Gathering & Resources

Some of you may wonder why I would cover a topic like gathering and resources before covering weapons and armor.  The reason for this is that every single item of gear in Albion was crafted by players from resources gathered by players.  There are no gear drops in Albion, no magical armor fairy that gifts you a shiny new helmet. While some players may never gather a thing in their life, they still rely on the gathering and crafting of others.  Therefore as a new adventurer in Albion it is important for you to be able to recognize type and tier of resources.

Sidenote: The only items that are generated by the System are farming seeds/baby livestock and Legendary Founder Pack rewards.  While the Legendary Founder Pack rewards does include a mount and an armor set, these Founders items are T3 and are quickly irrelevant.  They merely benefit the legendary founder for the first 2 minutes (for armor) or 2 days or so (for the mount).

Resource Type
There are 5 different types of resources and within those types there are differences in tier and rarity.  Because not all weapons require all types of resources, many players gather only those resources that most closely benefit themselves.  That way they can save on invested time and on Learning Points.  All resources must be refined in order to be used in crafting. (See the article on Crafting and Refining - coming soon).  The resource requirements for any item can be viewed by clicking on the item (in game or in the Destiny Board) and clicking on "Resources".

The five types of resources are as follows:
Fiber - Refined into Cloth and used primarily for any armor in the Mage Set and such weapons as the hammer and mace, the off hand tome and torch, and the healing staffs. Also used in making bags, capes, furniture and armored horses.

Hide - Refined into Leather and used for any armor in the Hunter Set and weapons such as quarterstaff, daggers, swords and tomes. Also used in making bags, capes and saddling mounts.

Ore - Refined into Metal Bars and used for any armor in the Warrior Set and most weapons including all of the offensive mage staffs, spears, shields, crossbows, axes, quarterstaff, daggers, swords, hammers and mace. Also used for crafting tools, furniture and armored horses.

Wood Logs - Refined into Planks and used in many weapons including bows, all staffs, spears, crossbow, axes, torches and shields. Also used in making tools, furniture and saddling oxen.

Rock - Refined into Stone Blocks. Stone is used exclusively for buildings and for demolition hammers.  While it may seem to be the least necessary resource since no one wears it, it is actually vitally important as all refining and crafting buildings in Albion are built by players (with the exception of the starter zone cities which only go up to T3).  Therefore all buildings in the cities have stone requirements to tier them up to the level needed to make advanced gear, and many people also build their own crafting stations on their personal islands to avoid paying the heavy usage fees charged by many landowners in town.

Resource Tier
In Albion everything is divided into tiers from 1-8.  A higher tier is more powerful and more rare and takes more work to be able to utilize.  Resources are also divided into tiers and to craft a tier 6 axe, for example, you will need to have the T6 resources required to make it (in this case metal bars and leather).  Resources must also be refined before they can be used in crafting and in order to be refined they must be refined up from a lower tier.  For example, to refine a T3 wooden log, you must first gather a T2 log and refine that. Then take the refined T2 plank and the T3 log and refine that into one T3 plank.  All refining starts at T2 and builds up from there.  Tier 1 resources (trees/rocks/tiny animals) are used primarily for making the world look full and while T1 logs and rock are used in buildings, there is basically never a need to kill a bunny after the first 3 minutes of your character's life.

Each tier of a resource node had a different appearance to make it easier to tell at a glance what resource you are looking at.  Each tier of node also contains a different amount of resources per node.  The lower tier resources are more abundant per node and get increasingly more rare as they tier up.  A T2 node contains 12/12 when full. T3 = 9T4 = 7T5 = 5, T6 = 3, T7 = 2, T8 = 1.  So not only are there far fewer T8 nodes within the Albion world, each node only produces one resource.  In addition, resources respawn at different rates according to tier. So while seeing a cut down T2 tree indicates that someone just passed by and cut it down, a T8 tree stump could have been sitting there for hours.

Enchanted Resources Starting with tier 4 resources, resource nodes also have the chance to be enchanted.  This is shown visually by a circle of glowing dots floating around the resources.  Enchanted resources are more powerful than regular resources and can be used to create enchanted versions of that tier of gear. Stone is never enchanted.

There are 4 levels of resource rarity:
Common - the base level of resource, no floating glowing aura
Uncommon - equivalent to one tier higher than common of the same tier and denoted by GREEN glowy aura. There dots are also numbered at the bottom of the item icon - 2 green dots is Uncommon.
Rare - two tiers higher than common and denoted by BLUE aura and indicated by 3 blue dots on the item icon.
Exceptional - three tiers higher than common and shown by PURPLE aura and indicated by 4 purple dots on the item icon.

So an Exceptional tier 4 Great Axe (which would be called a 4.4 Great Axe) is actually equivalent in item power to a common tier 7 Great Axe.

Elementals
In many maps it is also possible to find elementals of the resource type most common in that biome.  So in the Highlands you find stone elementals, in snow maps you find ore elementals and in swamps you find plant elementals.  I do hope to find tree elementals in forests in the future.  Elementals are basically living resource nodes which must be killed before they can be harvested like a normal resource node. Elementals can also be enchanted.

Where to Find Them
Each resource type has different tendencies on where it will be found within a map tile.  While there is a lot of variety with spawn locations, it is more likely to find fiber growing alongside water or along the top of cliffs.  Ore and stone are more likely to be found around the base of cliff walls. Trees and animals don't really seem to have favorite locations within a map tile and are all over.  However in general with any resource, the lower tiers within that map tile tend to be found closer to the roads and the higher tiers within that map are farther off the beaten path.

Gathering Tools 
Now, in order to actually gather resources you must be carrying the proper tool in your inventory.  It does not need to be equipped, it just needs to be available.  Each type of resource requires its own unique tool in order to gather it.  Fiber requires sickle, ore requires pickaxe, wood requires wood axe, hide requires skinning knife and stone requires stone hammer.  Tools also take skill to use and you must level up your ability to use the specific tool before you can equip the next tier of tool.

Tools can gather all of that type of resource in its tier or below, and as a bonus can collect common resources of one tier higher.  So a T5 sickle can collect any T2-T5 fiber - including enchanted versions - and also common T6 fiber.

Tools lose durability as they are used and will need to be repaired at a repair station in town periodically to keep them in working order. While gathering it is important to note that enchanted resources give much better xp than common resources in addition to just being more valuable in general.  So if you want to level tools its pretty much always worth to stop and grab that rare or exceptional resource for the xp alone, not to mention that exceptional resources tend to fetch a high price on the markets.  For this reason I suggest always carrying tools on you, so you never miss an opportunity.  (Obviously if you are being chased by a pack of bloodthirsty pk-ers maybe you should live first and come back later for the rare resource.)

Two other notes about gathering. First of all, there are two types of bonus gathering yeild in the game.  The first is Premium Bonus, which is available to anyone with active premium status.  With premium status you passively have a 50% chance to get a double helping of what you are gathering.  So if you are currently gathering 3 resources and your premium bonus procs, then you get an extra 3. If the node you are mining only has 1 resource and you get a premium proc, then you get an extra 1 resource.

The second type of gathering yield bonus is the Gather Bonus.  This is determined by your mastery with each tier of tool.  As you gather more and more you achieve higher and higher mastery level with each tier of the tool and each mastery level grants you and additional 10% gathering yield.   This doesn't mean that you always gain 10% more, but instead that you have a 10% chance to get a bonus proc similar to a premium proc.  These two bonuses are not exclusive and can proc at the same time.  So occasionally you will be mining 4 of a resource and get both the Gather Bonus and the Premium Bonus, making that 4 resources multiply into 12.

Another thing to take note of while gathering is your carry capacity and carry weight. These are affected by your bag and your boots, and your horse while mounted. Equipping a higher tier bag or switching your boots to carry capacity will increase how much weight you can carry and allow you to gather more on a trip without becoming overburdened.  (The boot ability Flee also affects carry capacity for a short time.)  There are different levels of being overburdened.  Your carry percentage, which can be viewed in your inventory - allows you to move freely anywhere between 0% and 100% with yellow writing.  Once it hits 100% with red writing you are overburdened and your speed is decreased.  The first level of overburden is not that much of a problem if you are gathering somewhere safe. However if you are attacked by bandits it will probably lead to your death as they will easily be able to keep up with you.  This first level extends from 100% to 129%.  Once you hit 130% your speed is dramatically reduced.  This speed will definitely get you killed if someone finds you. Your speed decreases again at 160% and again at 200%.  At 800% you lose the ability to move at all.

Biomes and Zone Level
I will cover this more in depth in my guide to Zone Types, but I will go over them briefly here.  The types and tiers of resources found in any specific map tile are affected by the map tile's tier range and biome type.  Biome types are easily identifiable just by glancing at the world map as they have different base colors. However if you ever want to double check what resources are available in certain map tile you can easily tell this from the world map. Open the map with K or the globe icon in the lower right. Then click on a map tile. At the bottom of the map is a key with a break down of the resources found there and their tier range.  This shows you what can possibly spawn there, but keep in mind that each biome has an abundant resource type, a middle one and a rare one.  So while it is possible to find trees in the Highlands, its not a great place to go looking for them.  Below is a quick break down of the resources per biome.  (I am going to use their common names rather than proper names cuz I can't think of them all atm.)

Highlands (gray-green on world map) - stone, ore, tree
Snow (white) - ore, stone, fiber
Swamp (green-brown) - fiber, tree, leather
Desert (tan) - leather, fiber, ore
Forest (not released yet) - tree, leather, stone

Destiny Board & Learning Points

The most crucial game element that you need to understand as a new player to Albion Online is the Destiny Board.  This board shows your character's progress and growth as a warrior, a gatherer, a farmer or any other role you would like to play. The Destiny Board is like a giant tree of missions that unlock a character's ability to use certain tools or weapons.  It basically lets you know exactly what your character is capable of and what they need to do to unlock other skills for the future.

The Destiny Board can be viewed from its default hotkey N or by clicking the button in the top right of your screen that looks like 4 nodes connected by lines.

Destiny Board Basics
When you first look at the Destiny Board, you will see that it is divided straight down the middle by a white line. This line contains the missions tied to your Adventurer Level.  The missions below the center on the white line are the introductory missions that you did in the first five minutes of that characters life (gather a T1 stone, kill a bunny, wear the bunny, etc.).  The missions above that reflect your Adventurer Level up to level 8.  Adventurer Level is tied to what tier mounts you can use, what capes and bags are usable and what tier of building you can upgrade or destroy.

On the left of the Adventurer line are the trees for what gear you can wear and what you are capable of in farming, cooking and alchemy.  The weapons and armors are broken up into 3 sets each. The Warrior set contains plate armors and weapons like axes, swords, hammers, crossbow, mace and shields. The Hunter set contains leather armors and weapons such as the bow, spear, nature healing staff, daggers, quarterstaff and torch. The Mage tree consists of cloth armors and a variety of magical staffs like fire, frost, arcane, curse, holy healing staff, and the tome off hand weapon.

The farming tree details which seeds or baby farm animals you can plant in your personal island farms and also shows which foods you can cook and which potions you can concoct.

The tool tree shows which tier of tool you can use of each type and your mastery level within each tool tier.  Tool mastery level affects your resource gather bonus.

One the right side of the Adventurer line are all of the crafting trees.  These show what tier of gear you can craft, which accessories you can craft and which resources you are able to refine.  The weapon/armor crafting trees have the same set up as the weapon armor trees on the left but affect what you can create, not what you can use.


Learning Points
Once you get past the introductory missions in a specific mission line, you will notice that the mission experience bar when viewed from the Destiny Board is broken up into two differently colored sections. The first 20% of the bar is red and the second 80% is colored yellow.  This reflects the difference in Learning Point cost.

Learning Points are a type of currency that is unique to your character.  As a character with Premium status you start with 100 LP on your first day of Premium (minimum of a 30 day Premium time to unlock this one time bonus). After that you passively generate 20 LP a day for the duration of your time with Premium status. Learning Points can be spent to complete a Destiny Board mission without putting in the work to grind through the xp. Since the only way to get LP is to let it passively generate over time with Premium status, it is wise to not spend your LP frivolously.

While the developers wanted to give players a way to completely skip the grind to unlock a new weapon or skill, they wanted the decision to be a weighty one.  So although you can completely skip most missions just by spending the LP, the first 20% of the experience bar costs 8 times as much per skipped xp as the last 80% of the experience bar.  This makes it way more cost effective to actually put in the work to level up the first 20% of the xp bar before spending your LP.

For example, to unlock the use of T4 swords you need to gain 35,438 kill experience while wearing a T3 sword. You could spend the 47 Learn Points to skip this task, or you could put in 30 min of PvE killing with your t3 sword to get through the first 20% of the bar. The LP cost is then only 16 LP for the remaining 80% - a savings of 31 LP (a day and a half of LP) for 30 minutes of work.


Plan Your Focus
One of the most important things to understand in the game is that it is VERY unrealistic to want to do everything with one character.  You are certainly allowed to try if you want to but it will involve a lot of grinding to unlock everything. In fact, I personally do not think that it would even be rewarding to have everything unlocked.  Due to recent changes it is not actually that hard to unlock every weapon and armor at Tier 4, which would allow you to test every weapon's play style and decide which two or three weapons you really enjoy and want to level to a high tier.

So when you start a new character consider what role or play style you would like that character to fill.  Are you a daring player killer who scorns the idea of ever cutting down a tree or picking a flower? Are you the enterprising merchant with an eye for which goods are selling at high price in different cities? Are you the adventurous gatherer who likes to explore dangerous zones for the best resources? Your play style will inform which of your characters attributes you will want to hurry along through the use of Learning Points, and which ones you can leave to level up slowly through grinding.  Completionism is NOT the goal.


Tiers vs Specialization

The next thing you will notice in the structure of the Destiny Board is that it is laid out in concentric circles. Looking specifically at the weapons and armor, this is how the board is laid out, starting from center. Trainee Fighter - unlocks the ability to use T2 weapons and armor. Journeyman Fighter - unlocks the ability to use a certain type of T3 armor or weapon (you must be wearing that type of chest armor or weapon type in T2 in order to advance the experience bar). The next ring contains the Fighter missions. The Fighter missions control what tier of that weapon or armor type you can use.  For example, the Bow Fighter missions will allow you to rank up from a Tier 4 warbow all the way up to a Tier 8 warbow.  The Bow Fighter missions rank up all types of Bows at once (bow, warbow, and longbow) and can be used interchangeably. In order to advance a Fighter mission you need only to be wearing a minimum of T4 of that type.

The next ring in the Destiny Board contains the Specialist missions. These missions are only advanced while wearing a specific armor or weapon.  They do not help you level up or use the next tier of that weapon.  They just give you extra mastery points for the weapon or armor you use the most.  These mastery points make you stronger while wielding that specific weapon - a person with high specialization will deal more damage with an identical weapon than a person with no specialization with that weapon. This helps reward players who are loyal to specific weapons and actually work hard to perfect their play with that specific weapon rather than jumping around and being a jack of all trades.  I have yet to determine how big of a difference Specialist levels make, and in my opinion you should never use LP to level this.  Be careful when selecting a mission to spend LP on. It is VERY easy to spend points on the specialization mission while thinking that you are spending it on tiering up.


Displaying Missions
When you first started a character you probably noticed the missions telling you what to do. They start out simply but by the time you finish the tutorial you will have a lot of available mission and it is not very helpful to  have them all fighting over your display. Underneath the mission display there is a little arrow button pointing up. Click on this to customize which mission types are displayed. There are 5 types of missions - mostly self-explanatory: Crafting, Gathering, Fighting, Farming and Fame Ranking. Fame Ranking is the mission that shows your progress with your Adventurer level. Farming Missions include cooking and alchemy. Turning different mission types on and off will help you only have to look at crafting missions while crafting, or gathering while out gathering.  Or you can uncheck all of them to give yourself more screen space. I personally keep them all turned off when I PvP because if you accidentally click on a mission while fighting it will open up your full screen Destiny Board, which can get you killed.

There is also an option to choose in what size the missions are displayed. Wide gives the most information with complete mission requirements and experience bar numbers, and how many LP to upgrade. Small gives an abbreviated version of Wide.  Mini (my favorite) shows only the icon with the experience bar filling around the edge.  If you hover over the Mini mission, it will tell you the title of the mission, LP to skip, and xp earned/xp total needed.