Brandstone crash sites need a HUGE overhaul, here's why

[Galeskyring.9617]

Introduced in Istan we get a device for scanning for brandstone impact sites. This item consumes 3 volatile magic to charge, each charge lasts 5 minutes.

 

Brandstone crash sites however is where this becomes a problem.

 

1: there is no announcement a brandstone has crash anywhere in istan

2: you have to mount up and spam the scan special action, which does not point out the exact location of the crash but rather the direction in which it crashed, forcing you to mount travel in a rush to try and find the crash site

3: Even if the scan points out there is an impact site you are highly UNLIKELY to even get there before it vanishes due to limited time it exists upon crashing down.

 

there are 2 major flaws with brandstone crash sites, the first is that you are never told when one is A: about to crash down or B: that one has crashed down. This results in wasteful spending of VM to even find out if one is up, even if you find out one is up it's far to unlikely you'll get there to loot it in time. The 2nd problem is the time constraint is coupled with a "get there first" behavior we saw in some more recent content in lws3 where some of the new maps had components that would only interact with 1 player at a time causing artificial slow down for individuals. Here in Istan however we get the opposite effect, in that it encourages a predatory behavior of not telling anyone an impact site has been found. Players whom happen to be near the impact sites for brandstones the moment they touch down can immediately go loot them and they will collapse sooner causing players elsewhere to be unable to reach them in time.

 

How could Brandstones be fixed to make them more friendly for players to work together over predatory rush to solo loot? here's how!

 

1: Make all brandstone impacts occur during night only.

2: Announce on screen a brandstone has or when one will crash.

3: Have multiple crash at a time or over a period so it's not 1 and done for excessive time periods, even a 15m timer is too long given the travel time to reach one coupled with its short period to which it exists.

4: Potentially make brandstone crash site s minor events with displayed timers or overhead dots which fill to show how long people have to loot them.

 

At current the inconsistency of brandstone impact sites, lack of clarity when they have/will crash down and lack of time to reach or loot them makes the whole thing tedious, needlessly difficult and has no actual payoff to show for it along with the wasted VM to charge the device used to locate and extract kralkatite. Even if you camp at the north west WP where npcs remark a brandstone has come down it doesn't change the fact that you won't likely ever reach it since they can crash on the far side of the map, even by the grand hall can fail from that travel distance if other players get there first.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @Galeskyring.9617 said:

> Introduced in Istan we get a device for scanning for brandstone impact sites. This item consumes 3 volatile magic to charge, each charge lasts 5 minutes.

>

> Brandstone crash sites however is where this becomes a problem.

>

> 1: there is no announcement a brandstone has crash anywhere in istan

> 2: you have to mount up and spam the scan special action, which does not point out the exact location of the crash but rather the direction in which it crashed, forcing you to mount travel in a rush to try and find the crash site

> 3: Even if the scan points out there is an impact site you are highly UNLIKELY to even get there before it vanishes due to limited time it exists upon crashing down.

>

> there are 2 major flaws with brandstone crash sites, the first is that you are never told when one is A: about to crash down or B: that one has crashed down. This results in wasteful spending of VM to even find out if one is up, even if you find out one is up it's far to unlikely you'll get there to loot it in time. The 2nd problem is the time constraint is coupled with a "get there first" behavior we saw in some more recent content in lws3 where some of the new maps had components that would only interact with 1 player at a time causing artificial slow down for individuals. Here in Istan however we get the opposite effect, in that it encourages a predatory behavior of not telling anyone an impact site has been found. Players whom happen to be near the impact sites for brandstones the moment they touch down can immediately go loot them and they will collapse sooner causing players elsewhere to be unable to reach them in time.

>

> How could Brandstones be fixed to make them more friendly for players to work together over predatory rush to solo loot? here's how!

>

> 1: Make all brandstone impacts occur during night only.

> 2: Announce on screen a brandstone has or when one will crash.

> 3: Have multiple crash at a time or over a period so it's not 1 and done for excessive time periods, even a 15m timer is too long given the travel time to reach one coupled with its short period to which it exists.

> 4: Potentially make brandstone crash site s minor events with displayed timers or overhead dots which fill to show how long people have to loot them.

>

> At current the inconsistency of brandstone impact sites, lack of clarity when they have/will crash down and lack of time to reach or loot them makes the whole thing tedious, needlessly difficult and has no actual payoff to show for it along with the wasted VM to charge the device used to locate and extract kralkatite. Even if you camp at the north west WP where npcs remark a brandstone has come down it doesn't change the fact that you won't likely ever reach it since they can crash on the far side of the map, even by the grand hall can fail from that travel distance if other players get there first.

 

If you stand on top of the Astralarium, you not only hear the NPCs remarking on it, you can SEE it crash and see exactly where it crashes down, so you don't actually need the ping mechanic to go find it. People with a griffon ofc have a distinct advantage here because the griffon can cross the map very quickly.

[That Guy.5704]

1) no not only during night. should happen throughout the day.

 

2) an announcement would be good, at the very least only when you have the scanner thing with you. It should react to a recent impact

 

the large crashes do disappear too fast if you arent the one defeating it. this is true, but the other smaller ones actually do encourage multiple people provided you have the ability to mark the spots that you have dug up. Lots of people pinging and marking means more time mining, less time searching and higher yield if enough mark them. I was able to mine 4 on 1 spot just pinging and searching myself earlier today.

[Rauderi.8706]

> 3: Even if the scan points out there is an impact site you are highly UNLIKELY to even get there before it vanishes due to limited time it exists upon crashing down.

 

Argh. I was *right on top of one* yesterday, trying to figure out how to excavate the ruddy thing (My #2 command wasn't working for some reason...) when it disappeared. It definitely needs to exist longer.

[Galeskyring.9617]

> @"That Guy.5704" said:

> 1) no not only during night. should happen throughout the day.

 

 

I suggested night only for 2 reasons, the 1st is that Istan holds a sizable meta which eats up a lot of time between 2 locations which can carry throughout the day and night cycles. So expecting brandstones only during day or night would allow people to prepare for them like they do in every other map which has day/night or weather based phases. The 2nd reason is because the fog around Istan is less troublesome at night allowing you to more easily spot a glowing object either in the sky or on the ground.

[ReaverKane.7598]

I've explored Istan to 100% completed the story, and ran around doing some events, and i have yet to witness one of these. So yeah, i'd say some work needs to be done to make them more visible.

[Ayrilana.1396]

I’ve had no issues getting them by just waiting at the Astralarium. You can hear them falling down as well as see where they land. Three minutes is more than enough time to get there and gather.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @Rauderi.8706 said:

> > 3: Even if the scan points out there is an impact site you are highly UNLIKELY to even get there before it vanishes due to limited time it exists upon crashing down.

>

> Argh. I was *right on top of one* yesterday, trying to figure out how to excavate the ruddy thing (My #2 command wasn't working for some reason...) when it disappeared. It definitely needs to exist longer.

 

the glowy bit is NOT where you dig... once you reach the stone drop site, you spam the 1 key until a little colum of light pops up NEAR the purple area, then go to that and dig there.

[Sojourner.4621]

> @Galeskyring.9617 said:

> > @"That Guy.5704" said:

> > 1) no not only during night. should happen throughout the day.

>

>

> I suggested night only for 2 reasons, the 1st is that Istan holds a sizable meta which eats up a lot of time between 2 locations which can carry throughout the day and night cycles. So expecting brandstones only during day or night would allow people to prepare for them like they do in every other map which has day/night or weather based phases. The 2nd reason is because the fog around Istan is less troublesome at night allowing you to more easily spot a glowing object either in the sky or on the ground.

 

The larger and better loot meta (Palawadan) happens at the start of night time, which means it is far less likely that you will be able to get others to help you with the Brandstone crash farm at night. It would be MUCH better in daylight. when the more frequent Temple meta is running, because even if you skip one it will be up two more times before night falls again.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

I.... don't even know what you guys are talking about and I've 100% the map two times so far.

What exactly is a brandstone and where or how do I get a scanner?

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> I.... don't even know what you guys are talking about and I've 100% the map two times so far.

> What exactly is a brandstone and where or how do I get a scanner?

 

There's a Volatile Magic vendor at the Astralarium. If you talk to her, she'll give you a scanner, and offer to sell some upgrades so it has more skills.

 

Then, when a brandstone falls from the sky, it will create a crater when it hits the ground, spawing some enemies. You have three minutes to get there, kill the enemies, and use some of the scanner's skills to get the content from the brandstone. Apparently those are crafting materials; people think we will use those to craft the Astral and Stelar weapon (you can see those in the wardrobe).

 

The thing is, you have to wait until a brandstone falls from the sky. If you are at the top of the Astralarium, people will talk about it and you can hear it, but it's **extremely** boring to just stand there waiting for them. A reddit topic mentions that one brandstone falls more or less each 15 minutos, so it's a considerable wait if you have just entered a map.

[Kalix.1406]

I'd like to follow up on this as the short timers from brandstones have given me significant problems with mining them.

 

I'm currently playing on a macbook because my desktop is out of commission for god knows what reason (I need to start swapping parts out once I have the resources, everything works individually.) For whatever reason, when the game is too much for the computer to handle my framerate doesn't tank but rather things just take VERY long to eventually render. Maybe it's the mac client, or its what gw2 just does for potato computers, but this is where the problems come in.

 

When I go to mine brandstones, the graphic 1 skill on the multitool often does not render due to these problems. The short timers on the brandstone impacts also prevents me from being able to hang around and let things load until the scanner will render. Considering this is required to find the mining sites (They have to be mined in a particular order it appears, so I can't even use other people to navigate), I am completely unable to mine any brandstone due to the technical limitations of my current computer.

 

I bring this up as an issue because I have seen some exceptional rendering priority in other instances such as 100cm, where the critical information appears first while other things that I can deduce from animations will take longer, which suggests anet has a way of determining priority for what can be seen first. If they could optimize the brandstone mining graphics so that people on lower end computers could mine in a timely manner I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Also, extend the timer maybe, it is a bit ludicrously short >.>

[Galeskyring.9617]

> @Sojourner.4621 said:

> > @Galeskyring.9617 said:

> > > @"That Guy.5704" said:

> > > 1) no not only during night. should happen throughout the day.

> >

> >

> > I suggested night only for 2 reasons, the 1st is that Istan holds a sizable meta which eats up a lot of time between 2 locations which can carry throughout the day and night cycles. So expecting brandstones only during day or night would allow people to prepare for them like they do in every other map which has day/night or weather based phases. The 2nd reason is because the fog around Istan is less troublesome at night allowing you to more easily spot a glowing object either in the sky or on the ground.

>

> The larger and better loot meta (Palawadan) happens at the start of night time, which means it is far less likely that you will be able to get others to help you with the Brandstone crash farm at night. It would be MUCH better in daylight. when the more frequent Temple meta is running, because even if you skip one it will be up two more times before night falls again.

 

The point is it needs a phase period to occur so it's not easily overlooked over everything else going on and the timers need to be beefed up even if its by 1-2 minutes as people with gryphon mounts yield the best chance to go from the astralarium to the crash sites soon as you either see them or an npc pipes off that one has landed, anyone else has less chance given the complex terrain of the map unless they happen to be relatively close to the impact site. The larger impact site not far from the great hall is significantly worse because it gives far less loot and ends a great deal faster compared to the already terrible minor impact sights.

[testybest.4103]

I just wasted an hour trying this and got three brandstones, I heard the npc but never saw anything, spammed the device each time and and out of 4 attempts got to one site. the directional on this is as clear as mud

[notebene.3190]

> @Erasculio.2914 said:

> > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > I.... don't even know what you guys are talking about and I've 100% the map two times so far.

> > What exactly is a brandstone and where or how do I get a scanner?

>

> There's a Volatile Magic vendor at the Astralarium. If you talk to her, she'll give you a scanner, and offer to sell some upgrades so it has more skills.

>

> Then, when a brandstone falls from the sky, it will create a crater when it hits the ground, spawing some enemies. You have three minutes to get there, kill the enemies, and use some of the scanner's skills to get the content from the brandstone. Apparently those are crafting materials; people think we will use those to craft the Astral and Stelar weapon (you can see those in the wardrobe).

>

> The thing is, you have to wait until a brandstone falls from the sky. If you are at the top of the Astralarium, people will talk about it and you can hear it, but it's **extremely** boring to just stand there waiting for them. A reddit topic mentions that one brandstone falls more or less each 15 minutos, so it's a considerable wait if you have just entered a map.

 

I don't suppose anyone has a screenshot as to how this looks? Do they start high up in the sky? Where it's darker? Lower on the horizon? Do you sit on the telescope and scan from looking East to South? Do they always fall over in that area that has all the holes in the ground?

[Aerinndis.2730]

I had one fall yesterday right by the Astralarium so I went over to it. I spent the bulk of the time taking out the enemies and the other enemies that were already there. It left little to no time to even harvest anything and of course there were people who came and just started harvesting, never mind helping those of us who were just trying to clear the area so everyone could harvest.... Time this is available is an issue especially if you don't care to be killed while trying to harvest even one thing. Not sure this is something I would even look to doing since it was over so quickly. Also from the above comments having to fly half a map over and then take out the enemies and then try to harvest, well..... no thank you.

[Zaklex.6308]

Just look for the little purple circle on your mini-map, it appears just as the brandstone crashes down...should be plenty of time to reach it and mine it from that point on.

[Galeskyring.9617]

> @Zaklex.6308 said:

> Just look for the little purple circle on your mini-map, it appears just as the brandstone crashes down...should be plenty of time to reach it and mine it from that point on.

 

brandstones don't have any map icons unless someone who shelled out 3k VM plants a marker on it which consumes time to cast which means by the time you see one appear a given amount of time to reach and harvest from the site has expired.

[lynspottery.6529]

> @Aerinndis.2730 said:

> I had one fall yesterday right by the Astralarium so I went over to it. I spent the bulk of the time taking out the enemies and the other enemies that were already there. It left little to no time to even harvest anything and of course there were people who came and just started harvesting, never mind helping those of us who were just trying to clear the area so everyone could harvest.... Time this is available is an issue especially if you don't care to be killed while trying to harvest even one thing. Not sure this is something I would even look to doing since it was over so quickly. Also from the above comments having to fly half a map over and then take out the enemies and then try to harvest, well..... no thank you.

 

^^this. The very same problem exists in other maps with those map treasure items that we've been getting in PoF. Using the item in the earlier PoF maps only provides a large dotted blue circle within which to search. No guarantee you will find anything easily or quickly. And when you do find something, be prepared to fight local mobs in order to loot the darned thing. I lost out on two such treasures because mobs (w/elites) popping up on me and killing me, which prevented me from looting what I did find. By the time I ported to the nearest wp and ran back, the treasure was gone. but not the mobs.

 

I suspected when I saw that map item offered in the new Istan areas, that it would be similar, but from what folks are reporting, it appears to be worse. I pointedly put that one item I did get, into my bank along with the other map treasure items to collect dust. I tend to put things of this nature into a similar category as the BLTP boxes ....to be noted, but forgotten about because of the nature of reward failure.

[Ghin.1653]

To be honest, I think brandstone crash sites should outright not expire until the next one occurs and the timer should be every 5-10 minutes. This means that there will always be a brandstone active to harvest unless you have already done so. The "harvest while its hot" factor kinda stinks. The current design also requires "An active map that is searching for these brandstones to mark them and receive bonus rewards". This concept is kinda lost on a lot of players, and I myself was confused AF when i found my first one and didn't understand what i was supposed to do after reaching it, and by the time someone friendly enough to do a play by play for me, i missed out on the harvest. Not to mention I didn't even know these were occurring until someone in chat mentioned harvesting brandstone. The time as well requires you to equip it, find the deposit, ping it if you can, fight monsters off in the time limit to avoid getting downed, and holds in inventory slot. The current design also interferes with normal event procedure, as some might want to drop their current event to run as fast as you can to the landing zone, if you even knew it fell at all! Sometimes one falls and no one either pings it or has purchased the ping addition, which is gated by how much you have already harvested of unbound magic.

 

Simplified:

- Brandstones do not vanish until the next one appears. (this also works in favour of the map, as players will not be on this map forever farming in mob droves to scramble after these)

- The item required to find the brandstone should be easily accessible, and not require you to pop the inventory then spam the ping. When the multitool is not fed it should still be linked to the action key if there is no event that requires it while the map is active.

- When there is a brandstone meteor available to be harvested the multitool should react to show, YES there is an active brandstone that has fallen that you have not harvested, and otherwise be dormant on its icon. It IS supposed to be detecting these for you

- This "Bonus harvest" needs to work better, as it requires players to mark the turf THEN harvest, meaning you miss out on it if 5 people don't have the skill and mark it before you begin harvest

- (personal preference) the harvesting tool upgrade that gives skill 3, should award our harvesting tool rewards, unbound magic or watchwork sprockets (what we have equiped), but this is more "would be nice what i bought was being used instead of this required skill 3 for best results"

 

Overall I hope this gets vastly improved to be more "user friendly" and not result in first timers screwing up before they can get their first harvest. In fact I think the Multitool should be presented to the player at the front door of the map, and MENTION that there is someone at the Astral that can upgrade its functionality.

[Abelisk.4527]

I've already commanded three squads for Brandstone mining. Here are my thoughts:

 

- Confusing at first. I never knew the Astralarium was where you went to wait for the impacts to occur. When they land and the NPC announces it, equip your mount (preferrably a Griffon) and use the Locate skill from the multitool (only available when mounted up). It takes less than a minute to get to sites. There are only about eight sites total so it's very easy to remember the locations.

 

- Digging. Many people have no clue how this works so I have copied the following statement to share to the squad often: "Spam 1 off crater -> Use 2 at destination -> Use F to mine Brandstone Chunk -> Repeat!". Honestly if you read the tooltip skills as well as Scholar Fatima's advice you should be able to know how to dig.

 

- It's best to do it in a squad. Have 30-50 people be the end goal, so you have more people being able to mark the site (use the 5 skill).

 

- My squads swap IPs for faster respawn times between impacts. During Palawadan the server count increases due to an influx in players, allowing for faster CD respawn between impact events.

 

- Lastly, it's a slightly confusing system but when you understand how it works it feels like you're apart of an actual mining team hunting down rare materials or something. It makes gathering really interesting and I hope Anet makes gathering as interesting and fun in the future!

 

 

[KWman.3012]

The site (a huge rock) disappear in a minute. It's all a waste of time.

[Kingkarool.9216]

> @Sojourner.4621 said:

> > @Rauderi.8706 said:

> > > 3: Even if the scan points out there is an impact site you are highly UNLIKELY to even get there before it vanishes due to limited time it exists upon crashing down.

> >

> > Argh. I was *right on top of one* yesterday, trying to figure out how to excavate the ruddy thing (My #2 command wasn't working for some reason...) when it disappeared. It definitely needs to exist longer.

>

> the glowy bit is NOT where you dig... once you reach the stone drop site, you spam the 1 key until a little colum of light pops up NEAR the purple area, then go to that and dig there.

 

you're a f*** genious!! i was searching for this everywhere... thank you!

[Zero.3409]

You can hear a slight whistling sound when one falls from the sky (not sure whether or not you have to be close to the crash site to hear this...), though it's definitely easiest to just stand next to the Volatile magic vendor who tells you whenever one lands. Also, if you take note of when a meteor lands, you can bring out your detector 15 min later to find the next one ^^

But I agree that they could have better informed players about how to mine the brandstone, as the process can be quite confusing (where to mine and the use of F vs skill 3)

[crosknight.3041]

My main issue with the meteor is the ping ability. Sometimes the effect doesn't load so you're left clueless on where to dig until it does. Few times i get there near the start but get nothing because the ping doesn'teffect doesn't load. A lot of the time it feels like a world boss like frozen maws shaman (can never see my skills there)