Harvesting Update
 

Starting today, how you gather minerals and wood from Mining and Woodcutting is changing.
We're naming it the Harvesting Update, and it looks something like this!
https://i.imgur.com/MNSDEEu.gif

The way this works is that where you would previously just harvest away by mashing the attack button, instead a small bar with a pointer will come up above your player.
When you swing again, you will hit the tree with the power the pointer is at. The closer your pointer is to the yellow area (the smash zone), the more damage you will deal. If you hit the smash zone, you will gain x1 combo, up to a max of x5, and deal bonus damage based on whatever tool you are using. Higher combo will add more damage to your swing, even if you miss the smash zone!
If you reach x5 combo, the next swing you make will always break the rock or tree that you are harvesting, even if you miss the smash zone.
The minor benefit of breaking the rock or tree with a full combo is that it saves the life of your tool! The fewer swings you take, the more swings you have to harvest later!

Theoretically if a player gets very good at their timing, they can harvest rocks and trees much faster than they ever could before.

If you would like to suggest any changes, I'd suggest that you use our Feedback system in-game. Every ticket submitted gets sent to me in Discord, so I'll read them all even if I'm not online. Even the nasty ones <3

We hope you enjoy the update. Please refrain from harassing any staff because of this update. The original system was written by Orange, and was finished up and applied across the board by me in the last week or so.

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In the following spoiler is the damage for each harvesting tool, as well as the bonus smash damage they deal. I figured at least a handful of people would want to know the specific numbers.

LETS HEAR IT FOR SYM
https://i.imgur.com/oF8ZGex.png

edit: heres a guide to help noobs that dont know what to do
fret not you still do damage if you miss the SMASH bar
https://i.imgur.com/y3o43fY.png

This is great. I don't play Ol west much, but I am lovin it

Very good. It makes mining much faster if you get good (which you eventually will).

Only minor issue is that you have made it so the rock resets after a different player has been hitting the rock and you hit it, why would you want to prevent friends from helping each other to mine? (Although there is probably a very good reason for having this...)

Good job though and nice to see updates finally :)

I'm honestly not sure why everyone is so up in arms about this. I can mine 3 rocks in the time it took to mine 1 previously. GG olwest, even when you make it easier they still complain.

I think you should up the amount of exp and rocks/trees given when u get it to smash completely

Probs make it 3rocks every time it smashes and like a 20% exp boost

Also probs to whoever made the new mining animation ****s dope i haven’t tried woodcutting yet

Also the save yourself feature when u miss one comes in handy thank you

One last thing we can all see that this update is to stop marcoing can we get rid of bat/rats/rocks falling

Exp needs adjusted to be higher and this would be a quality update.

Agreed and it’s very hard for me and tomato to agree on something

I've been trying to get the bats and rats to not spawn. I'm unsure why they're still spawning, since the code that's run to actually spawn the bats/rats is not even in the new rocks/trees. I'll take another look later at it.

I'm glad that everyone here so far likes the update for the same reasons that we wanted to release it.

The reason we decided not to change EXP, or even give bonus EXP on combo break, was that you're consistently harvesting faster now if you're doing the mechanic.
Sure, you can still mine like you used to, and it'll almost always at least hit the damage that you used to (maybe a little lower), but you won't make as much money.
The whole point is that Ol'West is still a game. Mashing a button while facing an NPC is not a game. It's a boring grind. It'll still be a grind, but now it's more interactive, and feels more like an actual skill that you're improving not only in the game, but as a muscle reaction skill.

That said, everything about this update is subject to change in the coming weeks as we monitor how it does. We'll see.

Is graal ol west on pc?

I think only Facebook works

Am i the only one who finds this to be really addictive? :o

Feels pretty good to just 6 shot a rock

After using this method for a few days now I must admit i like it but theres a bug ive ran into which i dont know if it only affects woodcutting and not mining. Also ive only used my android to farm so far so i dont know if its a device issue and it doesnt affect ios as well. Check the image below to see what I mean, please show this to symm he should be able to fix it easily.

One last thing i recommend making the whole bar adjustable to see in settings almost like the zoom feature on classic for controls but for the bars in mining and woodcutting cause its hard to see the bar for some cause of how small it is. I sometimes have my face really close to the screen just so i can see the bar properly which obviously isnt good for the eyes. Ive ran into people having the same problem across graal including some staff. It would be really nice.

At the moment I'm rebuilding the GUI from scratch, as it's not functioning as intended on some device's screens. It'll be much larger, and bug out less (hopefully).

Not been on to see much but looks pretty cool and good addition than what was before

This is pretty neat as a mechanic except for the fact that you can easily set up a macro to get 5 hit combos 100% of the time

I hope you realize that's the only thing that potentially stops a botter from being fully afk unless you've already thought of a better system to combat those

The “smash zone”is randomized every time

I know it's randomized but that does nothing to prevent macroing
It takes no skill to set up a macro that can find the yellow area + arrow anywhere on your screen and make it click when they align

A macro’er that uses color defining scripts?? Impossibru they only use the “spam x button and move” pattern but yea there’s always going to be macro’ers we’re looking more into it. Maybe something that moves the player or causes them to stop till something is done. I’m even up to ideas to help stop these evildoers and their spam 1 key :)

This is an excellent implementation :) actually thoroughly enjoy this, find myself doing skills for the fun of it as opposed to the grind. Great job

Also from my own perspective as a profound cheater, I would look into implementations that prevent slowing down of framerate to hit the zones with ease as that is probably the first thing I wouldve tried to do

This is a good update, I like this update a lot. But this update took away what made mining and woodcutting different from fishing. Fishing requires you to constantly look at the screen doing it while mining and woodcutting is more mindlessly, you can multitask it. This new update took away the mindless farming from mining and woodcutting. And yes while it helps get a lot more new player into mining and farming it also caused a lot of people who has been mining and woodcutting frequently to stop mining and woodcutting(news straight from the pms of STEENA). I do not see why we can’t have the best of both world? Maybe there can be two type of pickaxe and the pickaxe you buy is how you’re gonna mine. I do not hate this update it got me mining awhile until I realized fishing still makes the most money, but I am looking out for those people who have stopped mining and they’re the people that has been mining a long time.

Uhmm how about adding it as an option? Like if enabled,the new update may be used and if disabled,the old one can be used...Just an idea of mine xD

For the time being, the Harvesting update has been rolled back to the old harvesting system.
This is because the interface was regularly buggy for certain tablets and android devices, where the internal resolution was messing with some numbers behind the scene, causing it to either be incredibly small and hard to see, or the bar would be in the entirely wrong place- sometimes not even showing up.

Don't worry, it'll be back. It might be a few weeks though, since I've come to the conclusion that the GUI essentially needs to be rewritten from the ground up using a different method for displaying the information. The side benefit of this is that it'll be much easier to see, since it'll be a much larger display this time around.

"MINING GOT REVERTED NOW"

THINKING WHAT IS THE GOOD THINGS THAT WANT TO UPDATE ON MINING OR WOODCUTTING WHY WOULD FOCUS TO THOSE OTHER JOBS LIKE PAN SIEVEN,BUG CATCHING THAT DONT HAVE A BETTER PROFIT OF GRALATS AND DIDN'T HAVE A LEVELING SYSTEM LIKE OTHER JOBS.

YOU DONT GOTTA CAPS LOCK EVERYTHING

It takes a lil bit of skill :,)

also its very possible lmao

I wouldn't call it skill when all you need is to know in what order you should place each action.

Also, I'm pretty sure ihermes was being sarcastic in the first part of his post lol

ik i was joking Euuuuuuuuugeeeen, the joke being that a majority of graalians are 2 stupid 2 do anything complex with macros lol

O yeh that’s probably true

Very cool addition. When I originally coded this, I could not think of a way to make it more interesting than it was. I added in the bats and rats to make it so that you can't just get a bot and farm for hours. It makes you run around a little bit. Kind of like random-events on Runescape, but more dumbed-down. What you've done here Symm nails it right on the head. Great job.

It's been just a little while now since this update has been rereleased, now updated with some much needed improvements. One thing that I have noticed, is that the skill bar is a lot easier to see when I zoom in. In the initial release, I wasn't able to do more than maybe 5 minutes or so before feeling the strain on my eyes, and a potential headache coming on. I want to give some major kudos and props for making it easier on the eyes. Thank you!

All changes that are made in the game, are made in an effort to improve the gameplay experience for all players in general, and they really do care to hear what you think and have to say. The game starts and ends with the players. Players are the customers that determine if it's a success or a failure. Nobody wants it to fail. We all want to see it succeed. Therefore, if you want to give props or suggestions on ways of improving something, or if you think that certain changes are not an improvement on your personal gameplay experience, please take a moment to say something here to open some discussion on the topic, and also use the Feedback system in the game. Simply open the main menu, select Feedback, state your thoughts, and send. Be honest. You can say freely if you disagree with something. They aren't going to judge you. Your feedback is very important, and should be treated as such. (Please keep in mind that Feedback is a read only sort of thing, and there will not be any direct replies. You can also use feedback to report any other bugs or issues that you have in the game.)

Now, on to asking the rest of the players what they think and feel. There are pros and cons to this new system, as there were with the system that we had prior. I would love to hear what you all think. If you aren't currently registered here already, please take the time to do so. Also... please, please, please use the Feedback system in the game. It's something that all players have access to in-game, and all admins can see, including management and the development team.

While I personally still can't use the new system for mining for long periods of time like I could with the previous system that we had for many years prior, I really do appreciate the improvements. I still need to take breaks for my eyes here and there, but I can actually do it now! We also have some players raving about how much faster they can level up compared to before, and we also have some players that have worked hard with the old system to get far in levels, that now feel disappointed in the new system. What are your personal thoughts? Please do share here, and also use the in-game feedback as well. Thank you all for taking the time to read this. I realize that it was far more lengthy than I originally intended.

TL;DR feedback your opinion on the update

Perhaps increase the level cap, and implement level locked mining areas, so older players can experience the leveling up too and get benefit aswell.

I'm thinking about removing the X multiplier for lower level rocks as it doesn't serve much of a purpose since you can break the rock in the time span of reaching the max multiplier. Might add it so if you break the rock after reaching a X5 multiplier than you get a higher chance of obtaining more than one rock, 1-3 rocks. Another thing i want to add is rare item drops for mining/woodcutting, can be a hat/weapon/crafting material.

Item: Bandits Gem Bag
Lore: Hidden and forgotten (stolen) goodies which were meant for later retrieval by the bandits who left them there, the fact that they’re still there means the law or worse got to the bandits first though.
Contains: One out of “x amount” of gems
Uses:
- Tier 1: Each gem can be traded in at a NPC for a hat that has design traits of the specific gem you traded in. Once you have all hats you unlock tier 2.
- Tier 2: If you have 5 of a single gem you can trade it in for a weapon that has design traits of the specific gems you traded in. Once you have all weapons you unlock tier 3.
- Tier 3: Allows you to simply sell your leftover gems for some extra gralats.

To eleborate on the different designs, you could simply have a single hat/gun/melee but alter them slightly per gem so apart from the color difference there’s only subtle changes between each one.
The gem bags and gems should probably be untradable aswell so it’s exclusive to those who put effort into the grind and this might give players an incentive to do these skills more than others.

As a level 96 in mining, I do not like the new system at all. As some others said, mining and woodcutting used to be mindless and could be multitasked very easily. Nowadays I have to stop mining after an hour maximum because it’s so boring and you have to keep looking at the screen at all times unless you want to hit 5s and 6s on rocks. I can see the pros and the cons but you should let the players atleast decide which system to use (by making it an option or buying a different kind of pick like suggested). Kinda sucks since ive spent over 700hours using the old system and now they force me with a new system that I don’t like at all.