Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Elias79]

There are 3 alchemists in my group, we all pooled together last night to make enough flux to make a stone gatehouse.

within 3 hours we had 102 flux

As a group with three alchemists, we spent 5 hours and got a total of 10 Flux. So no, the system is not okay. It's too random.

Agreed, it is way WAY to unbalanced and random.

[Thylbanus]

There are 3 alchemists in my group, we all pooled together last night to make enough flux to make a stone gatehouse.

within 3 hours we had 102 flux

As a group with three alchemists, we spent 5 hours and got a total of 10 Flux. So no, the system is not okay. It's too random.

Agreed, it is way WAY to unbalanced and random.

Well, I'm going to take that challenge. It's not dismissed because one person claims that it was done that way. If we get a dozen or so people to chime in about their personal experiences, it might gain some traction for or against. When I get home, I'll make an alchemist and find a couple of buddies to do the same and see.

[Jjmc00]

Alchemy is fine as it is in my honest opinion. Reason: it is so hard to make do with alchemy if you're alone. It's difficult with two people, it's far more do-able with 3 people... you get where I'm going. This system is meant to last in an mmorpg, not a solo/two person game.

With 6 alchemists, you have a good chance of getting SOMEONE a flux herb every pick. You just trade among each other and all is well, since everyone has their own set of 7-12 flux herbs

[Tajin]

It's only hard when you're unlucky and your alchemists all end up with overlapping flux-herbs.
That is rather unlikely though.


Once you get the hang of it, with 2-3 alchemists you can really create flux quite fast.

Oh and don't forget the option of trading herbs with your neighbors. That can make quite the difference.




ps: Oh and do make the investment of creating proper sickles. I know they're costly, but it really pays off in gathering speed.

[Jalpha]

I've tried this system now and I don't think there's a problem with it.

If you trade you can get a reasonable amount of flux. Trading encourages interaction between groups and I don't see how that's a bad thing.

Compared to other in-game tasks like terraforming and setting snares it doesn't seem, to me, any more difficult.

[Xerax]

I dont think that the flux production is to low. We are 3 alchemists on our sever and we got no problems in producing enough flux. As an alchemists you have about 10 herbs you can produce lux with. Each alchemist got different herbs he needs for flux so together we got about 25 plants we can produce flux with ( some herbs got the same effect). The solution for a good production of flux is to work together with other alchemists and i think its great the way it is at the moment.

[Tajin]

i think its great the way it is at the moment.

Yup.

Only thing I really don't like, is that already known effects are not shown in the tooltip of a herb (and tooltips in general take a bit too long to show).

Having to throw each herb into the mortar, just to see the effects you have already discovered is unnecessarily cumbersome.

[Dervan]

I dont think that the flux production is to low. We are 3 alchemists on our sever and we got no problems in producing enough flux. As an alchemists you have about 10 herbs you can produce lux with. Each alchemist got different herbs he needs for flux so together we got about 25 plants we can produce flux with ( some herbs got the same effect). The solution for a good production of flux is to work together with other alchemists and i think its great the way it is at the moment.

Yeah cooperation and all is great but why should we need 3 alchemists to make a proper production of flux when everything else can be easily done by one guy. I mean in my "village" we are only 4 playing regulary with 1 carpenter/farmer, 1 black-smith, 1 builder/hunter and 1 alchemist. Everything is running fine but we can't advance because of the flux. I don't get why we need so many alchemists to be efficient. Then alchemist job is really boring atm, 99% of the time you are gathering herb in order to make flux, so we can't really ask our alchemist to gather herbs during 5 hours everyday. If devs don't find a way to make it faster or at least more intersting the flux will remain the main problem. Then the amount of flux required seems unbalanced sometimes. One exemple: to make one vostaskus ingot you need 240 flux and to make one large keep you need 460 flux (which is longer to collect than everything else for its construction). So basically 2 vostaskus ingots cost more flux (and time?) than 1 large keep...

[Jalpha]

Have you tried trading herbs?

Every alchemist needs different ones for flux, this is not a hard concept to understand...

If there's a problem with collecting flux, it's the lack of an autostack button.

[Thylbanus]

There are 3 alchemists in my group, we all pooled together last night to make enough flux to make a stone gatehouse.

within 3 hours we had 102 flux

As a group with three alchemists, we spent 5 hours and got a total of 10 Flux. So no, the system is not okay. It's too random.

Agreed, it is way WAY to unbalanced and random.

Ok, we did it. Anyone else try? A team of 3 in just over 3 hrs yielded 94 flux for my part of the experiment.

[Dervan]

Ok, we did it. Anyone else try? A team of 3 in just over 3 hrs yielded 94 flux for my part of the experiment.

And? What are you saying doesn't change the fact the flux reamains the hardest ressource to collect. Can you imagine what you can do with 3 hours and 3 people of the same class? And we are not talking about terraforming or other stuff that you can perfectly do with 0 skill point but a path that requires at least 180 skill points to become efficient. And seriously even if the herb system is really smart, the alchemist class is just boring. No other specialization in the game requires to watch hours of loading bars with no impact of the environment and always the same repetitive action. A blacksmith has to prospect, dig, finally find his vein then mine it ect... A carpenter has to find trees with high quality then he takes sprouts and plant them where it will be usefull then cut them down ect... What an alchemist do 99% of the time is watching a loading bar when he is gathering herbs. But you seem to really enjoy it even if i don't understand why.

[Nebelpfade]

Flux is to hard to get by, and you need tons of it also, it's annoying on the long way.

[Jalpha]

You have obviously not experienced some of the other horrors in this game.

Go make a hundred snares and then come back and continue complaining about the amount of time and effort it takes to acquire flux.

Then there's flax and fertility and broken(?) coops.

Flax is more difficult to acquire than flux and is arguably more important for progression.

I'm just not buying the opinion that herbalism and flux need a fix. They are in-line with, and easier than, most of the other trades. Clearly I'm not alone in believing that, but not everyone can be convinced.

[Thylbanus]

Ok, we did it. Anyone else try? A team of 3 in just over 3 hrs yielded 94 flux for my part of the experiment.

And? What are you saying doesn't change the fact the flux reamains the hardest ressource to collect. Can you imagine what you can do with 3 hours and 3 people of the same class? And we are not talking about terraforming or other stuff that you can perfectly do with 0 skill point but a path that requires at least 180 skill points to become efficient. And seriously even if the herb system is really smart, the alchemist class is just boring. No other specialization in the game requires to watch hours of loading bars with no impact of the environment and always the same repetitive action. A blacksmith has to prospect, dig, finally find his vein then mine it ect... A carpenter has to find trees with high quality then he takes sprouts and plant them where it will be usefull then cut them down ect... What an alchemist do 99% of the time is watching a loading bar when he is gathering herbs. But you seem to really enjoy it even if i don't understand why.

And read what I responded to. Two groups made assertions, I provided my side. Zehive claimed 104 Flux created in 3 hrs.

There are 3 alchemists in my group, we all pooled together last night to make enough flux to make a stone gatehouse.

within 3 hours we had 102 flux

On the other hand, Forvess claimed that it took his group of 3 to create 10 in 5 hrs.

As a group with three alchemists, we spent 5 hours and got a total of 10 Flux. So no, the system is not okay. It's too random.

This seemed FAR too disparate for a statistical game, so I said that I would run the experiment and I posted my yield after 3 hrs of work. So I did my part and it seems likely that Forvess did not do something right. Forvess, you do know that there are at least 9 different ingredients that create Flux and you only need to combine two? Difficulty is part of the equation in this game. Alchemy is fine, given that there are some LARGE unknowns about it. Being one of the most important skills in the game, it was placed very well.

Like Jalpha, I feel that some people are just used to getting things handed to them (btw, no, coops are not broken). It's the fault of the gaming industry, not anything that BitBox has done. It's MEANT to be tough. Feudal life was simple, but backbreaking. It SHOULD be difficult to acquire things that are made from steel. It SHOULD take a large group of people to made a real town.

Some of the mechanics are a bit wonky, but the Flux and Flax are not broken. The progression on the Farming skill line is a bit off, but I'm working on fixing that (or at least a proposal for a fix). Now that I have spent some time with this and experimented, I have to say, Flux is a bit of a pain, but seems just right as you scale up how many people work on it. In other words, it works fine to create community, if that is intended. Flux as part of Mortar, is a bit silly, considering that mortar is FAR easier to create than steel and the steel locks limit the amount of large structures. It's an unnecessary component. I will be posting more on that in my skills revamp thread.

[Jalpha]

Not intending to start a derail but I suspect soil fertility may be... problematic, in the long term. I haven't done much farming yet though, it's the next project I'll work on. I want to properly understand fertility before making any claims about it.

As to the difficulty/grind of LiF in general, kudos to that. If you don't enjoy the grind then other people will do it and you can join them once they are established.

[Viik]

As to the difficulty/grind of LiF in general, kudos to that. If you don't enjoy the grind then other people will do it and you can join them once they are established.

Wurm Online already went by that road, it's a dead end with a low population and barely any reasons to go back into game.

[AussiePastor]

Third harvest crop of flax after finding 11 initially got us 12 rope.

You can plough the field with fertiliser but it does give some "black tile" view after sowing.

I would prefer 30/15/1 ratio instead of 50/25/1.

[Aldebaran]

While I think that flux is a good idea implemented, it is really hard to get anywhere...
I mean playing and working alchemy for 6 hours straight to get 2 bars of steel is in my opinion a bit too hard. even when it's meant to be slow. This rate is tedious

In two days of gaming equaling about 25 hours in total I had all 6 Flux herbs, 4 Naphtha and two flavor of the 67 total herbs available unlocked.

Gather near beehives. You'll gather more.

Mortar for walls also requires flux, demand is not too high.

[Jalpha]

Wurm Online already went by that road, it's a dead end with a low population and barely any reasons to go back into game.

There's no way this game is more grindy than Wurm. If they fix the combat system this game stands a good chance. By the look of things it's intended that a small few will have to break the ice and those who can't handle the grind will be able to ride their coat-tails.

Also the grind in Wurm was admitted to be an attempt to restrict progression and delay the end-game so players wouldn't run out of content.

[Viik]

Wurm Online already went by that road, it's a dead end with a low population and barely any reasons to go back into game.

There's no way this game is more grindy than Wurm. If they fix the combat system this game stands a good chance. By the look of things it's intended that a small few will have to break the ice and those who can't handle the grind will be able to ride their coat-tails.

Also the grind in Wurm was admitted to be an attempt to restrict progression and delay the end-game so players wouldn't run out of content.

I'm not claiming it's more grindy than Wurm. I personally haven't seen anything more grindy than Wurm. My point is that in long run, fun game is the one where most of the process is fun and not just some end game content or you have to belong to elite who are able to play it for 12 hours a day to grind to fun content. I'm ok with taking a lot of time to get something done, but I'm not ok if that time is spend on repeating a single action for hours. Even building a 15x15 perimeter stone walls is more fun as it can be done with a group of people in some form of interaction. Gathering herbs is just mindless clicking at random spots and staring at progress bar. I didn't thought I would say this, but Mortal Online did it right - you gather ingredients by walking around the world and you see actual 3d models of them. They would respawn in exactly the same place, which isn't that great but this can be improved.
Let's say there are places on a map where probability of finding specific herb is higher than another one. Why not spawn them locally for each player, in such a way that you can actually see them and just pickup? This is the end of 2014, we could do that in games back in 2005. Why do we need these archaic mechanics back from days of first MMOs when we didn't knew better?

[Psycore]

Gather near beehives. You'll gather more.
.

Really?
What do you mean by "more" ?
I only get 1 herb when I gather.

-Psy

[Dervan]

Some of the mechanics are a bit wonky, but the Flux and Flax are not broken. The progression on the Farming skill line is a bit off, but I'm working on fixing that (or at least a proposal for a fix). Now that I have spent some time with this and experimented, I have to say, Flux is a bit of a pain, but seems just right as you scale up how many people work on it.

You can't say it's right when it's totally unbalanced with the rest of the game. Basically you need more alchemists than carpenters to make a wooden house which seems totally silly.
Then it's not legitimate at all, it doesn't make sense to spend 20 sec to grap an herb. No primary ressource should be that hard to gather or only during the begining of the game.

What makes the crafting system of this game interesting and different from others is the transformation process of these primary ressources and the huge cooperation bewtween different specializations. The main interaction that an alchemist has with other classes is giving them flux but only an alchemist can help an alchemist to gather flux. Not to mention nobody wants to pay 30 euros to watch loading bar during hours while clicking on "search for herbs" and "gather herbs" every 25 seconds. So atm alchemist = slave class, the more he gathers herbs the better it is, he has nothing else to do. A class that can be perfectly played with a simple macro.

You have obviously not experienced some of the other horrors in this game.

Go make a hundred snares and then come back and continue complaining about the amount of time and effort it takes to acquire flux.

Then there's flax and fertility and broken(?) coops.

Flax is more difficult to acquire than flux and is arguably more important for progression.

I'm just not buying the opinion that herbalism and flux need a fix. They are in-line with, and easier than, most of the other trades. Clearly I'm not alone in believing that, but not everyone can be convinced.

Making hundred snares every day is not needed to progress in the game and everybody can gather wild plant fibers so i don't see your point. Then flax is way easier to get than flux, you only have to plow a large surface and plant some, then wait some hours to harvest it. Even a non fertile soil can give you 1 or 2 flax per plant so it's really easy to get hundred of them.

[Thylbanus]

Some of the mechanics are a bit wonky, but the Flux and Flax are not broken. The progression on the Farming skill line is a bit off, but I'm working on fixing that (or at least a proposal for a fix). Now that I have spent some time with this and experimented, I have to say, Flux is a bit of a pain, but seems just right as you scale up how many people work on it.

You can't say it's right when it's totally unbalanced with the rest of the game. Basically you need more alchemists than carpenters to make a wooden house which seems totally silly.
Then it's not legitimate at all, it doesn't make sense to spend 20 sec to grap an herb. No primary ressource should be that hard to gather or only during the begining of the game.

What makes the crafting system of this game interesting and different from others is the transformation process of these primary ressources and the huge cooperation bewtween different specializations. The main interaction that an alchemist has with other classes is giving them flux but only an alchemist can help an alchemist to gather flux. Not to mention nobody wants to pay 30 euros to watch loading bar during hours while clicking on "search for herbs" and "gather herbs" every 25 seconds. So atm alchemist = slave class, the more he gathers herbs the better it is, he has nothing else to do. A class that can be perfectly played with a simple macro.

You need as many alchemists working as long as a carpenter to make most wooden homes. In the amount of time it would take the carpenter to get up the 400 building logs, an alchemists will get enough flux to make the the locks for the doors. The point is people need to work together to make significant items. This is really an MMO. You NEED other people.

If you think that staring at a loading bar is the only experience of an alchemists, be a carpenter. Chopping down trees and sawing logs is just as "fun".

You have obviously not experienced some of the other horrors in this game.

Go make a hundred snares and then come back and continue complaining about the amount of time and effort it takes to acquire flux.

Then there's flax and fertility and broken(?) coops.

Flax is more difficult to acquire than flux and is arguably more important for progression.

I'm just not buying the opinion that herbalism and flux need a fix. They are in-line with, and easier than, most of the other trades. Clearly I'm not alone in believing that, but not everyone can be convinced.

Making hundred of snares every day is not needed to advance in the game and everybody can gather wild plant fibers so i don't see your point. Then flax is way easier to get than flux, you only have to plow a large surface and plant some, then wait sometime to harvest it. Even a non fertile soil can give you 1 or 2 flax per plant so it's really easy to get hundred of them.

Nor is making a home needed to advance the game. That's really a silly statement. It's a sandbox. There is nothing needed to advance the game. The game doesn't advance. This statement reveals that you may be stuck in a linear mentality that is not conducive to an enjoyable sandbox experience. This may be why you are having such trouble with the systems as they stand.

[Dervan]

You need as many alchemists working as long as a carpenter to make most wooden homes. In the amount of time it would take the carpenter to get up the 400 building logs, an alchemists will get enough flux to make the the locks for the doors. The point is people need to work together to make significant items. This is really an MMO. You NEED other people.

If you think that staring at a loading bar is the only experience of an alchemists, be a carpenter. Chopping down trees and sawing logs is just as "fun".

You mean, planting trees in the right place to save time (ofc it means searching for high quality sprouts first), chopping them down and sawing them, and making carpentry items that requires most of the time the participation of other guys which makes it fun and cooperative as every other class should be (and i only talk about carpentry used for buildings). What an alchemist is asked to do 99% of the time is making flux which requires no interaction with other people and it's a bot-friendly sequence of actions (the whole process). And obviously you need other people, but i don't need sbdy doing the job of a slave who will potentially quit the game quickly because we asked him to produce too much flux.

Making hundred of snares every day is not needed to advance in the game and everybody can gather wild plant fibers so i don't see your point. Then flax is way easier to get than flux, you only have to plow a large surface and plant some, then wait sometime to harvest it. Even a non fertile soil can give you 1 or 2 flax per plant so it's really easy to get hundred of them.

Nor is making a home needed to advance the game. That's really a silly statement. It's a sandbox. There is nothing needed to advance the game. The game doesn't advance. This statement reveals that you may be stuck in a linear mentality that is not conducive to an enjoyable sandbox experience. This may be why you are having such trouble with the systems as they stand.

If you make no difference between a little village of 3 tiny shacks and a fortified town with hundred of "real" houses with castles and all, you have a serious problem. Of course building the biggest constructions possible in the game is an important sign of progression, getting 120 hares and chikens for no reasons in your inventory is not. Moreover a builder have to build huge constructions if he wants to increase his last skill. I mean you cannot argue with irrational demands, if you want to increase your skills and/or build a nice looking little city you don't need one hundred snare traps every day but you need a lot of flux. And i think there is a reason if this thread is called "flux demand to high/production rate to low" instead of "it's too hard to make hundred of snare traps".
Then i don't have problems with all the systems, i have a problem with the alchemist.

[Thylbanus]

You need as many alchemists working as long as a carpenter to make most wooden homes. In the amount of time it would take the carpenter to get up the 400 building logs, an alchemists will get enough flux to make the the locks for the doors. The point is people need to work together to make significant items. This is really an MMO. You NEED other people.

If you think that staring at a loading bar is the only experience of an alchemists, be a carpenter. Chopping down trees and sawing logs is just as "fun".

You mean, planting trees in the right place to save time (ofc it means searching for high quality sprouts first), chopping them down and sawing them, and making carpentry items that requires most of the time the participation of other guys which makes it fun and cooperative as every other class should be (and i only talk about carpentry used for buildings). What an alchemist is asked to do 99% of the time is making flux which requires no interaction with other people and it's a bot-friendly sequence of actions (the whole process). And obviously you need other people, but i don't need sbdy doing the job of a slave who will potentially quit the game quickly because we asked him to produce too much flux.

No. I'm talking about logging the trees that are in the area. That needs no interaction from other players either. Making building logs is a solo endevor, just like making flux. It's when it all comes together that you need community. I'm sure if I was just making logs I'd quit, too. If your alchemist is only stuck making flux YOU are doing something wrong. Obviously naptha and flavour aren't being used by the community, if flux is all that they are making.

Must be pretty tough learning skills (depending on the server). Too bad you aren't making more complex food which gives you a learning bonus. All that flavour must just be going to waste. Must be pretty dark in your neck of the woods, too. I like our lamp posts lighting our avenues. Naptha is to thank for that.

Making hundred of snares every day is not needed to advance in the game and everybody can gather wild plant fibers so i don't see your point. Then flax is way easier to get than flux, you only have to plow a large surface and plant some, then wait sometime to harvest it. Even a non fertile soil can give you 1 or 2 flax per plant so it's really easy to get hundred of them.

Nor is making a home needed to advance the game. That's really a silly statement. It's a sandbox. There is nothing needed to advance the game. The game doesn't advance. This statement reveals that you may be stuck in a linear mentality that is not conducive to an enjoyable sandbox experience. This may be why you are having such trouble with the systems as they stand.

If you make no difference between a little village of 3 tiny shacks and a fortified town with hundred of "real" houses with castles and all, you have a serious problem. Of course building the biggest constructions possible in the game is an important sign of progression, getting 120 hares and chikens for no reasons in your inventory is not. Moreover a builder have to build huge constructions if he wants to increase his last skill. I mean you cannot argue with irrational demands, if you want to increase your skills and/or build a nice looking little city you don't need one hundred snare traps every day but you need a lot of flux. And i think there is a reason if this thread is called "flux demand to high/production rate to low" instead of "it's too hard to make hundred of snare traps".
Then i don't have problems with all the systems, i have a problem with the alchemist.

This just shows that you don't get it. If it weren't for the hares and chickens you wouldn't have complex food for quicker learning nor light leather for more complex buildings and armor. You should really learn how all the pieces of the game interact before going off on them. Each skill tree is of VITAL import to a community. Because you can't see it doesn't make something invalid.

[Viik]

This just shows that you don't get it. If it weren't for the hares and chickens you wouldn't have complex food for quicker learning nor light leather for more complex buildings and armor. You should really learn how all the pieces of the game interact before going off on them. Each skill tree is of VITAL import to a community. Because you can't see it doesn't make something invalid.

No one is arguing about importance of the skill. Perhaps you should get off your high horse and stop assuming that you somehow know this game much better than everyone else. How many hours you personally spent as alchemist? Did you skilled up yourself or started with herbs collected by someone else?
Atm herbalist profession is freaking boring because of the way how it's implemented. If I need to cut logs, I can at least asses trees visually, then check their quality, get sprouts if quality is reasonable enough, cut tree, decide if I want to bring a complete log or saw items in place and run couple of rounds to bring everything back. All this makes it a bit more entertaining and interactive then just Search for Herbs (wait 20 seconds), pickup herbs (wait 20 seconds), get some random herbs which you don't even need, yes if you have another herbalist you can exchange, but that doesn't make process less tedious and boring. It wasn't convenient to watch movie or plat RimWorld when I was building a wooden wall around village, but in case of getting herbs, that was the only way to not fall asleep.

[Jalpha]

It sounds like you should put up your sickle and start using an axe.

[Viik]

Seriously, are you guys arguing against other people having fun playing this game? If you fine with how it works now, why you even bother to reply here? It's not going to get worse if it becomes more interactive and engaging.

[Monokoi]

It took our two alchemists two full days to find 15 flux. I don't mind a grind, but there should be more to it than just left clicking the ground.

Given that shared assets (doors / locks) are far from being implemented, more houses / gates need to be built than would be necessary, resulting in unbearable boredom.

[Dervan]

If you make no difference between a little village of 3 tiny shacks and a fortified town with hundred of "real" houses with castles and all, you have a serious problem. Of course building the biggest constructions possible in the game is an important sign of progression, getting 120 hares and chikens for no reasons in your inventory is not. Moreover a builder have to build huge constructions if he wants to increase his last skill. I mean you cannot argue with irrational demands, if you want to increase your skills and/or build a nice looking little city you don't need one hundred snare traps every day but you need a lot of flux. And i think there is a reason if this thread is called "flux demand to high/production rate to low" instead of "it's too hard to make hundred of snare traps".
Then i don't have problems with all the systems, i have a problem with the alchemist.

This just shows that you don't get it. If it weren't for the hares and chickens you wouldn't have complex food for quicker learning nor light leather for more complex buildings and armor. You should really learn how all the pieces of the game interact before going off on them. Each skill tree is of VITAL import to a community. Because you can't see it doesn't make something invalid.

I never said hares and chickens were useless but nothing forces you to trap hundred hares and chicken everyday. You could have to trap some to increase your tailoring skill but when your skill is increased it's done. Then if you want to make complex food, well you must understand the best way to get chickens is not trapping them everyday but making them reproduce inside your coops. If you think the coops doesn't create new chickens faster enough, it's a problem with the coops and you should wait for an update and try to make some complex food with something else. You know i'm carpenter and a farmer so i know pretty well how it works. I even tried to be an alchemist to help our slave before writing on this thread (by the way crafting naphta is as boring as crafting flux).
You seem to enjoy a lot doing the most repetitive and boring task of the game but i don't understand why you want to keep it that way. If you enjoy the pain it's cool for you but i don't and i want this game as fun as possible.