Quote Originally Posted by Grobyddonot View Post
I don't know, man, I can always find the monsters and stuff to forage, maybe it's the time of day I'm playin. If I want to farm wolves for skins and all the spots are not free, I'll go and farm some dinosaurs, no dinosaurs? There are always Snails. And everybody needs Snail Shells and Sinews for those work orders. There is no need to go to the extremes, there are always monsters in Gaz, outdoors, always. Yesterday I was in Gaz, Wolf's Cave in Gaz, Kur, Giant's Dungeon, etc and there always were monsters to kill and stuff to forage. Btw I was also mining in the Ilmari Desert and guess what.. Plenty of monsters there, granted the spawns are far from great, you have to run from monster to monster, but there were plenty of Manticores, Scorpions, Rakhasa, Grimalkins and Drakes + lemon trees and cactuses.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying, that from my personal experience it's very rare that I want to kill monsters and there are none in the game. Maybe, just maybe, it's not the lack of the spawns, but the fact that players only farm same 3-5 spots in the entire game? Makes sense though, you won't lvl 69-80 on panthers in Eltibule.

As far as the balance goes, well, it's a myth, no game is balanced, it doesn't exist. If you're gaming, you have to accept that rule. People are going to figure out the easiest/fastest/most overpowered way to play the game and do it. Years later patches come out with a nerf, buffs and reworks, but players just adjust to the next most powerful thing. It's not the PG, it's the way gaming works. So, I wouldn't worry much for the fine tune of the overall balance before the release of the game. Actually, all the "balancing" that took place so far, were the nerfs that took some fun out of the game.. Like most sprint speed bonus buffs only work out of combat.. and we still have no mounts.. just why, but well, whatever. Then the AOE nerf came in.. I don't care that much for AOE, but I saw people farming, clearing the entire respawn spots in Kur in under 2 minutes with fire and ice magic before.

So, the point is, the game is not ready yet, nothing is balanced, more nerfs, buffs and reworks will come, but it doesn't mean that we can't lvlup our crafts to 70+ atm, right?

P.S. Can't really blame people for willing to play the fastest/most efficient way though. Making the most out of your playing time or winning (if there is an option to win in the given game) is a natural need/goal for all the competetive players, and I would even say, for most organized adults. A perfect example of people playing the most efficient way possible are the mules/2nd and 3rd accounts just to store all that stuff and bypass the limited storage.
It's not a matter of number of spawns, it is a matter of spawn rates (even with bury which helps). If there weren't an issue, people wouldn't call other people out in Global when they feel offended the other party doesn't want to bury because <insert obscure reason>. You can test it very easy. Go to the Wolf Cave in Kur. If just 2 people farm the main area, there won't be much mobs around and most certainly almost no cedar/maple to collect. Add to that, that it is one of the only places to get Cedar reliably.
This is a current theme throughout the entire game. There are few mobs of the a/b/c you need x/y/z and 2 people can keep it devoid of mobs. It may not be an issue as is with the current online population (but it is in quite a few areas) during US prime time, it sure as hell will be if the population was to double like it was during Steam launch.
You can probably find some else to do, but if you need A item to progress in B skill/favor, you aren't left with much other choice. Thus the need for more zones so there are always more than just one option to get that A item for your B skill/favor/coinpurse.
It's not about winning or doing the most efficient way, because most of the time it is _the only way_ .

Of course balancing is possible. If a mob is much harder than it should be, it needs to be tuned down - ie. balanced. Likewise if a skill does better than it was intended for it (AOE was an example) it needs to be balanced. No one is saying it all needs to be perfect, nothing in this world is. That doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for balance because a horribly unbalanced mess will just put people off playing the game all together.
That is what betas are primarily intended for balancing and a heap of bug testing - not so much adding new content to test (that is what you use a alphas for). I know that's not the case in PG, but PG is special in this regard .