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Please Address Moon Glass Farming


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Two days before beta went live, they changed how Bath Bomb farming for Hot Springs worked.

What you used to be able to do was spam a single Hot Spring with Bath Bombs to get a decent amount of Moon Glass, like this:

Spoiler

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That was removed from the game and instead you need to do this:

After you've mined the Glass Pillar from the Hot Spring, you need to wait till a Moon Phase change occurs for it to refills (so a few days, depending on when you mined it). Except that doesn't really matter too much since the Hot Spring converts into Moon Pillars every 20 days when the Full Moon occurs, so it's really a 20 day delay to your farming sessions. 

Except the main problem is that the amount of Hot Springs in a world varies and is not enough. I've seen anywhere from five to fifteen Hot Springs, which means 25 - 75 Moon Shards every 20 days. Turning them all into Moon Tools would be 8 - 25 Moon Axes or 4 - 12 Moon Cutters respectively. For some comparison, you could farm 200 Moon Shards in a night if it was a long, Winter night via 60 Bath Bombs (that's 360 Lune Blossoms, which involved a lot of Moon Tree chopping and planting).

That's nowhere near enough to last 20 days due to the the low durability to the Glass Tools, especially if you have more than one person using them or a small number of Hot Springs in a world.

I don't think people thought very highly of them in the first place (particularly towards the Glass Cutter, though Moon Glass is nice), so drastically lowering the rates at which you can acquire Moon Glass doesn't make sense to me.

Massive moon glass farming was more of a mid-late game thing for when you ran out of Moon Glass. Chopping Moon Trees, catching Moon Moths and planting them for new Moon Trees was a hassle in the first place. They now feel more like a super niche tool in comparison to the slightly niche (yet nice) use they were before. (I didn't even talk about using them for Statues or making Moon Turf).

TLDR;

Please address Moon Glass farming. It's unnecessary for something that has such low durability and was a mid-late game thing anyways (imo).

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12 minutes ago, Well-met said:

have you considered that they'll likely add much stronger items that require moon glass to craft, eventually?

Another resource, nightmare fuel can be used to craft many utilities which will help the player early-late game. Although this resource is really useful it can be farmed easily by being insane, or get loads in the ruins. Even materials like stone or wood can be used by players to make crafts that will help them out immensely. The difference now is these ones can be farmed and moon glass cannot. It was already pretty limited with having the recipe for the bath bomb being so annoying to make and getting this glass would take twenty days, But now there is a fixed amount on how many glass you can get. Now that this happens I would much rather prefer a spear to a glass cutter for the spear will not take me 20 days to farm. Why do you think so many players prefer winona's catapults instead of the yearly farmed houndius shootius.

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16 hours ago, Well-met said:

have you considered that they'll likely add much stronger items that require moon glass to craft, eventually?

The closest scenario to such a thing would be this post relating to the Moon Glass statues, except that statues drop their materials when hammered.

Otherwise, I see no indication of this stronger item via Moon Glass. Why make this drastic change at the end of the beta without showing this supposedly stronger item in the same beta? 

Now we'd have to wait a month till the next beta for this supposed item. In the mean time, it's negatively impacting your ability to produce the currently standing Moon Tools. That does not make much sense to me.

I also cannot place my bets on this maybe eventuality either, cause I was hoping for such a thing with Malbatross' beak (it's just an oar). I asked on today's stream if they had any further plans for the beak to be more than just on oar, they said no "that's all that they had planned atm" (if it get's a use, I'll be happy, but I'm not betting on it). 

Contrast that if the fish in the shoal would be getting a use, and they said a "good chance of it." (I could not ask about Moon Glass in that stream cause no plans for beak bummed me out).

(Edit: Thanks to a reddit user that has shown me a clip towards the later half of the stream where the beak could potentially get a use as a crafting ingredient. Much appreciated! Edit end.)

Instead, I felt that they did this change for the "aesthetics" of the Spring. Bath bomb goes in, you get your Moon Pillar, and you need to wait for the Moon Phase change for it to refill. 

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18 minutes ago, NSAiswatchingus said:

Just seeing this convinces me they did the right thing. It doesn't make sense why the crater would just instantly fill back up. It just looks broken

This does not make any sense to me. It looks broken to you, but can you please explain how it's broken mechanically?

Moon Axe chops trees faster, which is great for Toadstool, but otherwise has a rather low durability. Glass Cutter is a Dark Sword with a low durability and only really shines with 50 more durability against shadow entities.

The key point here, again, is that this was for when you ran out of all the Moon Glass that spawned on the island naturally (it's about 200 Moon Shards, similar to the previous farming rates for a long winter night, not exactly all nights).

By the mid-to-late game, people have Dark Swords, which have more utility than Glass Cutters. All other tree farming methods are available, and you're more than capable of doing Toadstool (and even Misery) legit with Moon Axes well before needing to restock them, not that the Moon Axes were needed when you did the fight with a group of people.

How is this ability to farm Moon Glass thus broken? It just means that I'll use the initial glass stock and never really farm the Glass unless something that I have already mentioned occurs (which I've already explained my reasoning against).

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45 minutes ago, lakhnish said:

It looks broken to you, but can you please explain how it's broken mechanically? 

I can not.

It just looks wacky and feels like A LOT of rare resources in a small amount of time. It lessens the "specialness" of moon glass as a whole by keeping that in. 

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42 minutes ago, Mooagain said:

I just love how people complain about how easy the game is becoming and then get mad when the nerf stuff.

Are these the same people? Does Lakhnish complain about the game being easy?

I think it's important not to conflate the notions of challenge with tedium. This nerf did not make the game harder, it just made it more tedious to acquire a certain resource. That doesn't really add challenge.

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32 minutes ago, Mooagain said:

I just love how people complain about how easy the game is becoming and then get mad when the nerf stuff.

I am not people but a person.

I gave my own reasoning for why I disagreed with this change. Rather than grouping your statement into a subset of people, I'll ask this: what are your thoughts on this change?

Did you extensively use Moon Tools prior to this? Would this make you want to go back and visit the Island again? Should this be the reason why people keep coming back to the island?

I don't know where the thread is, but there was a thread talkong about the stuff from the Lunar Island (was it a poll or a post, idk).

The general consensus I got from that thread was that Rock Fruit Bush trees were the most valuable thing from the island, not the Moon Glass Tools (I asked if others thought Moon Tools were a good reason, I was told not really, so it should be somewhere in my profile).

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Spreading gameplay as thinly as possible across time.

Question is, what's the intent with glass tools. Is it supposed to be used for single one-time situations like birchnut treeguards and toadstool? Or is it an upgrade from normal tools? As an upgrade, it's not worth the time effort or anything currently.

I'd personally wish it was an permanent kind of upgrade. But, but, but, it's both too easy to get, right off the bat, just boat there. And as mentioned it's too grindy and brittle to sustain any worthwhile long term needs.

See, it's both too easy and not worth it at the same time. Grinding isn't difficulty. It tedium. It's microtransaction kind of design. As an permanent upgrade that is. For what it is- useful for only getting a little upper hand on bosses, I guess it serves it's purpose. I don't know how much it actually helps, maybe not even enough. Maybe it does. I find this dull either way.

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10 minutes ago, Cosheeta said:

Spreading gameplay as thinly as possible across time.

Question is, what's the intent with glass tools. Is it supposed to be used for single one-time situations like birchnut treeguards and toadstool? Or is it an upgrade from normal tools? As an upgrade, it's not worth the time effort or anything currently.

I'd personally wish it was an permanent kind of upgrade. But, but, but, it's both too easy to get, right off the bat, just boat there. And as mentioned it's too grindy and brittle to sustain any worthwhile long term needs.

See, it's both too easy and not worth it at the same time. Grinding isn't difficulty. It tedium. It's microtransaction kind of design. As an permanent upgrade that is. For what it is- useful for only getting a little upper hand on bosses, I guess it serves it's purpose. I don't know how much it actually helps, maybe not even enough. Maybe it does. I find this dull either way.

I personally agree with this. I think in its current state, it's too grindy to be worth it for regular use. I think the main issue with it, though, is that there's only one method of getting them (once you run out of moon glass boulders).

Let's look at gold, the alternative "tool upgrade" material. You can obtain it by:
- Mining rocks that contain gold
- Trading with Pig King
- Other small situational things like Dragonfly and Klaus

It may not seem like much, but let's look at that second one in particular. You can give the Pig King a ton of items. the variety in items you can use means a variety in methods of obtaining gold. You could:
- Hunt regular mobs to give their meat drops to Pig King
- Dig graves or fish in the Oasis for trinkets
- Raid the ruins for trinkets to trade
- Go fishing in the caves for eels (which give 5 gold each)

My point is, there's a ton of ways to get gold, and that makes it a lot less tedious to regularly obtain and use it for tools (among other things). I think the moon glass tools would be made a lot better if the only obtaining method wasn't gathering lune tree blossoms and visiting the island before & after (or during) the full moon (the nitre cost is fine in my opinion; there's enough ways to get it that also give other resources in the process).

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1 hour ago, Electroely said:

My point is, there's a ton of ways to get gold

Remember the thread about "rising difficulty" by evolving the world like in example; terraria?

You know what I at least think would be radical for the glass tools? What if the moon islands had some sort of trial, just any trial as long as it's fun, a boss, or maybe that you had to manage your way through the harsh landscapes, really anything cool that works well. And then this unlocks moon glass being available in various ways across most of the regular island as an end result? Glass enemies sometimes lurking around and dropping them, maybe glass creatures being part of hound waves so it's at least not adding more intrusiveness on the already intrusive time loop of the game, meteors of the glass type in some places, trades being available from some new kind of pig king-functioning creature? Just, evolve the world by doing a trial players can instantiate at their own pace and not wait around for.

EDIT: You know I kinda realised this is a thematic change from being a struggling unknowing survivor to being a thriving conqueror of the environment. And while I'm usually against thematic bloat, confusion or changes, in this case I feel like I've thrown my arms into the air and gone kinda "game's theme has been disturbed long ago anyway. Might as well commit so it's fun and not painfully indecisive."

MORE EDIT: Boy I sure love words. It's not even the worst change in theme I suppose. It reflects the player base if anything. There are practically zero mysteries left to uncover. Both in lore and knowing the gameplay itself in and out, so yeah, we conquered it. Let's make that conquest more fun?

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Feel like it should have been MILDLY nerfed or changed, but nothing too drastic. This feels a bit heavy handed sort of change, I'd rather the days between farming be lowered to say... 10? or something? Allowing you to get a steady supply long as you keep it in your schedule. 

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Hmm is it bad that I actually like the glass cutters? They're basically a cutlass supreme against shadows, I like them for nightmare fuel farming and for use against shadow pieces/fuelweaver. Heck I take a couple with me when I do ruins just for the nightmare creatures so I can save dark swords for the other enemies.

My current solo world has 8 springs, but apparently they can be as low as 5? Thats rough...
What if maybe players could somehow unlock the ability to dig new pools on the island? It'd have to be done on the island, off it wouldn't work.

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Imo the main problem lies that we're using an immovable structure that uses rare rocks to craft..... slightly better versions of basic tools. It's the pick/axe and thulicite club all over again

No ones going to take the treck to the island just to chop wood faster when there's a multitude of other ways that are faster anyhow. Why make the glass cutter to farm NM fuel when the dark sword does the same but better. Why would you not want to be insane when farming NM fuel. 

These two tools only true use is to kill misery toadstool the one time(which I guess is kinda nice with the recent buff to his lamps), and help save on NM fuel for fuelweaver (it's no sanity drain use shouldn't even be noticeable as you're either wearing the bee queen helm or you're not wearing it and are experiencing-400 sanity drain anyhow.)

Honestly no matter what the future update holds these 2 tools will always be niche (unless of course buffed). Now what they CAN DO is add actual new items that will keep us.coming for more. It's moon magic rocks. There's a multitude of unique things you could craft to justify the scarcity of moon glass. Maybe an amulet that  when worn replicates the islands enlightenment status, or how about a staff that summons meteor showers in a specific spot like the volcano staff from shipwrecked. Unique stuff like that. Just take a look at what anyone even bothers crafting down in the ruins to get an idea on what would be nice to craft. Anything but it's like a dark sword, but better(?)

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On 10/4/2019 at 7:33 AM, Mooagain said:

I just love how people complain about how easy the game is becoming and then get mad when the nerf stuff.

Do you call painful not-fun-at-all mechanics a nerf? Especially for obtaining mediocre items that can be cured by just changing characters who have perks that does what said items do? I don't understand this response.

Also moon turf is super hard to make now.

On 10/5/2019 at 11:57 PM, gghhrr said:

I think the nerf is fine

since you don't really need glass tools

yea, they are so goooood but they are not irreplaceable

 

IMO, they are just purely decorative statue in mid late game

Thats the exact reason why it's bad, if no one needs glass tools, why are they in the game?

They're good but they're not worth going through that much trouble to farm

11 hours ago, SplOrange said:

i don't understand why they went through with this nerf, was anyone complaining that glass production was too easy?

 now your glass production is capped depending on how many hotsprings your world generates, bleh.

I honestly think relying on world gen to obtain more resources is a very poor mechanic for reason that almost seem too obvious.

Why do I need to play this specific world where I can generate a better one? Why do I need to spend so much time generating multiple worlds to obtain the one I want?

Fortunately this game doesn't revolve too much around that, you get pretty consistent worlds (everyworld has mactusks, mandrakes, exotic biomes, surface raidbosses) but just having mechanics like these rely on world gen at all is bad.

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My only problem with glass production is that bath bombs require too many blossoms. I would rather have the bath bomb made easier to produce, so you can at least stock pile that and make the glass production less annoying. I still use swords and hambats most of the time and the only time I used a glass sword is during the Shadow Pieces fight cause of the obvious durability bonus.

Overall, the items added with The Return of Them are not that great imo. It's too time consuming to produce glass and to no one's surprise glass items are fragile. In the couple of new worlds I started, I didn't even bother sailing to the moon biome - caves are much more profitable and fun.. plus all the nightmare fuel!

It would've been cooler, if glass could turned into lens and in turn turned into a better lantern or maybe a structure like a mini lighthouse.

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3 hours ago, Averagewx78main said:

Thats the exact reason why it's bad, if no one needs glass tools, why are they in the game?

They're good but they're not worth going through that much trouble to farm

there are a lots more items no one need too

they are still in-game for few years and yet no change until now

I don't really see pretty much complaints about them

 

there are just a few items can be made with moon glass only now

besides, moon glass isn't the only product provided from lunar land and ocean

 

I would rather wait more new contents related to moon glass, and complain about this

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