playing won't use.

The devs also tried to explain that they felt like it was too random and while seasoned players knew what was up... a new player getting a notification half the time didn't have a clue why that was happening and what's up with it... like picking up a piece of star metal from a random dead body when they were nowhere near ready to use it triggering some high level journey. I agree with it, it just seemed like a random XP boost thing...

Originally posted by Macdallan:

I've cooked meat a hundred times but I have to cook more meat to get a check in the box? Why? I clearly know how to do that already. I have built a wheel of pain, crafted gruel, added that to the wheel, made a truncheon and rope, captured a thrall, put them on the heel, fully trained the thrall, and placed that thrall in the world so why do I need to do most of that all over again when I activate the journey?

For the reward ofc... if you want it... otherwise ignore it!

Originally posted by Macdallan:

This is why the old journey system was better. I got credit for whatever I did whenever I did it and that was much better than this "select it first and only do one tiny set of tasks at a time" system that we have now.

No it wasn't.. the old journey system was completely pointless.. all you gained from it was XP... which the game is already giving a ridiculous amount of to where you have to play at a minimum xp rate for it to even make sense :P

The only decent part of the old system was those few steps that guided you through the story stages, however to be fair you only needed it up to the tower of bats since afterwards the staff literally tells you what to do..

Originally posted by Macdallan:

What the new journey system would be good for is a basic tutorial for new players to follow *IF* they want to learn something specific and be very carefully guided through the process. That way they could select the thing they wanted to learn and then could follow the steps.

That's kinda what it does.. in fact for that very reason the first journey is skippable by advanced players, since that's just a basic movement and general survival tutorial..
The rest however requires you to accomplish specific things to get specific rewards... again the entire system is OPTIONAL.. you don't have to use it.
Some people simply ignore it and just play as they did before, while others enjoy it as it's a little extra something to do..

Bud, I'm being harassed enough on another forum so I don't need people here doing it, too. Stick to the topic and leave the personal attacks out of it, please.

[Rusted Metal]

I very much disagree, it is leagues ahead of the original.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Rusted Metal:

I very much disagree, it is leagues ahead of the original.

Except it's not. It's taken one step forward in the direction of being a bit more of a tutorial, that I must admit because the steps are very clearly explained (though some are wrong - one step claims you get dry wood and tar for drying wood in the drying rack when you don't get tar from that at all, you get resin) and ten steps back in the direction of being clunky and annoying.

The new system is clunky, buggy, and requires you to swap to an "active" journey to get credit for most actions. You have to go back and repeat actions or make things you've already made to get credit for many steps and some of the simpler ones still require you to be a pretty high level to complete them meaning even more swapping back and forth when you hit a step that's level locked.

With the old system you could unlock things as you went along through gameplay and it happened mostly in the background, you didn't have to keep switching to menus and swapping to a different "journey" to get credit for what you were doing. You played the game and checked off steps as you went. No need to take yourself out of the game, break immersion, to fiddle with those menus. That's actually a huge issue I have with the cash shop and battle pass, too. They break immersion, big time, and should never have been added in the first place. They were a big mistake and have only harmed the game.

Anyway, with the old system it didn't matter if you were a high enough level for many of the steps, you could complete them in any order so if one step was in the third tier but you managed to do it when you were at level 1 then you got credit for it, you didn't have to "unlock" it first. The current system is level and progress locked so you can't even access all the journey steps from level 1 and that's a huge negative.

[Rusted Metal]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Except it's not. It's taken one step forward in the direction of being a bit more of a tutorial, that I must admit because the steps are very clearly explained (though some are wrong - one step claims you get dry wood and tar for drying wood in the drying rack when you don't get tar from that at all, you get resin) and ten steps back in the direction of being clunky and annoying.

The new system is clunky, buggy, and requires you to swap to an "active" journey to get credit for most actions. You have to go back and repeat actions or make things you've already made to get credit for many steps and some of the simpler ones still require you to be a pretty high level to complete them meaning even more swapping back and forth when you hit a step that's level locked.

With the old system you could unlock things as you went along through gameplay and it happened mostly in the background, you didn't have to keep switching to menus and swapping to a different "journey" to get credit for what you were doing. You played the game and checked off steps as you went. No need to take yourself out of the game, break immersion, to fiddle with those menus. That's actually a huge issue I have with the cash shop and battle pass, too. They break immersion, big time, and should never have been added in the first place. They were a big mistake and have only harmed the game.

Anyway, with the old system it didn't matter if you were a high enough level for many of the steps, you could complete them in any order so if one step was in the third tier but you managed to do it when you were at level 1 then you got credit for it, you didn't have to "unlock" it first. The current system is level and progress locked so you can't even access all the journey steps from level 1 and that's a huge negative.

I believe they now follow the concept of "journey" more closely, they are ways conan can be played as well as get players to seek out things that they might not otherwise like the "Mountaineer" journey which askes you to climb and speak with the mountaineer.

I just find it superior, i understand your gripe with not being able to do them out of order, but it's a small price to pay for the big improvement made in every other area.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Rusted Metal:

I believe they now follow the concept of "journey" more closely, they are ways conan can be played as well as get players to seek out things that they might not otherwise like the "Mountaineer" journey which askes you to climb and speak with the mountaineer.

I just find it superior, i understand your gripe with not being able to do them out of order, but it's a small price to pay for the big improvement made in every other area.

What big improvements? There weren't big improvements, with the exception of the hand holding tutorial there were nothing but downgrades. It's also silly that you get free stuff from out of thin air when you complete them, too. Makes zero sense, just like the battle pass makes no sense and the cash shop makes no sense.

[Rusted Metal]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

[
What big improvements? There weren't big improvements, with the exception of the hand holding tutorial there were nothing but downgrades. It's also silly that you get free stuff from out of thin air when you complete them, too. Makes zero sense, just like the battle pass makes no sense and the cash shop makes no sense.

There are alot of things that make no sense in conan, selectively choosing what you believe to be immersion breaking is fine, but this is a game where you build giant ornate blocks in a split second, carry a bunch of items with no visuals etc etc, if the menu is where you believe immersion breaks then that is pretty humorous considering everything else.

[Xevyr]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Bud, I'm being harassed enough on another forum so I don't need people here doing it, too. Stick to the topic and leave the personal attacks out of it, please.

I'm sure that's exactly how it is :) Oh btw, are you referring to the one you're banned from or the one where you also complained about Funcom ruining Conan even though it's a completely different game's discussion board?

In any case it was not meant as a personal attack, but rather an observation that you literally complained so much in the past in a similar style that I immediately recognized your name even though most of it was months ago. I'm not sure that's a good sign and I hope that's not what you were going for, but you do you, so no attack here, I'm perfectly chill beyond pointing out something that I noticed.

You cannot expect people to not consider your past interactions, especially when this gives off the exact same vibe. Namely that you're not really interested in any sort of productive discussion, you had your biased opinion about the entire Age of Sorcery update and you just found another thing to nitpick about. - that's the impression I am getting, please correct me if I am wrong and you actually want some productive discussion on the topic beyond just venting..

Despite that, I still entertained the post and addressed most of your points one by one, so I was very much sticking to the topic - though imo. you can only expect to police people to stick to the topic when you're actually serious about it and the topic isn't "fake" just to complain for the sake of it..

Now back on topic yet again, you did not address an important point I brought up earlier..

Namely that the journey system is entirely optional.. I also brought up that you weren't gaining any rewards from the old system aside from some XP of which we already get too much, so it's not like you actually lost anything relevant..
As such.. the answer is really simple... being an optional system, if you don't like it, just don't use it.. you can even hide the interface in the settings.
In light of these, can you elaborate why is this particular thing such a big issue?

Because despite the couple of small bugs with the triggers, there are quite a lot of people out there who like this new system, since it actually added something to the game, something almost resembling quests that actually reward them in some ways as opposed to not getting anything from the old system..
Not to mention that contrary to the old system, it's entirely moddable so it has even more possibilities to be useful for those who use mods.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Xevyr:

(SNIP - removed the stuff that shouldn't have been written in the first place....)

Now back on topic yet again, you did not address an important point I brought up earlier..

Namely that the journey system is entirely optional.. I also brought up that you weren't gaining any rewards from the old system aside from some XP of which we already get too much, so it's not like you actually lost anything relevant..
As such.. the answer is really simple... being an optional system, if you don't like it, just don't use it.. you can even hide the interface in the settings.
In light of these, can you elaborate why is this particular thing such a big issue?

Because despite the couple of small bugs with the triggers, there are quite a lot of people out there who like this new system, since it actually added something to the game, something almost resembling quests that actually reward them in some ways as opposed to not getting anything from the old system..
Not to mention that contrary to the old system, it's entirely moddable so it has even more possibilities to be useful for those who use mods.

Thanks for your input. You aren't wrong, the new system can be mostly ignored but that's not the point of this thread. Doesn't matter if you can ignore it or not, I vastly prefer the old system and wish they'd put it back in place.

The alternative to changing it back that would work for me, and probably make a lot of veteran players happy, is to simply make everything you do count toward every journey in the game without having to select the journey before doing the step. If I've done the thing, then I've done the thing. Don't skill or level lock these check boxes, if I manage to do something that's usually done at level 30 and I'm only level 4 then give me credit and don't make me do it again. Maybe toss a check box in the journey page to indicate you're an experienced player and want to complete steps in any order instead of complete them per journey and only for the selected journey. Basically a "tutorial off" mode.