Overview of my experience thus far
So far I have played for around 50 hours in the last 3 days split about evenly between a mage character and a warrior character. I started the game with about 15 of my buddies from a previous game and we recruited many people i/g as well as from the discord and quickly got the first town that didn't use a p2w skip package down at the morning of the 2nd day.

Equipment costs and time gates on time gates

The resource cost on top of the time gate for gear was already pretty steep before, but now equipment costs have been increased across the board and the time gate and resource cost for crafting intermediate materials like leathers and ingots is still the same. In fact you produce less metal because the number of smelters you can place on a blacksmith plot was reduced from 8 to 6. This changes the time it takes to gear a person from what used to be like 6 hours to make a kit to something closer to 20 hours for a kit that requires intermediate resources.

Also this is pretty imbalanced because mages do not need to go through any time gate and simply craft intermediate resources using monster drops like spider silk in the weaving table. Compared to mage gear the resources that go into metal gear is EXTREMELY limited and has a 6 hour respawn time, actually creating another issue where mathematically there is simply not enough nodes on the map for someone to outfit a 20 man clan in any reasonable amount of time.

Recipe tangent
Also on top of this I hear that monsters are supposed to drop recipes for equipment now. I think that's insane, from a game design perspective you are adding an RNG drop chance grind to mechanics that are already gated by both time gates as well as resource gates. Let people make gear. Recipes should be tied to tech if anything.

My solution for equipment crafting time/resource cost
If your going to make a full plate set cost 20 ingots, and your only going to let me place 6 smelters on a black smith plot, and it has to take 4 hours, than 5 ore should convert to 5 ingots like the tanning tubs do. This solves the problem with the dramatic scarcity of ore as well as drops the time it takes to make a kit back down to around 6 hours which I believe was reasonable.

Alignment and Risk vs Reward

I believe that the changes to alignment are HOT GARBAGE, first of all I get it Jacopo, you want to protect the newbies you want to make sure that they don't get slammed out of the game but these changes to neutral and blue do not make any sense at all in a resource driven game. If you want it so that people don't drop gear, then EVERYONE should not drop gear or EVERYONE should at least drop some gear. Having it like it is now is honestly insane unless you want to promote only naked mage red pvp.

It simply doesn't make sense to go red unless you are a very low tier low gear type build. You risk everything for the meager reward of bandages and wolf meat and some other trash, it just doesn't add up and really discourages the red playstyle to the degree that literally all the rocks on the map are constantly tapped with no contest because no one wants to go red because they are the only ones who get punished for pvping.

ARPK Playstyle note
Anti Red Player Killer or ARPK players are at such a MASSIVE advantage right now, not only do you get GOLD for killing reds and jailing them but you can literally loot their entire kit without even risking your own, all you risk are bandages. Being a sheriff has never been more profitable. Compared to the red criminal, the blue arpk ganker is at such a massive advantage it doesn't even make sense.

Resident requirement nuance
So one of the reasons I really don't like these alignment changes is because you already had a very nuanced and elegant way of preventing Red players from going on absolute murdering sprees. Red players still needed to build towns and red players still needed to convince other players to come live there as residents. Removing this requirement from town rank ups is not only silly, it's completely counter intuitive to the type of environment you say you want to create. At this point why would any guild even need residents outside of sucking taxes out of them. Residents should 100% be a requirement for town upgrades and city holders should have to engage in a gameplay loop that involves enticing players to move in and stay there.

My solution for alignment
Like I said, I think the only way the alignment system will work properly for all types of players is if all players are generally subject to the same rules. If that means that full loot needs to be removed from everyone than so be it. Reds already have a massive disadvantage, they can be jailed and have to pay a fine or not play the character for a day or two, they don't need a second massive disadvantage that neither of the other alignments share. Either everyone drops none of their gear or everyone drops pieces based on karma. I would be fine with reds dropping all gear if blues at least dropped 2 pieces like it was before, in the games current state I honestly cannot say I can recommend the game to anybody mainly because of these alignment issues.

@grofire Reds already have a massive disadvantage they get jailed. What the hell do you mean just wait for demon planet. Right now there is 2 pve world.

@grofire The other worlds don't exist and probably never will at this rate. Stop trying to shape the human world like arboreus. It should be a middle ground for players who want PvP as well as Politics and Economy. Players who don't want PvP should wait for arboreus.

@grofire The Human world is supposed to be all types of players not just one or the other. Also Red players already get punished because they can be jailed. If no one else drops the equipment that takes 20 hours to make, than red players should also not drop equipment.

@grofire This alignment system is JUNK

@Radamand It already does suck being red they get caught and go to jail for 2 days, they shouldn't also lose their gear if no one else does. It's simply an inequivalent risk reward and completely destroys the red playstyle.

Basically since it's come to this point and clearly no one wants to drop gear in a game where it takes 20 hours for a kit, maybe no one should drop gear, not reds not blues not neutrals. just make it a fucking inventory loot system and call it a day, but don't completely ruin the risk reward for red players and call that balanced.

@spoletta Well to be fair I'm pretty much just asking for the partial drops to come back or reds to not drop gear either. Even if reds didn't drop gear they would still be at a massive disadvantage and even if it was partial loot they would still be losing everything. If your going to have it so no one can gain gear from PvP but blues that just lets blues snowball whereas reds have to constantly grind to be geared and instead will use naked mage builds.

@GamerSeuss You seem to have mistaken Syndesia as the PvE planet Arboreus come soon, your wrong about everything you said.

Basically since it's come to this point and clearly no one wants to drop gear in a game where it takes 20 hours for a kit, maybe no one should drop gear, not reds not blues not neutrals. just make it a fucking inventory loot system and call it a day, but don't completely ruin the risk reward for red players and call that balanced.

@spoletta Well to be fair I'm pretty much just asking for the partial drops to come back or reds to not drop gear either. Even if reds didn't drop gear they would still be at a massive disadvantage and even if it was partial loot they would still be losing everything. If your going to have it so no one can gain gear from PvP but blues that just lets blues snowball whereas reds have to constantly grind to be geared and instead will use naked mage builds.

@grofire The other worlds don't exist and probably never will at this rate. Stop trying to shape the human world like arboreus. It should be a middle ground for players who want PvP as well as Politics and Economy. Players who don't want PvP should wait for arboreus.

@Radamand It already does suck being red they get caught and go to jail for 2 days, they shouldn't also lose their gear if no one else does. It's simply an inequivalent risk reward and completely destroys the red playstyle.

@grofire This alignment system is JUNK

@grofire Reds already have a massive disadvantage they get jailed. What the hell do you mean just wait for demon planet. Right now there is 2 pve world.

@grofire The Human world is supposed to be all types of players not just one or the other. Also Red players already get punished because they can be jailed. If no one else drops the equipment that takes 20 hours to make, than red players should also not drop equipment.

I don't know there's definitely a massive grind. Town tech is a massive grind. Metal gear and Hide gear is a massive time gated grind. The game definitely has tons of grind and it's been 3 days and I haven't seen anyone PvPing. Those 2 blurbs about no grind and jumping right into the action are very deceitful. Also seriously have you built anything in the game @GamerSeuss ? Every building takes like 2 carts of stone and a couple carts of wood.

Overview of my experience thus far
So far I have played for around 50 hours in the last 3 days split about evenly between a mage character and a warrior character. I started the game with about 15 of my buddies from a previous game and we recruited many people i/g as well as from the discord and quickly got the first town that didn't use a p2w skip package down at the morning of the 2nd day.

Equipment costs and time gates on time gates

The resource cost on top of the time gate for gear was already pretty steep before, but now equipment costs have been increased across the board and the time gate and resource cost for crafting intermediate materials like leathers and ingots is still the same. In fact you produce less metal because the number of smelters you can place on a blacksmith plot was reduced from 8 to 6. This changes the time it takes to gear a person from what used to be like 6 hours to make a kit to something closer to 20 hours for a kit that requires intermediate resources.

Also this is pretty imbalanced because mages do not need to go through any time gate and simply craft intermediate resources using monster drops like spider silk in the weaving table. Compared to mage gear the resources that go into metal gear is EXTREMELY limited and has a 6 hour respawn time, actually creating another issue where mathematically there is simply not enough nodes on the map for someone to outfit a 20 man clan in any reasonable amount of time.

Recipe tangent
Also on top of this I hear that monsters are supposed to drop recipes for equipment now. I think that's insane, from a game design perspective you are adding an RNG drop chance grind to mechanics that are already gated by both time gates as well as resource gates. Let people make gear. Recipes should be tied to tech if anything.

My solution for equipment crafting time/resource cost
If your going to make a full plate set cost 20 ingots, and your only going to let me place 6 smelters on a black smith plot, and it has to take 4 hours, than 5 ore should convert to 5 ingots like the tanning tubs do. This solves the problem with the dramatic scarcity of ore as well as drops the time it takes to make a kit back down to around 6 hours which I believe was reasonable.

Alignment and Risk vs Reward

I believe that the changes to alignment are HOT GARBAGE, first of all I get it Jacopo, you want to protect the newbies you want to make sure that they don't get slammed out of the game but these changes to neutral and blue do not make any sense at all in a resource driven game. If you want it so that people don't drop gear, then EVERYONE should not drop gear or EVERYONE should at least drop some gear. Having it like it is now is honestly insane unless you want to promote only naked mage red pvp.

It simply doesn't make sense to go red unless you are a very low tier low gear type build. You risk everything for the meager reward of bandages and wolf meat and some other trash, it just doesn't add up and really discourages the red playstyle to the degree that literally all the rocks on the map are constantly tapped with no contest because no one wants to go red because they are the only ones who get punished for pvping.

ARPK Playstyle note
Anti Red Player Killer or ARPK players are at such a MASSIVE advantage right now, not only do you get GOLD for killing reds and jailing them but you can literally loot their entire kit without even risking your own, all you risk are bandages. Being a sheriff has never been more profitable. Compared to the red criminal, the blue arpk ganker is at such a massive advantage it doesn't even make sense.

Resident requirement nuance
So one of the reasons I really don't like these alignment changes is because you already had a very nuanced and elegant way of preventing Red players from going on absolute murdering sprees. Red players still needed to build towns and red players still needed to convince other players to come live there as residents. Removing this requirement from town rank ups is not only silly, it's completely counter intuitive to the type of environment you say you want to create. At this point why would any guild even need residents outside of sucking taxes out of them. Residents should 100% be a requirement for town upgrades and city holders should have to engage in a gameplay loop that involves enticing players to move in and stay there.

My solution for alignment
Like I said, I think the only way the alignment system will work properly for all types of players is if all players are generally subject to the same rules. If that means that full loot needs to be removed from everyone than so be it. Reds already have a massive disadvantage, they can be jailed and have to pay a fine or not play the character for a day or two, they don't need a second massive disadvantage that neither of the other alignments share. Either everyone drops none of their gear or everyone drops pieces based on karma. I would be fine with reds dropping all gear if blues at least dropped 2 pieces like it was before, in the games current state I honestly cannot say I can recommend the game to anybody mainly because of these alignment issues.