Forums » Crafting and Gathering

My thoughts on tradeskills

    • 28 posts
    April 13, 2016 9:42 AM PDT

    I'm just going to appoligize now, I know this is a wall-o-text post but I felt the need to post my 2cp.

    I have been playing MMOs for 17 years and in every MMO I gravitate to the crafting system, some have been good others horrible.  The same can be said for the “harvesting” systems of those games.  Like most others here I have ideas of what I want to see and what I don’t want to see in the crafting system of Pantheon, in the end we all just have to trust that the Pantheon team will take the best options from these forums to create a superior crafting system.

    For “harvesting” I’ve seen people talk about deconstruction, killing and harvest node style but I haven’t seen anyone mention the vendor purchased mats option.  

    Personally I’m not a huge fan of the harvest node style as it can really ruin the environment and immersion of the game.  It also floods the market with the common items and the value of them is substantially decreased.  

    Deconstruction can work but I’d be concerned about the impact of that on the sacrificing of items for buffs mechanic that is planned.  It may still be a viable option but it would really depend on how the sacrificing works and if the buffs are really worth it vs just breaking the item down.

    I think the killing option just makes sense in this style of game, if you kill a wolf you should have the chance or some ability that allows you to skin it and harvest some meat from the body. 

    When it comes to vendor purchase things become a lot harder.  Who sells the specific items you’re after, how much do they sell for, how much can you sell the completed product back to the vendor for (don’t want to allow someone to actually make a profit by selling back).  On the flip side where would you go find ore on a mob (without deconstructing) and who would want to carry around that kind of extra weight when trying to level.  I’m not saying stick a vendor in every home city with all the stuff needed, make it a challenge to get some or all the components.  Maybe you need to get to a mine town to get the ore you need or pay a substantial fee for the transport of that ore to one of the major cities. Go to the docs for pearls or a gem mine for diamonds and sapphires to make jewelry.

    For the actual crafting system itself I’m in complete agreement that a total RNG system is the worst idea.  I never did get to play VG but I’ve youtubed some videos on how the crafting worked in that game and do see why a lot of people think it was a great system but one thing I would like to see kept from EQ1 was the ability to take some selected crafts “to-go”.  You could go work at a loom or you could buy a sewing kit and make things while you were waiting on mana.  One of the things I loved about EQ1 crafting was the ability to make arrows for the tank while we were out and about not being chained to a TS station for hours before I could go out to make sure that the tank had enough arrows for our planned hunting time.

    EQ2 initially had some great ideas with the use of subcomponents and cross craft needs but ultimately it didn’t work because the time to make an item was so long that it was faster to just go out and kill things to buy a piece of vendor gear, get a drop, or just get to lvl 20 and do the armor quests.  I would love to see some type of component needs from other skills to make the final items but the time to make all the pieces can’t be longer than just going out and hunting the gear.

    For the system as a whole there are still a lot of questions that the Devs need to answer before the “How are we getting supplies”, “How exactly are we going to make these items”, and “How many crafts can one character do” questions will have much meaning.  IMO the “What types of trades are there going to be” and “What types of items are going to be made” are the more important questions that need answered.  I think anyone who’s a crafter understands that every crafting class needs to have some type of “consumable” item for them to be truly viable long term, if all you make is armor eventually everyone will have what they need and without an influx of new characters there’s no one to sell to.  

     

    Ultimately before the dev team focuses on the How’s of the crafting system they need to determine the What’s and evaluate the impacts to and from the adventure side.  Until the What’s are answered I couldn't care less about the How.  Much like the team is focusing on the raw mechanics of the game before polishing the environment to look amazing they need to focus on the raw mechanics(items to be made) of the crafting system before polishing it(how we craft them).

    • 15 posts
    April 13, 2016 10:18 AM PDT

    I, respectfully, disagree with some aspects of this. I dont think you should have to adventure to craft. While i agree, that killing wolves or XXX could/should yeild some possible mats, i shouldnt be required to do so. If i want to use an AH system to, stimulate the games economy, i should be able to just buy the mats from a player, BUT that costs money that most likely will not be recouped. Cheap mats off a vendor of such low quality that your happy to break even selling them back to a vendor should be an acceptable grind for those early levels. Of course the new start up of any game is were, lets face it, its usually crazy pricing from the player base, until the games economy starts to stabilize. Crafters often pay the price early to get going. This all works out over time, but its always crafters paying the early price.

    Vendors should sell components required to complete recipes, at an early stage of crafting, maybe thats all you might need to level up the novice levels, or early enough each each tiered system. With further mats being required to improve recipes for higher/better level gear/items.

    Theres nights i just feel like crafting, period. If i have a 3 hour play window, why should i HAVE to adventure 2 of them to be able to craft for the 3rd.

    Maybe i'm reading too much into this, and I apologize if thats the case, but just wanted to clarify.

    • 28 posts
    April 13, 2016 10:36 AM PDT

    I'm in total agreement that there should be some way to craft without having to adventure.  The part about purchaced items being harder comes from an issue I saw in EQ1 that lasted for years and nearly destroyed the economy on the server I was on.  If you had a high enough CHA you could purchace 2 small pieces of ore and combine them, if your sill was trivial you never failed, you'd then sell the resulting medium piece of ore for a PROFIT of up to 2 silver per combine.  Now that may not seem like a lot but when you have people doing that for hours it adds up to a lot of profit with 0 risk.

    I'd be all for some type of a crafters guild where you could get "training supplies" for a trade that could be used to skill up where you break even, or possibly make a small profit, when you sell back the "used supplies", however I'd want it to be limited to only being avaliable if your skill is below a specific level, or to a specific number of crafts per day or week on the account.  That way it wouldn't be reasonable to just keep doing that to make money but give the crafter a little bit to be able to start buying supplies from those that do adventure.

    The idea with having to go run somewhere to get the supplies cheaper (allow you to break even) was to make it so there was some risk for the reward.  You took the risk and made it to the source so your reward is being able to break even on a combine.  Depending on how the failure system when actually crafting works you may or may not actually break even in the end, but at least there would be a chance for it.

    • 15 posts
    April 13, 2016 10:53 AM PDT

    Gotcha.

    Now when it comes to traveling, i think that should be tied into a completely different set of new gear, maybe race based? Maybe even faction based, i'd prefer. And, make those components BOP, so you dont have friends just running around mailing you stuff to grind thru. You should have to work at it yourself, help should be ok, but only for the extra mats you will need once your high enough to improve on those recipes. Hard but not difficult. Some might consider this a time sink, but if you get to sit in the exact same place, you just promote more botting, imho.