Resource collection

[rusty_shackleford]

Do you find it enjoyable to go around picking flowers in RPGs? A chore? Does it add anything to games?

Taking something like the Witcher games, perhaps it would have been better to have to seek out herbalists and escort them while they forage and you guide/protect? IIRC you can buy(some?) herbs from herbalists tho(in some of the entries, at least?) But I don't really consider this to be 'interesting'. Shouldn't it be dangerous or difficult to collect rare herbs which is why they're rare?
Collecting specific monster ingredients is more interesting than just buying or picking flowers.

Can you think of any games that have more interaction to collecting resources beyond 'press X to pickup ore/wood/herb'?

Yes, mods that auto-collect resources as you walk by is cheating you cheaters!

---

Regarding learn-by-use herbalist systems: I don't really know how picking daisies helps me identify what kind of mushrooms will kill me, actually.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I did think it was neat how Genshin Impact and recent WoW expansions have added some elemental effects to the ores and herbs. In both games, if you walk up to a fire herb, you will be burned, and in Genshin you have to first hydro or cryo abilities to douse it. In both games if you walk up to an ice herb, you will be frozen, and in Genshin you have to first use a pryo ability to melt it. In WoW Dragonflight, wind herbs will blow you around a bit upon approach. In WoW The War Within, there are ores with goblin dynamite strapped to it with dynamite aoes going off around you, so that makes it dangerous to mine. Etc.

But otherwise, no I do not find clicking herbs or ores to be enjoyable.

[maidenhaver]

Hate it.

escort them

No.

[Oyster Sauce]

Kingdom Come has the best flower picking because number go up and perks are fun. Don't cheat!

[TKVNC]

Do you find it enjoyable to go around picking flowers in RPGs? A chore? Does it add anything to games?

Taking something like the Witcher games, perhaps it would have been better to have to seek out herbalists and escort them while they forage and you guide/protect? IIRC you can buy(some?) herbs from herbalists tho(in some of the entries, at least?) But I don't really consider this to be 'interesting'. Shouldn't it be dangerous or difficult to collect rare herbs which is why they're rare?
Collecting specific monster ingredients is more interesting than just buying or picking flowers.

Can you think of any games that have more interaction to collecting resources beyond 'press X to pickup ore/wood/herb'?

Yes, mods that auto-collect resources as you walk by is cheating you cheaters!

---

Regarding learn-by-use herbalist systems: I don't really know how picking daisies helps me identify what kind of mushrooms will kill me, actually.

Suppose you are an itinerant adventurer, you would learn how to identify flower, and mushroom types reasonably fast. It's really no different than the army learning wilderness survival.

I like it as a game mechanic.

[Tangerine]

I like that the option is there, but I never cared for alchemy systems.

[asf]

if you like picking flowers you are gay

[J1M]

I think it works best as a reason to revisit areas, and therefore belongs more in an MMO.

I don't really like feeling as though I didn't find something cool because I only found one of four parts plus need to do extra steps to assemble it. I'd rather just find the completed item less often because often I don't find all of the components until they are no longer useful for my character.

There's ways to do it that can work, such as putting the pieces in places the player can put effort into locating/solving. Such as optional dungeons. But if I just need to stumble around until I find where it was placed randomly it isn't fun.

Item sets are perhaps a more fun example of this type of experience because you can use the pieces before the set is assembled.

[sheet]

WoW resource farming (up to WotLK at least) usually being partitioned between "quest items" and "mats" was kind of annoying. It would have been better if you could pre-emptively collect the quest items (gather them as random pickups before you realize you need them for a quest) and if the excess items were useable as mats through some conversion process (e.g. excess kobold ears can become leather, etc.).

[Rienen]

I don't necessarily mind gathering resources that only serve as components for craftable items. I get the "immersion" part of that. What I don't like are the gamified, arbitrary minimum required counts to create said craftables, which just serve to then break immersion. Especially concerning alchemy and cooking. "This potion requires a catalyst, 2 of flower X, and 4 of root Y". If I have 1 of each, just let me craft a weaker brew/version of said potion. "This meal requires 4 chickens." No, it really doesn't. Using 1 in the recipe should be possible. It could simply be a "smaller portion" (or shorter buff timer if you want to get specific).

Essentially, I'm just asking for scaling.

[stormvermin]

I don't necessarily mind gathering resources that only serve as components for craftable items. I get the "immersion" part of that. What I don't like are the gamified, arbitrary minimum required counts to create said craftables, which just serve to then break immersion. Especially concerning alchemy and cooking. "This potion requires a catalyst, 2 of flower X, and 4 of root Y". If I have 1 of each, just let me craft a weaker brew/version of said potion. "This meal requires 4 chickens." No, it really doesn't. Using 1 in the recipe should be possible. It could simply be a "smaller portion" (or shorter buff timer if you want to get specific).

Essentially, I'm just asking for scaling.

This is actually kind of how cooking in crimson desert works. Base meals use a scant few ingredients. Adding more makes a beefed up version of the meal. As a rule, the better versions of meals are less ingredient efficient but that's just the price you pay for a better heal.

[Rienen]

I don't necessarily mind gathering resources that only serve as components for craftable items. I get the "immersion" part of that. What I don't like are the gamified, arbitrary minimum required counts to create said craftables, which just serve to then break immersion. Especially concerning alchemy and cooking. "This potion requires a catalyst, 2 of flower X, and 4 of root Y". If I have 1 of each, just let me craft a weaker brew/version of said potion. "This meal requires 4 chickens." No, it really doesn't. Using 1 in the recipe should be possible. It could simply be a "smaller portion" (or shorter buff timer if you want to get specific).

Essentially, I'm just asking for scaling.

This is actually kind of how cooking in crimson desert works. Base meals use a scant few ingredients. Adding more makes a beefed up version of the meal. As a rule, the better versions of meals are less ingredient efficient but that's just the price you pay for a better heal.

Interesting. I've watched a few reviews about the game, but haven't played it. No one has mentioned that previously (that I've seen/read). Appreciate the heads up.

[stormvermin]

I don't necessarily mind gathering resources that only serve as components for craftable items. I get the "immersion" part of that. What I don't like are the gamified, arbitrary minimum required counts to create said craftables, which just serve to then break immersion. Especially concerning alchemy and cooking. "This potion requires a catalyst, 2 of flower X, and 4 of root Y". If I have 1 of each, just let me craft a weaker brew/version of said potion. "This meal requires 4 chickens." No, it really doesn't. Using 1 in the recipe should be possible. It could simply be a "smaller portion" (or shorter buff timer if you want to get specific).

Essentially, I'm just asking for scaling.

This is actually kind of how cooking in crimson desert works. Base meals use a scant few ingredients. Adding more makes a beefed up version of the meal. As a rule, the better versions of meals are less ingredient efficient but that's just the price you pay for a better heal.

Interesting. I've watched a few reviews about the game, but haven't played it. No one has mentioned that previously (that I've seen/read). Appreciate the heads up.

Should have mentioned that many ingredients can be substituted too. Most vegetables, fruits, and herbs can be swapped without consequence. Meats too but there's more restrictions there like fish can't be swapped for fowl in a fish dish, etc.

[Ranselknulf]

If there are no resources, then there can be no economy in a game.

At that point its just an action game.

Resources allow players to trade and barter for goods and services.

Making resource collection engaging or interesting is important, and most games don't do this very well because of modern gamer sensibilities. Ie.. every player should have enough resources to craft everything easily or "its too boring".

I like games that require dungeon dives to get resources or make ingredients drop only off difficult monsters.

You can remove trees / flowers / mining nodes etc, but then resource collection just becomes killing monsters for resources which makes resource collection styles even narrower.

[Stack of Turtles]

I love resource collection. I would play a game that was just resource collection without all the other time-wasting.

Of course, I prefer when it's good and not bad.

[J1M]

I love resource collection. I would play a game that was just resource collection without all the other time-wasting.

Of course, I prefer when it's good and not bad.

The cancelled Stargate MMO had planned scientist and archeologist classes that would not focus on fighting. I was really interested to see how that turned out. Sounds like I'm not the only one.

[rusty_shackleford]

I love resource collection. I would play a game that was just resource collection without all the other time-wasting.

Of course, I prefer when it's good and not bad.

The cancelled Stargate MMO had planned scientist and archeologist classes that would not focus on fighting. I was really interested to see how that turned out. Sounds like I'm not the only one.

SWG did this. I did not enjoy it because it just meant you logged into your alt to do a different part of the game.

[J1M]

I love resource collection. I would play a game that was just resource collection without all the other time-wasting.

Of course, I prefer when it's good and not bad.

The cancelled Stargate MMO had planned scientist and archeologist classes that would not focus on fighting. I was really interested to see how that turned out. Sounds like I'm not the only one.

SWG did this. I did not enjoy it because it just meant you logged into your alt to do a different part of the game.

I had the impression that in this game that never existed you would primarily level up from non combat activities but you could still party and participate in combat with a group. So perhaps overly simplified it could be viewed as an XP multiplier for activity type based on class.

[DemoGraph]

You can remove trees / flowers / mining nodes etc, but then resource collection just becomes killing monsters for resources which makes resource collection styles even narrower.

This.
Farming bosses is also farming.

[rusty_shackleford]

You can remove trees / flowers / mining nodes etc, but then resource collection just becomes killing monsters for resources which makes resource collection styles even narrower.

This.
Farming bosses is also farming.

The escort I discussed is an example of an alternative method.
Runescape has skilling bosses where you have to complete a variety of objectives using your skills.

I recall some MMO having a boss that required gathering + crafting while the rest of the team held monsters off.

And so on.

[DemoGraph]

You can remove trees / flowers / mining nodes etc, but then resource collection just becomes killing monsters for resources which makes resource collection styles even narrower.

This.
Farming bosses is also farming.

The escort I discussed is an example of an alternative method.
Runescape has skilling bosses where you have to complete a variety of objectives using your skills.

I recall some MMO having a boss that required gathering + crafting while the rest of the team held monsters off.

And so on.

I'm actually all for farming (crafting) gameplay. One of my RPG staples since Morrowind is playing an alchemist and that almost necessitates gathering bear farts.
I actually don't see a difference between "slay two goblins, they drop potion" and "slay a goblin that guards a flower, pick a flower, brew a potion". I'd even prefer the second option.

That being said, both farming and mob farming could become very boring without proper thought put into them.

I don't think that escort really solves the farming problem, because it introduces escort pathfinding AI problems into the equation. But it definitely could be used to accentuate the specific character of unique item hunt.

I like when character advancement is followed by partial automation of resource acquisition (whether it's achievend by expanding existing trader inventories, having an NPC (your follower?) bring them in or plain simple scaling of personal production output).

[Kalarion]

I think Vanguard had crafting/gathering-focused classes, didn't it? I know everyone says it was basically unplayable at launch, but the ideas seemed so cool that I really wish I'd been able to play it.

[J1M]

You can remove trees / flowers / mining nodes etc, but then resource collection just becomes killing monsters for resources which makes resource collection styles even narrower.

This.
Farming bosses is also farming.

The escort I discussed is an example of an alternative method.
Runescape has skilling bosses where you have to complete a variety of objectives using your skills.

I recall some MMO having a boss that required gathering + crafting while the rest of the team held monsters off.

And so on.

If you want to encourage crafting professions, giving players the choice between doing it themselves and an escort quest is a hell of a way to do it.

[rusty_shackleford]

escorting frens is fun

[DemoGraph]

escorting frens is fun

Come to think of it, I don't remember any quest where you have to provide escort services that require +CHA +AGI.

Edit: Maybe that Fallout 2 quest where you can star in a movie, but it's a stretch.
Edit 2: ba dum tss