Topic

Underpowered game aspects?

Right now I think it's consensus (or at least majority opinion) that mining/savanna are overpowered even though people disagree in the ways they are. But clearly, some things are underpowered and need some buffs.

Quoins are a bit underpowered right now. They're pretty much useless beyond level 5. I think this comes in part because we have very few "high level" areas -- nearly every area in the game is accessible to anyone of any level, so when you're level 20 almost every quoin in every area (save maybe the Savanna) contributes virtually nothing to your XP/Energy/Mood.

Anything gardening and animal-related are pretty underpowered, nevermind meditative arts. The bonuses are nice and the buffs from herbs are good and the energy restoration from focusing is convenient, but very few strategically-minded Glitch players will see gardening as a viable alternative to mining, or even cooking. They won't make it their thing. Right now, anyone who wants to advance quickly in the game will get mining ASAP. I'm relatively new so I could be wrong about this, but that's pretty much the consensus I've gotten from when I've asked, anyway.

In any case, this is just what I've noticed -- if you have an opinion, differing or not, please share it.

Posted 16 months ago by The Crepeist Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Actually cooking and gardening are my primary areas. I've really enjoyed unlocking new recipes for each of my different tools, and I'm just really getting into my gardening, discovering new strategy and technique as I go along. I recently discovered how valuable my wood tree harvests are with the vendors. It's only my participation in street projects that has slowed me down since I spent so little time at my little house. Now I'm focusing on this area of development over projects. This will help me when I get back to that activity.
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All I know for certain is that I am Lev. 33.  I have leveled 3 times this test and all of it from quoins.  I agree that each quoin barely seems to register but they do add up and you can level up with them.  I mostly try not to look at my stats.  I just move along and try to gather as many XP quoins as I can.  My Mood seems to always be outrageously happy.  I am so happy that looking at the Mood icon makes my face hurt.  At 33, I find that for some reason I seldom need to eat.  Maybe it's because I play for only about 2 hrs. at a time.  When I return to the game after a break it is a new day and I am refreshed.  From Lev. 1 to about 20 or so I seemed to spend a lot of time grubbing for Mood and Energy.  I am happy that now I seem to be having no problem.  I would find it hard to go to Hell now and would have to make a concentrated effort to do so.  So, I am fat and happy and progressing.  Everyone should be as lucky.
    Posted 16 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't think the picture is as simple as you paint. Everyone bangs on about mining all the time as being the only practical way to amass currants and level up. I've only done a very modest amount of mining since the last reset (mainly in response to quests) - to amass my fortunes, I focussed on gardening and cooking, with a modest amount of remote herdkeeping thrown in. I'm now level 37, I have a 50K Alakol house and 423,000 currants in the bank. Those second-rate skills don't seem to have done too badly for me.

    I'm sure there are some inequalities between the skills, but I don't think they're anywhere near as pronounced (or indeed important) as people seem to think. If you simply work on progressing to the higher levels of any of the main skill sets, you'll do OK by it.
    Posted 16 months ago by dopiaza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I am level 28 and ONLY cook and RHK. granted, i did mine to get my 50k house but now (from 0 currants) in the last two tests, I have amassed 100k easily
    Posted 16 months ago by Djoe6897 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I hate mining. HATE it.. But I leveled up just as fast as my mine-happy girlfriend and have no trouble maintaining 100k currants on produce, meat, milk and music block sales.

    (I'd be more eloquent, but I also hate typing long paragraphs on my phone. : P)
    Posted 16 months ago by Sheepy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Quoin benefits are associated with level.  At a lower level, I received +13 XP from a quoin which now gives me +29 XP.  Also, there are very large quoins available.  Some are random (for example, one gave me +2632 XP during the last test), and some seem to be fixed (for example, I believe I get +764 XP each time I use a particular quoin in Jethimadh).

    Benefits of mundane actions are also tied to skill levels, so, for example, someone with Animal Kinship 7 will receive more XP for petting a pig than will someone with AK4. 

    Personally, I don't find mining particularly interesting, so I don't do much of it.  It's a simple way to make currants, but (at the moment) there's little use for currants past a certain point.  There are many valuable items in the game, almost all of which can be sold to vendors, so there's no need to mine if you don't want to.

    The developers have little impetus to make the game easier than it already is, and, in fact, are trying to make it harder.  Recent changes to gurly drinks and emblem fondling spring to mind.
    Posted 16 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Areas that seem under powered to me: 

    Engineering \ block making \ fuel making
    other than street project that have a need how does this fit into normal play?
    would be cool if we were making our own houses or using them to solve a puzzle

    Tinkering IV and V seem under powered
    when I started I thought tinkering would be where the fun would be but it has not turned out that way

    Mining metal rocks and Alchemy II
    have not found much need for this in my play other than maybe street projects that need it

    I'm yet to use herbal ism because my house does not have a herb garden 

    Crystallography -- have not come up with a good use for this yet
    Posted 16 months ago by Artilect Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think gardening - crops not herbs - is pretty sad at the moment, but the others are ok. If the devs remove the scaffolds from the economy, the first place to start is the produce vendor. Then people will start to see real returns on veggies, comparable to harvesting or mining. Or maybe Cropping skill is enough; not sure. Remote Herdkeeping seems to whoopass all over Mining IV, tho.
    Posted 16 months ago by FlirtyvonSexenhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Artilect.

     I also feel that those are the most underpowered areas of the game since the results of engineering, mining metal and crystallography are mostly just useful for projects, and alchemy only produces a few powders and half of those aren't very useful.

    I'd also like to see improvements to Tinkering so that you could make improved, more sturdy, version of all tools. You should be able to make stuff that's better than what you can buy at the vendors.

    Another underpowered skill is herbalism because the herbs themselves are underpowered. Except for purple. Purple is great. I'm still terribly heart broken that rookswort is absolutely no use in fighting the rook.

    I do think gardening and cooking are pretty good. I have had no problems making money with those, although I'm not shooting for vast riches here. I do think it's ok to have some professions that are more lucrative than others, if the others are more interesting, fun. Some people will choose to do the more lucrative profession and some will choose the more fun ones.
    Posted 16 months ago by FrankenPaula Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I totally forgot about Tinkering. Definitely underpowered, at least with respect to what you can make with it. By the time you're finally able to make tools, you could have bought them several times over.
    Posted 16 months ago by The Crepeist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • re: quoins. @The Crepeist: Sounds like you need to go on a hunt:). There are several hidden, tricky to find quoins that have BIG payouts. Also, have you been to the nostalgia areas? If not, go check out those quoins sometime! 

    I'm a pretty competitive player (though I also love, love, love to help others), and I don't find mining to be a be-all, end-all in the least. If I mine, it's nearly always because I need elements to make powders with, honestly. Yes, early on in the game, it's a good starting point, but it's also definitely not the only way to go. I know one player who gardens, farms and cooks almost exclusively and she is at quite a high level. I'm not saying there aren't some imbalances. Just saying, as you said you are relatively new, you may gain a quite different perspective the more you play. I even know someone who make a lot of currants just scraping and selling barnacles! Also, Tiny Speck staff has said many times that more content is planned and that levels about 20 do need fleshing out. Definitely a work in progress; we are beta testing after all:) I agree with many of Artilect's points, too. Just thought I'd share that there are definitely many paths that will advance you, not just mining.

    The other thought I have is this, and it's one I echo in various places in forums: The game isn't only or even mainly about "advancing quickly" for a lot of people. In fact, they keep nerfing some of our quick leveling tricks (you turkeys:), so I'd say it's not the aspect TS is emphasizing. Now as I said, yes, I personally am competitive and enjoy getting achievements, leveling, traveling. But what I love so much is how so many people play Glitch in such different ways. Some compete. Some are just happy to help others out. Some do both. One guy I know loves to harvest. It's pretty much all he does, wander around harvesting and chatting with his friends. You can cook, either to sell or just to feed project crews. You can focus on street projects. You can lead peat bog quests (larky lion loves doing this!). I even know one pair who enjoy cooking up elaborate prank/thank-yous for devs and spend a lot of time doing that. And this is just a taste of how many different play methods I see. Anyway:) Duh, I love Glitch! I'm interested to see how they flesh things out, too, but thought I'd give you another perspective:)
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I feel like cooking is a little underpowered, but maybe that's just me. I don't really get out of it what I put into it. Certain recipes that require a lot of different ingredients, some requiring that you make different recipes first, don't really give much of an energy reward.

    I feel like recipes that require that much effort should give you more energy.
    Posted 16 months ago by Pretty Boss Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Growing and cooking will take a big upswing when vendors stop selling thing players can make/grow. The market for produce will change DRAMATICALLY. I imagine the plan is to ween us off vendors and it will be interesting to see what happens to the economy.

    I have (perhaps wrongly, perhaps not) that a lot of the elements folks are talking about (engineering, etc) are thing that have been put into place for future uses. For example, it there are personal/group building projects that need bricks and blocks and the like, blockmaking suddenly becomes much more valuable on auction (And when they remove Fuel Cells from vendors, that skill is gonna shoot through the roof.)

    I actually thing music block drops from harvesting could be cut back a bit at higher levels. When filling up on cherries and beans, I often have to stop every fourth street to dump music blocks at a vendor.

    So, basically, it is hard for me to judge balance based on things right this second. And I'm fine with that. When (if, whatever) the economy becomes more player run, there will be periods where suddenly one skill or the other feels underpowered.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LB-o, now it seems counterintuitive to cut back drops for higher levels, though. Isn't that why one learns more skills? That's one of the ways I make money; I sell my drops....
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • RM, I know, I know. I'm not saying drop it to the same as the pervious level of skill... just pulled back a touch.

    I am still of the feeling that there is WAY to much cash in the world. The game shouldn't be a constant struggle, I feel like drops at the current rate discourage (or at least don't ENcourage) engaging in Glitch-to-Glitch sales. If I am making 2,000 currant from selling excess music boxes, why would I ever sell cherries and beans (or whatever)? So I don't. All my beans go into Awesome Stews, my excess cash is spent at vendors for produce... but that barely makes a dent on my cash flow from drops.  I just stock up on stuff and when my bags get full I go find a project. Since I have a full bag of Awesome Stew and a crap load of cash and stuff, it is just too easy to spend all that on projects (or on auction getting stuff for projects).

    (This was SLIGHT different when still had skills to learn and was donating to shrines all the time. But really just a different shade of the same thing.)

    Now I'm on a tangent, but I am still not a fan of the auction idea. It still breaks me out of the game. It is better now with frogs and delay, but how the heck is my Glitch scanning the auctions? Do we all have some sort of telepathy? I would love to see auctions have an IN GAME connection. Auction houses... or even little terminals... something.

    But most importantly, a market place to take place of vendors. Obviously, most of us don't want to send all day behind a counter or standing on a street hawking our wares. But a "robot" or vending machine or street spirit we hire (whatever it ends up being), that we can stock with good and set prices at and then let run. Then we'd really see things moving. And I know I'd make an effort to go to sellers that I like personally.

    Man, this went on a tangent away from underpowered, overpowered, etc.. Again, I think it's that we have a lot of the pieces and when other pieces are introduced and other pieces removed, we will be having a whole new debate.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Rascalmom

    Yeah, I've been to the Nostalgia areas. Those are way better than the normal quoins. If more areas gave that kind of payout, quoins would be worth it. Right now though, 99% of quoins will give about 5 XP per quoin save the rare one that gives ~125 XP, and to even encounter that one big one you must go through a sea of tiny ones which will make your daily payout, provided you don't restrict yourself to the Nostalgia areas, maybe a tenth (at best) of the XP you'd get from 30 minutes of mining.
    Posted 16 months ago by The Crepeist Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I forgot to add to my rant:

    Quoins: I have no problem with them being a "crutch" of sorts for lower levels and losing importance as you level up, with occasional special quoins that you might pick up if you cross them. Large rewards for just running around doesn't excite me.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • FWIW, I've been able to level to 33 with 300k-ish currants, mostly via cooking, supplemented by a bit of mining...
    Posted 16 months ago by magic panda Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LB-o, an in-game auction would be great. The last MMO I played had this mechanic down pat: You went to a feature in a central area and clicked in (was the marketplace). Everything other players were selling was listed right there and you could buy (all sorted by category; you could also sort by price). Then you could right there enter your own items to sell. The only odd thing was you would have to pick up your cash at that place also; it wasn't automatically delivered to you. But was a great system.

    The Crepeist ~125? Trust me, there are some way higher quoins than that hidden around Ur (outside the ancestral areas) :)
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 to Artilect and FrankenPaula

    With the recent nerfing of the gems for mining, it seems to be more balanced with the previous nerfing that happened to croppery (which is the gardening of crops; whereas gardening is more related to the harvesting of trees).   I just think that more people rely on the mining since it takes a while before the croppery skills can kick in since you need a certain level of gardening before you can get to them. So I don't think it's a overpower/underpower thing on those anymore...it's a you can get mining skills pretty quick in game (level 2) and it takes longer to get the same type of croppery skills (and people often confuse gardening skills for croppery skills).

    For me the engineering, blockmaking, alchemy, tinkering skills are the least useful now, but as LBo mentioned, these all seem to be stubs for things to come...and when those things are finally put into the game, then they will be more useful. 

    Oh, and yes, there are quite a few higher level quoins outside the nostalgia areas...try Ix...and frankly, I like that I have a specific area that pays out high level quoins - gives me a reason to visit the nostalgia areas...I do hate it when I hit my quoin limit...gives me less reason to climb trees, etc...
    Posted 16 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Easy way to fix: instead of 5-8 rocks per mining, 2-4 rocks. instead of one juju per street, swarms from all directions
    Posted 16 months ago by Djoe6897 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Even if mining is a better way to rack up cash... it's pretty boring compared to the gardening/cooking tree. Being able to self-sufficiently farm crops, cook them, and use/sell the proceeds is way more satisfying, if less lucrative, than mining ~another~ chunk of dullite.
    Posted 16 months ago by Capablanca Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've had so much fun playing Glitch that I didn't realise until recently that all I do is harvest egg plants. At some point, I mapped out a route that took me past every egg plant in Groddle. I don't even know why, because I don't cook - I just hoard them and give them away. It's still ridiculously fun.
    Posted 16 months ago by Frederik Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with the need to get rid of vendors, and auctions being too much out of the game. In terms of player-to-player trading, I'm in favour of the Runescape Grand Exchange system - having central hubs (maybe one per area) where you can make offers for items or offer items for sale, and pick up currants/items (e.g. at mailboxes) when they're sold. It's basically auctions, but allowing people to pre-bid for items so they don't have to keep looking.

    Getting rid of the vendors also allows an /actual economy/ to form, something that I'm massively in favour of. There will be no longer be such a thing as "underpowered" or "overpowered"! The market will adjust itself so that the things that are more needed are more profitable, and players can find their own niche in the ecosystem. Obviously this will work much better once everything in the game can be made from raw resources.

    In short: can we get rid of vendors (both buying from AND SELLING TO) and have a free market please please please?
    Posted 16 months ago by Saro Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One of the things I'll note about quoins is that they seem to offer more XP/energy/mood/etc. when they are someplace that nobody has been in a while.  If that's not the case, it would be a good idea, since it would definitely reward exploration to those who prefer leveling by quoin-chasing.  

    I *would* like to see more uses for engineering and block-making, even though I haven't worked myself up to those skills yet.  It would be cool to see blocks used to build long-lasting structures, like stairs or walls, although there would definitely have to be a way to prevent griefing in the form of making certain areas impassible.  It would be cool to use that skill to make addition to one's own home, though!

    Bingo!  Just had an interesting thought:  High-level Bureaucracy  + Engineering allows one to do "City Planning," essentially allowing the player to use a specially-demarked area as a sandbox or whiteboard for designing new streets.  The Blockmaking and related skills allow one to build additional layers.  These then get submitted to one or more devs who decide whether or not this would make a good general form for an upcoming street project (when there's room for one in the queue, of course).  The guidelines could be kept reasonably simple (that is, no designing landscape to look like rude words or objects--or at least not *too* obviously so!), and the designer could get some suitable reward at the time the project reaches completion.  Thoughts?
    Posted 16 months ago by Hazmat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Really would be disappointed if the Vendors disappeared.  When filling a bag for upcoming street project it really is quite nice to pull up to an appropriate vendor to shake, fry,and brew. (Where would you purchase beer or hooch for the recipe?)  For a new player coming into the game, a free market system might be just the kicker to say this game is not for me.  When we suggest changes to the game, keep in mind that new players come in all the time and it does take a "few days or more" to get the hang of things.  Just a thought. (In order for Glitch to continue, we need to encourage new players to join us in our frolic)
    Posted 16 months ago by AlmostSilver Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would definitely like seeing house upgrading from engineering, especially if that increases the resale value of the house.

    And I am discovering that high level herdkeeping is an endless source of wealth.
    Posted 16 months ago by Pinkhair Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If there are no vendors, then how do you propose to get an influx of currants into the system? After level 20, you don't get them at each level, and there are only limited ways to earn currants (quests, quoins and leveling).   If you can't sell items to the vendors, then you don't have enough currants to buy stuff from others...sort of defeats the in-game economy idea when we have reset and everyone goes back to zero.  Fewer vendors, I don't mind...but no vendors might be a bit extreme.
    Posted 16 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @b3achy You don't sell things to vendors, you sell things to other players. Currants go round and round the system and as long as you can't throw it into a shrine, it should work fine.

    Of course, current currant sinks like houses would have to be reconsidered! But if we have player-built houses that would be fine too.
    Posted 16 months ago by Saro Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hazmat: I LOVE your idea! Have you posted it in the Ideas forum as well? Go rack up some +1s :)

    @Frederik: That's awesome:)
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree re: produce vendors. I love gardening and cooking in-game but sometimes it seems pointless given the low cost and wide availability of produce.

    I never use auctions; I only sell to vendors. I would like it if the things I sold to a vendor appeared for sale from that vendor instead of just disappearing.  So I could only sell produce to produce vendors, who would then resell it at a markup as a real-life vendor would. Sometimes produce vendors would be out of a particular type of veggie if people hadn't been growing/selling it. I think this would make produce more interesting and valuable, and it would stimulate a trade/barter economy amongst glitches.  It would also motivate people to travel and check out more than one vendor if they were in search of a particular product.  I think this would work best if all or nearly all of vendor items could be created by players.  Squeezing beans to make olive oil, fermenting cherries to make hooch, flicking fireflies to get honey, toddling around dark places to find mushrooms, and so on.  Anyway that was a long ramble because I see it as a solution to the underpowered produce market!
    Posted 16 months ago by Miel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Miel :) It would be more of an adventure if you didn't know exactly what you could get every time!
    Posted 16 months ago by Saro Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like Miel's idea. The key problem with vendors is that they provide an infinite supply of whatever they're selling, so there's no incentive for players to harvest or craft the items.
    Posted 16 months ago by Tofu Casserole Subscriber! | Permalink
  • there's no incentive for players to harvest or craft the items.

    So what's the reason that players do harvest or craft the items?  If it's such a problem, why do players engage in those activities even though "there's no incentive'?  Perhaps there is something enjoyable about the activity that isn't related to whether or not there's an infinite supply available at the vendors. 

    Obviously, the vendors having an infinite supply is not making the activity less enjoyable.
    Posted 16 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 WindBorn
    Posted 16 months ago by Audaria Subscriber! | Permalink