Hey everyone,
I am a new player whose been playing the game for a few weeks with my friend who introduced me to the game. Everything has been going great and I have been really impressed/satisfied with the game. Recently it has become apparent that we need Steel and Mortar, both of which require flux. After leveling up herbalism and spending hours trying to find a combination which produced flux, I asked my friend how we then turn this flux into more (like farming crops)... I was then shocked to discover that there is no way... that every single time I want to make a Steel Bar or Mortar, I have to go out into the wilderness and spend hours searching for 11 of 66 herbs that I can combine to make a single flux. This is absolutely insane. So far nothing has come close to deter me from playing this game... even taking 10min long trips to a clay vein or completing a mindless task over and over to level up a skill... but this is just so much more tedious compared to everything else. I am not sure if I am going to bother with this game now because acquiring this material seems so daunting. As a newcomer who wants nothing more than to see this game succeed, this has to change and should be a major priority. Here's some ways to fix it:
1) Lower the amount of Flux required for Steel by a massive amount
2) Make a new structure called a Herb Garden and allow players to plant herbs to easily turn 1 Flux producing herb into has many as 20 depending on the quality of the Garden and soil
3) Substantially increase the amount of Herb plant models so that each model is associated with 5 or so herbs. This would make the gathering process much easier.
4) Leave the herb models but allow players to search for specific herbs once they reach level 90.
5) Make it a wild plant that can be sowed and harvested instead of a herb.
6) Categorize the herbs into 3 separate groups: Building Herbs / Spices for food / Stat alteration herbs and allow players to search for one group at a time.
7) Simply adjust its purpose so that it is not required for the construction of Steel tier objects.
Something has to be done or this is going to continue to turn off new players like myself and hinder the games overall growth. Thanks!