Potter clay changes & heart bleed

[Fancy_boy]

Tldr: that is mostly for a devs only. so that everyone else can not suffer by reading all this stuff

A bit of flood:

I don't playing several month because the game is stuck, but watching the progress of development. With hope, which began a long time ago to turn into disappointment. And every new patch in the last 4 months makes me frowning. And especially this one patch makes me to facepalm. From the fact that the developers just do not understand what they are doing(yea, it's all about potter clay). So I made new acc(I out of reach my old accounts) to add my two cents on the current situation, and also about last patch(Ranger's Honey).

where did it all begin? I think there:

Bone clay is way harder to make even with bots but now it is absolutely obsolete. I think due to it's rarity it should be higher q than the potter clay and one way to do it is what I suggested. Maybe there are other ways of doing that too.

Also, I personally almost stopped playing eventually after potter clay was introduced since the game was kind of somehow competitive before and now there is no way to compete with larger factions and/or no-lifers. At least q difference wasn't that dramatic. And making top q resources rare sounds logical, no? While cave clay could be botted, but top q bones and feldspar can't.

I understand your anger. Since at that time you had a perfect spot of cave clay + a bot to collect it. And high-quality chickens + willagers who is botted mining to find HQ feldspar. That in the end gave you easy access to a valuable resource. Without the need to interact with "larger factions and / or no-lifers". Socialization? What for? Bot will help.

What do we have now? Let's see..

Also this just nerfs the production of potters clay, it doesn't really /nerf/ potters clay. If you want bone clay to be competitive to potters clay more than that will probably need to be done. You and loftar might need to take a day to brainstorm and figure out how you guys want the end game industry to look like. The economy of hafen could benefit a lot from this. Trading seems practically dead at this point as people are just stockpiling hats and tokens for the next world.

We need to towards how we can create more sinks into the game like metal-spiralling, or industries that everyone (even the lowest of low nab) can contribute to. We need definite reasons to want to trade with these people (currently cast iron is the most valuable resource they can provide to end game factions). I would love for more industry that is an endless sink. For example the food rework could help with this nicely. We need reasons to make low Q food useful. The "one tap the FEP bar" meta needs to end. All food should be useful no matter the quality or type. Rant rant rant...

Will try to help developers a bit about of that all. Cuz looks like they are a bit out of theme.



To be consistent start with bone clay.. Who and how can it be manufactured?

WHAT will we need? That is easy? Not sure:
Bone Ash
Feldspar
Fine Clay

more details of accessibility for factions / small settlements:
Bone Ash =
+Kiln: HQ is for Factions only, see fine clay. Crumbs for small settlements.
+Axe: HQ is for Factions only, cuz only factions have enough HQ Feldspar + perfect fine clay from Clay Pit for make HQ clay+bricks. Crumbs for small settlements. +Bones:HQ is for Factions only, cuz only factions can defend really HQ animals spot + bots of course! Crumbs for small settlements.
+Branches (Axe+Woood) Wood = if you have all HQ mats then you got Hq Woods. Of course for Factions only. Crumbs for small settlements. But it is possible to buy decent q branches.

Feldspar=
Mine, mine and mine. HQ is for Factions only cuz only factions have enough ppl/bots/trades/blackmail to got it. Crumbs for small settlements.

Fine Clay=
Hq only from Localized Resources is for Factions only, cuz only factions can defend that resource + have enough of it to make something useful like kilns/forges. Even LQ-MidQ cave clay is almost impossible to find without bots(in the right quantities). Crumbs for small settlements.

How about skills, or attributes? Bone Clay is softcapped by sqrt(Intelligence*Masonry). Easy! Newbs can do that! But…


So???

HQ Bone Clay is for Factions + heavy botters only. And small settlements cannot even be near with that Q, nor with quantity of their needs.





Look further, what about the potter clay currently being discussed?

WHAT will we need again? That is easy? YEA!:
Brick x2
Ball Clay
Acre Clay
Gray Clay
And we are also need… Tada: .Potter wheel! let's make one right now to see what is people can make without of help of bots/big factions.

I saw someone say oh that high Q potter clay is 300q on the market. And someone is selling 340 clay in chats! Wow! Let's go on the market to see what we are can make right now.
Welcome: https://certainly-not-a-cat.github.io/f ... theme=dark

So, what we are need to make decent wheel?
Board 844q
Block of Wood 540q
Stone = axe + skills = 1499q (will talk about skills later)
Clay 302q is already on the CF
Rope 822q flax+ Board 844q +Block of Wood 540q= 800q rope! Yea!
In the end we are have 797q potter wheel! Not a bad!

But for socialized people is exist one great hint. If you show that all match for decent trader and show him total price of the mats there is 99% chance that you got better Q wheel or discount from total price without spend any time to going to the mountains to collect crystals, making ropewalks, wait for flax etc..

So! We are is already got our great tools, let's make clay! Back again to the mats:
Ball Clay with credo is easy to find decent node 55+ to everyone (63 is HQ)
Acre Clay with credo is easy to find decent node 50+ to everyone (56 is HQ)
Gray Clay with credo is easy to collect q12-45+ clay to everyone (saw few pieces 61q)
Brick x2 i even not play in that game but that x2 change makes me angry because it is out of any sense at all. For fractions with bots/trades/villagers it's doesn't matter. But for small settlement does affects very much!!! BRING IT BACK!I saying that as a person who manually collected every single piece of clay for my stuff.

Let's burn it:
1019,5 q branch +302 kiln + 55q clay = 357q bricks.
First spiral:357q bricks + 55 ball + 45 gray + 50 acre = 294q clay
Second spiral:477q bricks + 55 ball + 45 gray + 50 acre = 317q clay YEA!
Second spiral:488q bricks + 55 ball + 45 gray + 50 acre = 319q clay YEA!YEA!YEA!

How it's possible to make that all nice clay? And at the same time not be in a major faction or a bot-user? End even after that we are can make our own perfect q kiln(319 q) and upgrade everything with that clay!

How about skills? Potters Clay is softcapped by sqrt(Dexterity*Masonry). Easy again? Wait a bit how is about thing that we are miss in stone section? Decent stone = Rock crystal.
The resulting quality is to your Axe quality, and then hardcapped by your sqrt(Psyche*Masonry) skill. This makes them the best source of high quality stone in the game.

So that makes heartlings who wanted to get perfect stones for their precious potter whell raise the skills and attributes so high.. Or ask about collecting stones from someone else (socialization!).
But wait again, HQ bone clay is also coming from Natural resources(Pit clay), so again for factions only?
NO!
Because collecting 5 rock crystals for unlimited source of clay(potter's wheel) it is completely different from collecting 45 pieces of best Q fine clay from Pit nodes for only one ****** kiln! Even small settlement with enough skills is able to make decent q whell time to time.

But! If that is so easy then what clay is a factions has??? 340 is already selling in chats, so 360 or even 370 is for sure is exist. That is many or not? Let's see:
We are already can make 320q, bigger factions 370 wow!
it is 15% of difference!

What about effect on the economy?
Fractions need a gray clay that can receive even nobs. They are even exchange best Q potter clay for decent Q gray clay. Even low q gray clay is bought by dozens of stockpiles. Before potter clay one way to make a bit of money was only a pearl gathering. Now much more easy for newbs to collect gray clay. And they are motivated to make a credo and produce clay for themselves. And makes they think about creating a complete chain of production from trees to metallurgy. Because all what he is need they already have! Not need to compete/fight with major factions only motivations, time and people. And I went all this way. Socialization, search for like-minded people, achievement of goals.

And again!!! That x2 Brick change makes me angry because it is out of any sense at all. For fractions with bots/trades/villagers it's doesn't matter. But for small settlement does affects very much!!! BRING IT BACK! I saying that as a person who manually collected every single piece of clay for my stuff.


What is about this suggestions?

Using the potter wheel for crafting bone clay

Let's check what is she want, we are will using our previous materials/stuff:

And from that clay is possible to make next tier potter's wheel/kiln/etc. Let's not forget that we made a potter wheel from materials that are available on the market right now! Factions surely have even better! And this all again gives giant advantages to fractions and bot-users.






But what with bone clay at all?
Let's see what is might be doing.

I don't know that it is useful trying to balance potter's clay and bone clay. Whatever formulas are used, one type will always give a higher quality in the end game and people will use that one.

As I see it, they might be nicely balanced now (or before the extra brick) because they are useful in different eras of the world. When the world is young, wild animal quality will be higher than tree, flax, and metal quality. So bone clay is useful early world for high quality. Later when other qualities have spiraled up, potter's clay will better.

We still have porcelain dolls for potter's credo and porcelain plates can be nice, so bone clay is not useless. Maybe instead of trying to balance the potter/bone clay qualities you could add more items such as porcelain teapots and cups. Or perhaps porcelain tiles for paving.

edit: On the other hand, you could make bone clay more spiral-able by giving us a way to improve feldspar quality. Maybe grind it in some metal thingy that imparts its quality to the feldspar.

So much of this^
It should be a different clays at all, with their own different purposes. Similar only in some cases.

Bone clay is an early-game clay. Potter is mid-game clay. But the end-game clay place is vacant.

A bit of my suggestions about bone clay:
New tool like potter wheel, but for fine clay, say for example Mortar and pestle.
Recepie? Not sure but might be wood+brick+board+clay? Idk.
Purpose: spiraling of the fine clay.
Recepie for spiraling: Any clay +WOW+ fine Clay = Fine clay.
WOW can be found in any dungeons, meets often, the quality of 10-60 q. A job for beginners and for all.
Or something like that.

Now we need things that we can make from this bone clay. For example:
-different porcelain stuff
-advanced ore processing machines (Bone clay smelters that can hold up to 75 pieces of ore = time + coal economy)
-Maybe advanced steel crucible?
-Advanced Ovens?
-etc.
But it must be separate machines with their own merits and demerits. So that people could choose to use regular machines or make separate ones. Same things might be implemented and for some different clay/brick type. Ball/Acre/Gray etc.




Ps:

scream of soul:
Really guys(Jorb and Lotarf) you are make the best ever game what I was played for. And I was spend in it a lot of playtime. Wonderful social game that is not about stuff but about people!
But looks like now you are is forgot about from what that all was started!


About your gamedew credo! Forum drama! Show me it!
Where I can see last forum dramma??? Last one is was about Aurora siege. When it was?? Half years ago! And most important questions, why that siege is was?? You think there is was at least one serious reason? NO! That siege is become live is only because fighters want to fight! Them need a reason and goals to fight for. You are took all these reasons from the game. And now almost all fighters is go away from the game. Time to time I go to look what's new in different factions discord chats, and that make me sad even more. Silence and emptiness, same at the forum.
Last autumn ppl ask you about end-game content for big guys, and what you gave to them? Dungeons? That is almost totally useless in main case! Politics! It is just a joy to play once or twice.
Give to us stuff which we are can siege for! Give us the opportunity to go forward! Endless fights, politics and diplomacy!


But I don’t belive anymore. You is already working on rendering? That is sad. Then another empty thing, right?

Free building?
But where there is politics and fight???

Then again empty mechanics?
So will meet in the game in a few years or so? And I hope there is will be some stuff which will be interesting to play in.

Btw Listen your fan who is know about what she was talking for:
LadyGoo

Best luck!

[azrid]

Politics and drama moved from forum to kingdom chats and discord.

[waga]

Good post , some things I disagree with , especially how infuriated you are about the 2 bricks change.
I'm a decent trader , I do trade clays and bricks too , so a decent amount of clay are made , it won't change my life at all.
no I don't bot the clay , no I don't care for the extra brick for the kiln once or twice a month.
I'm pissed about it , but for a simple reason , it feels like they had no clue what had to be done , and randomly chose to add 1 brick , because why not ?
I mean even loftar admitted he didn't remember that potter's wheel was used , which is a bit grotesque when it's the main cause of why the clay is so high.
That being said , as you do , I do love them , it just feels like that sometimes they have no clue how their game is played end game.

I've said it in the patch note , yes I'm sure that making bone clay the main clay would be a huge mistake
and yes I think the 2 clays should have different purpose ( I disagree with your propositions but I don't really have ones for now)

I hope they'll participate , or atleast read , I did appreciate the fact though that they admitted they didn't know if the change would be relevant at all.
I really appreciate the honesty , I would have love if they went a step further and open a thread like they did with archery

Politics and drama moved from forum to kingdom chats and discord.

The trades too.

[Dakkan]

Feels good to be such a prolific miner that I'm accused of being a bot! Thank you!

[MagicManICT]

I'm not going to really get into this one, but just wanted to post a reminder about this comment:

I don't playing several month because the game is stuck, but watching the progress of development. With hope, which began a long time ago to turn into disappointment. And every new patch in the last 4 months makes me frowning. And especially this one patch makes me to facepalm. From the fact that the developers just do not understand what they are doing(yea, it's all about potter clay). So I made new acc(I out of reach my old accounts) to add my two cents on the current situation, and also about last patch(Ranger's Honey).

I'd just post a reminder that this is a two man dev team. You can't expect them to develop at the same pace as a major studio. It's an MMO with complex interactions, so you can't expect it to develop as quickly as other indie games out there that are only single player.

[Luanes]

Regarding the last changes about the potter's clay:

I don't think that it was that bad to make the potter's wheel just softcap the clay production, and it should halve the final quality if not using the potter's wheel. The real problem was the moment that it was implemented, since the world was already had higher quality clay. So... in my opinion, they should keep in mind the idea of using the wheel for softcaping next world.

About the bone clay: As said on the topic ( and other topics ), potter's clay should be "good" mass production clay, while the bone clay should be reserved for a higher quality clay. Still it should be be more expensive ( not tedious by just adding great amount of materials), but more expensive regarding the material used. And I think it should be able to spiralize, it should not be so easy to increase as the metal is but should be possible. Maybe increase to the bone clay recipe one more "Any kind" of clay?