Arche Age

[LC]

You don't get 5000 labor per day. Right now in alpha they are giving double the normal labor regeneration rate. In release you will only get 2880 labor per day. That's only if you can stay logged in the entire 24 hours. A player that can only log in for 4 hours per day will only get around 1680 labor. I burned through 3500 labor last in about 40 minutes of mining.  

[Falconeer]

Honestly, this kind of info could kill the game for me before it's even released, and I *am* their target audience. I understand TRION can only do so much, but I really hope they'll find a way to turn this around.

I mean, the way you describe labour points they are exactly like energy and that kind of shit in Facebook games, am I wrong? Cause I don't want to even glance at a game with such a mechanic.

[Scold]

If I don't want to personally touch crafting in the slightest, I don't have to, right?

[LC]

If I don't want to personally touch crafting in the slightest, I don't have to, right?

You will have to do something to generate gold at some point. PVE does not pay very well unless you get lucky with drops. A mob kill gives very little money. Instead you get a "coin purse" every few kills. There are 5 grades of coin purses i think (1 labor point to open the lowest and 5 for the highest) one. The low level one gave about 3-5 siver before the patch and the highest one gave around 30 - 35 silver. After the patch they drop a little more frequently (like 1 in 3 instead of 1 in 5) but they max out at like 4-7 silver for the top end coin purse.  They also added some sort of chest drop (at least on the hard to kill mobs in diamond shore) thats like a 1 in 30 drop that gives around 2 gold for 100 labor.  

[Njal]

It's not that bad Falc. The mechanic is labour points generated by time but unless all you want to do is craft there's lots to do when you have no labour. I almost never run out and I mine/farm/craft a moderate amount. If all you want to do is craft then yeah you're going to run out of labour really fast.

[LC]

Once you run out of labor the only activity to do is PvP. Everything else costs labor. You can PvE but every drop I've gotten after the patch requires labor to "open" before it can be sold or used.

[palmer_eldritch]

Once you run out of labor the only activity to do is PvP. Everything else costs labor. You can PvE but every drop I've gotten after the patch requires labor to "open" before it can be sold or used.

Just want to highlight this. Since the patch, mobs very rarely drop loot directly. Instead, they drop a "coinpurse" which contains the loot, but it costs labour to open this coinpurse.... You can run out of labour just farming mobs and opening coin purses.

Other things are affected too. For example, the only way to get the plans needed to make boats or houses is by transporting trade goods over the ocean (NPC traders give you a special currency needed to buy the plans). That's cool because going on a voyage with your friends is fun - but you need labour points to do it. In a sense this is "crafting" because you craft the trade packs, but it's not like other games where crafting is just for people who enjoy making swords.

There are certain mounts and battle pets in the game that you can only obtain by breeding livestock, which takes labour points.

A mechanism has gone in to the game to allow you to upgrade weapons and armour, which is cool. But it takes labour points.

And then there's traditional MMO crafting too, which some people enjoy - mining, making armour and so on. But you can use up your labour points just grinding mobs in a group and opening coin purses so tough luck if you want to do this.

Note that you have a maximum 5,000 labour points which regenerate over time, but that doesn't mean you have 5,000 every time you log in. They take longer than a day to regenerate.

Where the labour costs might have no impact on you is when you are levelling. You can do the quests to get from 1 to 50 happily enough, but that's more of an introduction to the game than anything else.

Honestly, this kind of info could kill the game for me before it's even released, and I *am* their target audience. I understand TRION can only do so much, but I really hope they'll find a way to turn this around.

I mean, the way you describe labour points they are exactly like energy and that kind of shit in Facebook games, am I wrong? Cause I don't want to even glance at a game with such a mechanic.

Pre-patch, labour points were not a problem because the amount of points required to do stuff was much lower. So they did act to limit your activities, but you had to be a really dedicated crafter (or gatherer) to use them all up and it was actually quite a cool mechanic as you had to think a bit about how to use them (also, before the patch, mobs dropped loot directly and didn't just drop loads of coin purses). What's changed is that you can now run out of points very quickly.

There are two possibilities here. i) Trion rebalances this or ii) the idea is to sell "labor point restore potions" in the cash-shop. This may sound like scaremongering but actually it's what's happened in other regions.

[LC]

ii) the idea is to sell "labor point restore potions" in the cash-shop. This may sound like scaremongering but actually it's what's happened in other regions.

It's not scaremongering because they have already confirmed that they are selling labor potions in the cash shop.

[HaemishM]

Once you run out of labor the only activity to do is PvP. Everything else costs labor. You can PvE but every drop I've gotten after the patch requires labor to "open" before it can be sold or used.

Just want to highlight this. Since the patch, mobs very rarely drop loot directly. Instead, they drop a "coinpurse" which contains the loot, but it costs labour to open this coinpurse.... You can run out of labour just farming mobs and opening coin purses.

I love PVP, but this part sounds like a continual dick punch.

[WayAbvPar]

Ugh.

OTOH, it will make being a casual player more inviting. What, out of labor? Time to fuck off to another game.

And then one of those times it will be permanent.

[Nija]

This is not a game for a casual player. Unless you love getting your dick punched, as Haemish said.

[Draegan]

Depends, do you mean casual as someone who avoids all PVP?

[WayAbvPar]

I mean someone who only plays an hour or two a day.

[Rendakor]

Is there a subscription option for infinite labor? Also is this game full on PVP or are there safe zones? Specifically I don't want to be crafting and get ganked.

[Draegan]

I mean someone who only plays an hour or two a day.

Depends on what you want to do in the game. Do you want to carebear and build homes and farm? You can do that. You can run trade routes for gold in all the safe areas, then use the gold from those and your farm to buy plans on the AH for houses/ships/etc. that are bought from gilda stars.

I have no idea how it'll take, but it's easily doable assuming you aren't on a ghosttown of a server.

Outside that, you can get into PVP skirmishes on land or a boat if PVP is your thing. There are dungeons and shit too that I think can be done.

[LC]

Is there a subscription option for infinite labor? Also is this game full on PVP or are there safe zones? Specifically I don't want to be crafting and get ganked.

I think we are mostly talking about subscribers. Free players don't get to own land and their labor only regens when they are online. They get 5 LP per 5 minutes they are logged in, or 1 LP per minute. So 4 hours of game time will get you just enough mine 24  mining nodes or open 2.4 of the chests that drop during pve.

[Samwise]

Is there a subscription option for infinite labor? Also is this game full on PVP or are there safe zones? Specifically I don't want to be crafting and get ganked.

I think we are mostly talking about subscribers. Free players don't get to own land and their labor only regens when they are online. They get 5 LP per 5 minutes they are logged in, or 1 LP per minute. So 4 hours of game time will get you just enough mine 24  mining nodes or open 2.4 of the chests that drop during pve.

I'm just sort of skimming this thread because my brother pointed me at this game based on my love of Minethings and it sounded interesting.  It sounds like they've completely missed the positive part of "labor points" (energy points, whatever) if you only regenerate them while logged in.

[Rendakor]

Is there a subscription option for infinite labor? Also is this game full on PVP or are there safe zones? Specifically I don't want to be crafting and get ganked.

I think we are mostly talking about subscribers. Free players don't get to own land and their labor only regens when they are online. They get 5 LP per 5 minutes they are logged in, or 1 LP per minute. So 4 hours of game time will get you just enough mine 24  mining nodes or open 2.4 of the chests that drop during pve.

Oh so the labor rates you were posting are for subscribers? That's...kind of awful.

[Ingmar]

Is there a subscription option for infinite labor? Also is this game full on PVP or are there safe zones? Specifically I don't want to be crafting and get ganked.

I think we are mostly talking about subscribers. Free players don't get to own land and their labor only regens when they are online. They get 5 LP per 5 minutes they are logged in, or 1 LP per minute. So 4 hours of game time will get you just enough mine 24  mining nodes or open 2.4 of the chests that drop during pve.

 

[Cadaverine]

Hopefully Trion will alter that to be more friendly to a western audience, otherwise that pretty much kill any interest I had in the game.

[LC]

I'm just sort of skimming this thread because my brother pointed me at this game based on my love of Minethings and it sounded interesting.  It sounds like they've completely missed the positive part of "labor points" (energy points, whatever) if you only regenerate them while logged in.

I think they were originally intended to keep players from building 10 farms and flooding the market with cheap materials. Now they just seem to be bait for wallet fishing.

[palmer_eldritch]

Labour points do regenerate when you are offline too, but at half the speed.

I should say that it's *possible* Trion will fix this. While they can't modify the game themselves, they do seem to be able to get XL Games to make special North American patches for them. And while we don't have a release date for the game yet, it looks like it won't be out for at least a couple of months. So perhaps it's too soon to write off the game entirely! Or perhaps I'm being wildly optimistic.

Labor points worked as a mechanism before the patch, when 90% of players could do what they wanted (and most of us are pretty hardcore, remember most alpha players paid $150 to get in) and never run out. In the past, labor became an issue if you were trying to build a large house or large boat - which you don't do often - and you'd have to either build it over a period of a couple of days or ask friends to help you build it, but that actually added to the game. Alternatively, you had to really do nothing but crafting or gathering for hours on end to be in danger of running out.

[Scold]

If I don't want to personally touch crafting in the slightest, I don't have to, right?

You will have to do something to generate gold at some point. PVE does not pay very well unless you get lucky with drops. A mob kill gives very little money. Instead you get a "coin purse" every few kills. There are 5 grades of coin purses i think (1 labor point to open the lowest and 5 for the highest) one. The low level one gave about 3-5 siver before the patch and the highest one gave around 30 - 35 silver. After the patch they drop a little more frequently (like 1 in 3 instead of 1 in 5) but they max out at like 4-7 silver for the top end coin purse.  They also added some sort of chest drop (at least on the hard to kill mobs in diamond shore) thats like a 1 in 30 drop that gives around 2 gold for 100 labor.  

For gold, I'm happy to just PayPal some farmer and get what I need assuming the prices aren't exorbitant. I just want to get my gear PvP-competitive and not think about it again.

[Draegan]

I don't know about 1.2 but labor is never an issue unless you really try hard to spend it.

[Nija]

I don't know about 1.2 but labor is never an issue unless you really try hard to spend it.

Donny, you're out of your element.

[LC]

I don't know about 1.2 but labor is never an issue unless you really try hard to spend it.

I think I found the problem.

[HaemishM]

So 4 hours of game time will get you just enough mine 24  mining nodes or open 2.4 of the chests that drop during pve.

Ok, so fuck that.

[Njal]

So 4 hours of game time will get you just enough mine 24  mining nodes or open 2.4 of the chests that drop during pve.

Ok, so fuck that.

Dunno where he gets that from the most I've seen a pouch cost is 15 and that was in an instance. Most cost 5 labour and labour does regen offline, even for non subscribers.

[LC]

The boxes you get in Diamond Shores (highest level mobs in game) cost 100 labor to open. If you want to go up there I can portal you on alpha.

[KallDrexx]

This whole labor point thing is retarded.

Regardless of how likely you are to actually spend all your labor points or not, it still means every action you do in the game (even looting apparently lol) you have to question if it's worth doing that action to spend labor points.  And if you spend labor points on a chest and it gives you shit you are going to be pissed.

It's a whole system that forces you to micromanage and pull you out of the game, which is just failboat written all over it.

[rk47]

I bet you can buy china labor to open your pouches for you. 
Standing afk just to open pouches. FFS. 2014 MMO.

[LC]

The price of china farmer gold has doubled since 1.2 patch. Before the patch 100g was $10 - $12, now its $20 - $25 per 100g.

[Falconeer]

While this is an immense bummer, as Archeage is the only MMORPG I was looking forward to, I am happy that for once they screwed it before I could even buy it, instead of getting me hooked to the game and mutate it into a tentacle money-greedy monster while I am at it.

[Xanthippe]

While this is an immense bummer, as Archeage is the only MMORPG I was looking forward to, I am happy that for once they screwed it before I could even buy it, instead of getting me hooked to the game and mutate it into a tentacle money-greedy monster while I am at it.

Yes.

I am talked out of most MMOs these days by the time they actually get to market because of idiotic design choices.

[Count Nerfedalot]

While this is an immense bummer, as Archeage is the only MMORPG I was looking forward to, I am happy that for once they screwed it before I could even buy it, instead of getting me hooked to the game and mutate it into a tentacle money-greedy monster while I am at it.

Out of curiosity, what other games specifically have actually mutated like that after release (in a given market)? That Russian one that was still in beta outside Russia when it went full-bore greedy grabby is the closest I can think of.

No offense, but I think you are better known for your joyful exuberance than for rational analysis (much less cynical deconstruction) during the early stages of a game.