EQ Next Landmark - It's Like Minecraft But Not™

[Count Nerfedalot]

I just built my first pulverizer this morning, and it was legendary, unlike every Mithril pick I've made or seen which seem stuck on green.  I suspect there is some hidden difficulty rating on recipes compared against some hidden power rating on crafting stations to produce the not so hidden quality level of the tools you build, so theoretically a higher level crafting station should have a better chance of making a legendary item X than a lower level station.  But I also think it's broken as all through alpha and so far in beta I've had great "luck" making blue or better low level tools over half the time, but the higher level stuff (gold axes in alpha, rubicite and mithril picks in beta) I've made bunches and never gotten better than average quality.  But I'm a suspicious paranoid type, I'm sure they wouldn't be hiding shit from us or otherwise deliberately obscuring things, and it would be ludicrous to question whether they even have a clue how their systems actually work! 

Still haven't used the pulverizer.  Don't anticipate doing so until they stratify the resources.  I have heard of them being useful for griefing though, especially against noobs that don't have their grappling hook. 

Sifters become marginally worthwhile when you have more than a million dirt or rock (or sand?) and it's starting to clog your inventory.  Maybe.  I'm not sure sifting even half a million of each would break even with the cost to build, so it's definitely an investment for the long term.  Same for the other advanced crafting station thingies, whatever it was they called them.  All are wastes of time and resources until you've used them a few hundred (thousand?) times.  And they are no longer usable by anyone but the owner, no group projects to pool resources to make and use them like you can the base set.  Seems like some weird F-you from Sony to players for not playing the game the way they intended? I don't know. It was a change made when they went into Beta, and I've seen no discussion or explanation of it.

[Morat20]

I had the resources, so I've got a sifter and the first level versions of everything but the smelter, which is the second level one.

I was bored, plus I was expanding my smithy. Which is now a smithy + a craft shop.

My pulverizier was legendary too -- I think it might be hardcoded for that one? There's no +crafting gear or anything yet, so...*shrug*. I use it everywhere but deserts, since I just vaprorize everything in the way and then just mine what I'm after. In the desert, I could use the rock.

I finally got a blue assessor's mask to go with the blue breeze band. THOSE are worth crafting. :)

Now I've got to work towards the ruby axe so I can chop down the stupid tundra trees to make a mithril pick, and I don't even know what the fuck a mithril pick digs.

Also -- I saw something about pasting with air and with "nothing" but I haven't seen how that was implemented. Is that an upcoming feature? Because I can't figure out how that works.

[taolurker]

If you're pasting a template or something copied, you can select air/no air using the shift+click tweak menu. Once you select/deselect it the selection stays that way for future pasting.

[Morat20]

If you're pasting a template or something copied, you can select air/no air using the shift+click tweak menu. Once you select/deselect it the selection stays that way for future pasting.

Thanks. You can correctly overlay things now, right? Like....dropping a square around something already existing, without erasing the inner structure now?

[taolurker]

Well, it will overwrite any voxels, and merges some of the micro voxels if they overlap, plus textures will bleed, but technically you can paste a box around something existing and the structure inside will remain (mostly) the same.

[Morat20]

Well, it will overwrite any voxels, and merges some of the micro voxels if they overlap, plus textures will bleed, but technically you can paste a box around something existing and the structure inside will remain (mostly) the same.

Maybe they'll fix the damn line tool next, because the sheer difficulty involved in making angles is ridiculous. It's not 1994.

[HaemishM]

I can't even remotely figure out how to use the line tool.

The shift-click thing on pasting, though... that was a goddamn godsend.

[01101010]

I can't even remotely figure out how to use the line tool.

The shift-click thing on pasting, though... that was a goddamn godsend.

I am growing more and more fond of the line tool. Single voxel line tool is only horizontal or vertical, but the next sizes up will give you all the angles. You can even change the size from one side to the other - pick the 3x3 on the side of the structure and then shrink to 1x1 to the peak and you get a pretty nice angled roof.

[palmer_eldritch]

Need more screenshots please. I want to see what you all have made.

[01101010]

Need more screenshots please. I want to see what you all have made.

I'll see what I can do later on tonight... if I stay awake.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I need more cobalt to build the next tier of one of those refining stations, so I went off mining and first thing you know, my inventory is full of dirt!  So, I found a friendly claim with vault access, dumped all the dirt from my bag inventory and some from my resource inventory.  Which took several minutes and lots of tedious mousing (gotta drag it to an empty slot or the tab itself and nowhere else or nothing happens!) AND keyboard entry because the morons STILL only allow max 9999 items to be split off from a stack at a time, even though max stack size now is half a million??!wtf??  That must be a HUGE job to fix, like, at least 2 minutes to change one configuration parameter? Plus two manweeks of psuedo-"agile" project management bullshit probably to get the fix approved, prioritized, scheduled, implemented, tested and deployed.  But splitting stacks is not something in-house designers have to deal with and I'm pretty sure the only times an actual dev reads any user-submitted bug reports is when they want to drum up support (see how many beta "testers" are complaining!) to prioritize fixing whatever pet peeve they personally want to get fixed.

Anywho, so I fired up the pulverizer and started blowing out all the dirt around each node with it then harvesting the gem/metal turd left behind with my pick.  That did work well, I was afraid the pulverizer would destroy the valuable stuff along with the dirt and rock but it leaves all the good stuff intact.  And kinda fun, at least for a while. But not really any faster than mining the node directly and grappling out, and not nearly as awesomely fast at digging as I'd expected it to be, plus really disappointingly short range.  I'd like to see the pulverizer work out to like 5x farther than the pick, or at least twice as far, but I guess they don't see it that way! 

[Morat20]

I just reveal the turd and then mine, that way no dirt. :) But I use the sifter to ditch dirt too, so....*shrug*.

In deserts, I mine and only use the pulverizer to occasionally make a bit of room. I need the stone.

[01101010]

Anywho, so I fired up the pulverizer and started blowing out all the dirt around each node with it then harvesting the gem/metal turd left behind with my pick.  That did work well, I was afraid the pulverizer would destroy the valuable stuff along with the dirt and rock but it leaves all the good stuff intact.  And kinda fun, at least for a while. But not really any faster than mining the node directly and grappling out, and not nearly as awesomely fast at digging as I'd expected it to be, plus really disappointingly short range.  I'd like to see the pulverizer work out to like 5x farther than the pick, or at least twice as far, but I guess they don't see it that way! 

Yeah the pulverizer would be so much better if it was faster. Takes less time to just use my pick then just toss the dirt or stone.

[Tmon]

This may be the most awesome tutorial I've found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4rjAgGr50  The guy mumbles, but the technique he shows off is fantastically useful.

[Signe]

That was great, Tmon!

[HaemishM]

Did they change the ingot recipes to require 1000 pieces instead of 100? ... the fuck?

EDIT: Hold on, that's for the Superior Smelter - the stone forge still uses 100 pieces. Does the superior smelter give more?

[taolurker]

Smelters are for mass production, and still uses 100 ore per ingot, it just produces 10 at a time.

[Tmon]

The Superior smelter gives 11 ingots per 1000 ore, the Exceptional gives 12 per 1000 and the Legendary gives 13 per 1000.  Here's a page that describes the crafting stuff as it stands today  http://www.eqhammer.com/guide/landmark-crafting-station-and-progression-guide

[taolurker]

I never even knew that.. Heh!

I only found out by asking a player in game about them, and was told "mass produce" but never knew it gave additional ingots. I even have a Superior Smelter I've used occasionally, but never realized I was getting an extra ingot per 1000 ore.

I was however specifically told that it wasn't worth getting any of the private "refining" stations (Smelter/Loom/Infuser) and the only one worth making was the Saw Table, and only if I was making the glowing ores (Lumicite).

[01101010]

I never even knew that.. Heh!

I only found out by asking a player in game about them, and was told "mass produce" but never knew it gave additional ingots. I even have a Superior Smelter I've used occasionally, but never realized I was getting an extra ingot per 1000 ore.

I was however specifically told that it wasn't worth getting any of the private "refining" stations (Smelter/Loom/Infuser) and the only one worth making was the Saw Table, and only if I was making the glowing ores (Lumicite).

I upgraded all my tables because I had time and resources to kill. The legendary smelter and infuser I use the most because the 3 extra ingots/wood stock really is rather nice in those situations when you are just shy of having all the supplies. 100 heartwood +stock become 130 of whatever level wood you need which usually is an extra of whatever you are crafting. You can get away with not having any of the upgrades, but at this point, why would you not?

[Tmon]

I have a good enough mithril pick, rubicite axe, pulverizer and grappling hook and am not really producing anything, just playing with the building tools.  Right now I have more resources than I can use so I made all the advanced stuff except the loom since I haven't found much use for cloth. 

[HaemishM]

Yeah, the "upgraded" crafting stations really really really need some better explanations in game - it was not at all clear what the hell they were used for. And unfortunately, I can't break it down for the requisite parts since I don't think I'll ever need the smelter. Harvesting is really an unfun pain in my ass right now, but I have to do it to get enough stone for building.

Did they change how ice is handed out when harvesting in tundra zones now? I used to be able to dig in the snowy areas and get tons of ice and snow. Now, I barely get any ice and once I did 4 or 5 feet down, it turns into dirt. I liked the ice look - unfortunately, all the areas I've dug below my castle on the tundra have turned to turd-colored dirt, killing my ice dungeon look and I can't harvest enough ice to recreate it.

[01101010]

Yeah, the "upgraded" crafting stations really really really need some better explanations in game - it was not at all clear what the hell they were used for. And unfortunately, I can't break it down for the requisite parts since I don't think I'll ever need the smelter. Harvesting is really an unfun pain in my ass right now, but I have to do it to get enough stone for building.

Did they change how ice is handed out when harvesting in tundra zones now? I used to be able to dig in the snowy areas and get tons of ice and snow. Now, I barely get any ice and once I did 4 or 5 feet down, it turns into dirt. I liked the ice look - unfortunately, all the areas I've dug below my castle on the tundra have turned to turd-colored dirt, killing my ice dungeon look and I can't harvest enough ice to recreate it.

Yeah, they changed the layering of the tundra zones.

http://www.eqhammer.com/wire/wire-crafting-and-tundra-biome-changes

As for stone... I just did the mining with click-lock & autorun at a downward angle and watched a sitcom. Once you get it set, your avatar will just mine down and keep mining down. Not sure if the biome changes also made rock into dirt, but it worked before.

[taolurker]

Did they change how ice is handed out when harvesting in tundra zones now? I used to be able to dig in the snowy areas and get tons of ice and snow. Now, I barely get any ice and once I did 4 or 5 feet down, it turns into dirt. I liked the ice look - unfortunately, all the areas I've dug below my castle on the tundra have turned to turd-colored dirt, killing my ice dungeon look and I can't harvest enough ice to recreate it.

I too liked the ice look, which was how I ended up with an igloo, snowman, and ice tower in the desert (WAS planning an ice slide). This change was something I was highly upset with, and now ice is super rare (and I already had gotten some from Tmon)

As for stone... I just did the mining with click-lock & autorun at a downward angle and watched a sitcom. Once you get it set, your avatar will just mine down and keep mining down. Not sure if the biome changes also made rock into dirt, but it worked before.

Yes, nearly all biomes now are just a skin of sand/rock/ice with ALL dirt underneath, which IMO is stupid. Worse is the morons on the forums who approve this and say it's more realistic.

I have a good enough mithril pick, rubicite axe, pulverizer and grappling hook and am not really producing anything, just playing with the building tools.  Right now I have more resources than I can use so I made all the advanced stuff except the loom since I haven't found much use for cloth. 

I haven't done any real harvesting in a while, and was instead trying my hand at the "advanced" building techniques like micro voxels and anti voxels, although it is more frustration and experimenting than me building anything with them. I WAS gonna work on furniture, but also have been having issues with anti-voxels that I can't confirm are an actual bug or related to my system specs and graphics options.

[Bzalthek]

The biome skin issue should be resolved when caves/water shows up and island tiers as a concept no longer exists.

[Tmon]

Tao, they claim that an improved mail system will be in today's patch.  If you are feeling brave I can send you some more ice.

[Count Nerfedalot]

They could definitely benefit from consulting a geologist, or even someone who didn't sleep through Geology 101 also known as Rocks For Jocks. 

Relatively few places on earth have more than 5-10 feet of dirt covering the rock. Even fewer have a solid layer of rock covering any amount of dirt (or ice!).

Caves don't form in dirt, or at least not for long before they collapse!

Rocks don't float in snow, and they're only found floating in ice in glaciers or maybe frozen lakes under a cliff face.

Glaciers can indeed be miles deep ice.

And islands don't float in the sky, nor do mineral/gem deposits reform in minutes timeframes.

So they aren't modeling a realistic world in any respect, and any claims (by devs or forumtards) to making it more or less realistic are ignorant bullshit.

[taolurker]

Tao, they claim that an improved mail system will be in today's patch.  If you are feeling brave I can send you some more ice.

LOL

Hopefully the ice I have will last, and I still have someplace near 15k (and at least some is from the batches you mailed me. I haven't been adding much to my claim, and I wouldn't want to test the new mail system either just yet.

I am still hoping they reverse this decision about skinning the biomes, or at least add more than a single voxel layer. The other night mining for resources I received less than 1k ice, when I used to get near 15k.

So they aren't modeling a realistic world in any respect, and any claims (by devs or forumtards) to making it more or less realistic are ignorant bullshit.

It's more the idiot forum goers who have said this was "realistic" and the developers only reasoning I can think of is because of the (equally stupid) cave networks being made and textured out of dirt (which as you point out also isn't "realistic").

[HaemishM]

I'm pretty sure no one ever recovered thousands of tons worth of iron with one single pick and was then able to carry said tons back to their lair without the use of a goddamn wheel barrel either. So anyone that claims this change should stick because it's "realistic" really needs to get the fuck out of the shit-stained rubber room from which they are posting.

[Tmon]

Patch Notes are up for today's patch

https://forums.station.sony.com/landmark/index.php?threads/update-notes-4-24-2014.33495/

Claim upkeep will allow 8 days of prepaid maintenance.

Crafting gets a revamp, you'll be able to upgrade various aspects of a tool after it is created.  Pre-patch tools will not be upgradeable.

[taolurker]

I completely bet the new one click tree harvesting will be LOVED by everyone, except me. Do. Not. Want. Fucking lazy assholes can't click. Fuck You.

[Rasix]

My arm says thanks.  I'd rather not have to enable click lock every time I want to play.

[HaemishM]

My arm says thanks.  I'd rather not have to enable click lock every time I want to play.

This. Crafting is an unfun grindy mess. There is not one goddamn reason for me to have to click 17 times to take down a tree, especially when I might need to do so for 100 trees in a sitting. Fuck this RSI bullshit.

[taolurker]

Click once and hold. No need to click multiple times.

I have lag because of the shadows on wood wedges, so I want less of them on my screen, not more that I can't control the flow of. I click and hold usually 3 times on large trees so to not be overwhelmed by lag.

I definitely expect this to cause other issues too (which already happen) like animations locking, sound effects not playing (or repeating), and adding lag to zones when others are near you chopping trees.

[Rasix]

Click once and hold. No need to click multiple times.

This doesn't feel any better than repeated clicking, FYI, especially for as long as it takes to fell a tree.