Forums » Crafting and Gathering

One Tradeskill Per Player?

    • 1618 posts
    December 10, 2016 7:59 PM PST

    Will players be restricted to one crafting skill or will have access to multiple at the same time?

    • 15 posts
    December 10, 2016 9:25 PM PST

    I, for one, even as an avid crafter, would prefer that we are restricted to 1 (or 2 depending on the total amount of tradeskills in game) tradeskill max but not being limited in my secondary skills.

    • 2886 posts
    December 10, 2016 9:32 PM PST

    Krissvalnor said:

    I, for one, even as an avid crafter, would prefer that we are restricted to 1 (or 2 depending on the total amount of tradeskills in game) tradeskill max but not being limited in my secondary skills.

    Definitely agreed. It's just too early to know what it'll be like in game. I would be surprised and disappointed if we can only have one. I see some reasons to limit to amount of tradeskills you can have, but only one is far too restrictive IMO.

    • 432 posts
    December 11, 2016 3:48 AM PST

    Generally for consistence reasons it would make sense if a player could become a Grand Master in only 1 trade skill because it obviously takes much time, dedication and talent to attain such an exceptionnal level .

    On the other hand it wouldn't make much sense to be restricted to only 1 trade skill alltogether .

    For instance a smith could also learn carpentry, bowcraft and jewelcrafting to just name a few other but similar skills . However he'd have only one primary trade skill - smithing .

    Same for an alchemist who could do cooking , spell crafting etc as secondary skill

    • 15 posts
    December 11, 2016 5:07 AM PST

    My comment and preference for a limited number of tradeskill allowed per character comes from the same desire the devs have to foster community and cooperation, if you can do everything yourself why bother to go see another crafter for a component you need for your own craft ?

    • 3 posts
    December 11, 2016 7:54 AM PST

    I agree with Krissvalnor on this one. From the community standpoint, only having one craft skill/character would force community and cooperation.

    One of my favorite memories from Vanguard was the first time I took part in building a guildhall. Knowing that some people have a lot more time to play than others (I am on the not as much time side of things), I am sure that a few members in the guild could have crafted everything had they been able to craft multiple trades from the same character. As it was setup though, it allowed everyone to pitch in and feel like part of the guild/community.

    Of course, by the end of the game, people had multiple toons to cover all the crafting trades, but that's a problem for another day. :)

    • 44 posts
    December 11, 2016 9:46 AM PST

    Egads, I hope not.  I don't like it when I'm held back by an arbitrary limit, especially when its under the pretense of fostering a solid game economy.  There is no logical reason why one character shouldn't be able to delve deeply into any number of tradeskills.  If my character is willing to put in the time to learning them, I should have that option.

    Mastering other tradeskills is often what I do in my "off" time.  Hated it in games like WoW, where I had to have alts if I wanted to work other tradeskills.  I liked the EQ way of doing things in Planes of Power... you could become a master in most anything, but you had to invest a number of AA's and time to do it.  It wasn't for most people, but telling me that I can't do something because I've already maxed out another skill is somewhat preposterous in my opinion.

    ~ Hiwin

     

     

    • 595 posts
    December 11, 2016 10:17 AM PST

    vthorm said:

    Egads, I hope not.  I don't like it when I'm held back by an arbitrary limit, especially when its under the pretense of fostering a solid game economy.  There is no logical reason why one character shouldn't be able to delve deeply into any number of tradeskills.  If my character is willing to put in the time to learning them, I should have that option.

    Mastering other tradeskills is often what I do in my "off" time.  Hated it in games like WoW, where I had to have alts if I wanted to work other tradeskills.  I liked the EQ way of doing things in Planes of Power... you could become a master in most anything, but you had to invest a number of AA's and time to do it.  It wasn't for most people, but telling me that I can't do something because I've already maxed out another skill is somewhat preposterous in my opinion.

    I'm a little on the fence about it myself.  Ultimately, it will come down to how much crafters are need/relied upon by the community and how difficult/time consuming the act of leveling a given Tradeskill will be.  Crafting in Vanguard was incredibly involved and the process of leveling involved acquiring materials, attaining recipes, traveling around the world to gain additional knowledge/skill and countless hours.  Now if a person is truly in Terminus to be a crafter and the majority (or entirety) of their game experience is crafting, then they should have the ability to pursue any number of Tradeskills.  For the vast majority of the player base, this will simply be a non-issue because the time needed to maximize one (much less two or more) will be so immense (especially if they are also adventuring) that they likely will stop at just one, or perhaps never even max a Tradeskill.  Again, this scenario only works if the crafting system is difficult and time consuming enough to effectively "scare" most away.

    Now on the other hand, if leveling and maxing out Tradeskills (particularly multiple) is trivial then I think they should absolutely have a hard cap on the number a single player can pursue.

    • 44 posts
    December 11, 2016 3:10 PM PST

    Exactly, Nikademis.  I couldn't have said it better myself (and didn't). =)

    ~Hiwin

    • 15 posts
    December 11, 2016 7:17 PM PST

    Nikademis said:

    I'm a little on the fence about it myself.  Ultimately, it will come down to how much crafters are need/relied upon by the community and how difficult/time consuming the act of leveling a given Tradeskill will be.  Crafting in Vanguard was incredibly involved and the process of leveling involved acquiring materials, attaining recipes, traveling around the world to gain additional knowledge/skill and countless hours.  Now if a person is truly in Terminus to be a crafter and the majority (or entirety) of their game experience is crafting, then they should have the ability to pursue any number of Tradeskills.  For the vast majority of the player base, this will simply be a non-issue because the time needed to maximize one (much less two or more) will be so immense (especially if they are also adventuring) that they likely will stop at just one, or perhaps never even max a Tradeskill.  Again, this scenario only works if the crafting system is difficult and time consuming enough to effectively "scare" most away.

    Now on the other hand, if leveling and maxing out Tradeskills (particularly multiple) is trivial then I think they should absolutely have a hard cap on the number a single player can pursue.

    That is pretty much what I am hoping for also yes

    • 40 posts
    December 12, 2016 12:22 AM PST

    I would like tradeskills to be class locked.  That way, it would force people to level clerics or tanks.  I don't want each class to have one because that would be way too much leveling but mellee dps can have 2 skills, magic dps can have 2, then you can get 2 more by playing either tank, cleric, support...  Most will have a main class but learning about other classes by playing them is beneficial to your gameplay and to what you bring to the game.  You may also discover that you prefer another class and main change and it can help create some of the more rare classes such as tank (usually one of the least played classes from what I noticed).  Pantheon will likely start large but in a few years, do we really want to repeat EQ1's merc decision?  We all know the negative effects that it had.  People prefered a merc over a real cleric in group because it was one less person to roll on loot.  So real clerics quit or main changed, nobody was creating any more new clerics...Same for tanks.  I think that this is something that needs to be planned from the start because lack of certain classes makes a game unplayable.

     

    I don't think it should be race retricted however.  Playing a race that you do not like to look at can make your immersion in the world less pleasant.

    • 186 posts
    December 12, 2016 12:27 PM PST

    It is an superficial limitation that is for the sake of argument, completely unnecessary.

    If someone says "I want only one skill per character, because they can only realistically be a master of one." Then that person can in fact impose that limitation on themselves. Simple as that, if it breaks your personal immersion or character dynamic, then do what feels right to you.

    to say that this should be the same for everyone really isn't fair. Some people only have 1 character, they focus on that character and never create Alts. I am not one of those people, I love alts, like seriously love alts. I will fill up my character slots with toons that I love as much as one of my three mains (obsessive, I know...) The fact of the matter is, what one person learns, will never impact another persons gameplay.

     On the otherhand, if there is some reason for it (ie. lore based), there should be a limitation. For instance, if Dwarves were to be the only race that could crochet with special icy threads of Dwaveness, then you would HAVE to create a Dwarf.

    Ultimately, whatever they choose to do should match the design of the world, and be used in a way that really captures the joy of crafting. Some of my best memories from crafting were from DAoC, SWG and VG. The systems were well thought out, and you felt like you were really worth something as a craftsmen. These three titles did crafting well, and gave me a sense of accomplishment.

    Cool discussion, just my two cents :)


    This post was edited by VitaKorp3n at December 12, 2016 12:43 PM PST
    • 284 posts
    December 12, 2016 1:57 PM PST

    Well, I think ideally from the perspective of the devs they should look at making the average number of mastered skills per character closer to zero than 1+. Not talking about a hard cap here, I'm talking purely from how they approach difficulty of attaining mastery. It seems to me that games are better served when masters of a craft are not rare because of arbitrary limits but because mastery is immensely difficult. Consequently, people will look to find their own niches in the marketplace, usually as farmers of materials or whatever passes as a soldier of fortune.

     

    • 1618 posts
    December 12, 2016 2:41 PM PST

    patrick83 said:

    I would like tradeskills to be class locked.  That way, it would force people to level clerics or tanks.  I don't want each class to have one because that would be way too much leveling but mellee dps can have 2 skills, magic dps can have 2, then you can get 2 more by playing either tank, cleric, support...  Most will have a main class but learning about other classes by playing them is beneficial to your gameplay and to what you bring to the game.  You may also discover that you prefer another class and main change and it can help create some of the more rare classes such as tank (usually one of the least played classes from what I noticed).  Pantheon will likely start large but in a few years, do we really want to repeat EQ1's merc decision?  We all know the negative effects that it had.  People prefered a merc over a real cleric in group because it was one less person to roll on loot.  So real clerics quit or main changed, nobody was creating any more new clerics...Same for tanks.  I think that this is something that needs to be planned from the start because lack of certain classes makes a game unplayable.

     

    I don't think it should be race retricted however.  Playing a race that you do not like to look at can make your immersion in the world less pleasant.

    I cannot agree here. Tradeskills should not be locked to adventure class. People should choose a tradeskill because they want to do it. People should play the adventure class because they want to do it. Otherwise, the game will feel more like work.

    No one should be "forced" to play tanks or clerics. If you don't like tanking, you should not play one just to be an armoror or what not. That leads to misery in groups from tanks that hate their job or suck. If the dev cannot make tanking or healing fun, that is a whole problem itself. You can't fix a lack of tanks by locking them to trade skills.

    Note, I am not claiming that the developers cannot make tanking fun, just saying your locking issue does not help the situation.

    I do find it funny that you want trade skills to be class locked, but not racial because you think the looks of your toon are too important to lock. For me, the class is far more important than my looks.

    But, I do believe that certain recipes can be race locked, such as special dwarven plate, elven swords, etc. But only done rarely. 

    • 595 posts
    December 12, 2016 3:05 PM PST

    Jimmayus said:

    Well, I think ideally from the perspective of the devs they should look at making the average number of mastered skills per character closer to zero than 1+. Not talking about a hard cap here, I'm talking purely from how they approach difficulty of attaining mastery. It seems to me that games are better served when masters of a craft are not rare because of arbitrary limits but because mastery is immensely difficult. Consequently, people will look to find their own niches in the marketplace, usually as farmers of materials or whatever passes as a soldier of fortune.

    Well said.  If you create a system that is deep enough, rewarding enough and most importantly, difficult enough, these things will work themselves out.  As I mentioned above, there's no need to artificially cap progression so long as the system is naturally difficult enough to facilitate the same effect.

    • 3852 posts
    December 12, 2016 5:23 PM PST

    I see both sides. The logic of allowing someone to do whatever their character has time to do is perhaps the better side.

    In terms of what is good for the game? Since this isn't a Rift system (any class can do anything) or a FFXIV system  (any character can do anything, no alts need apply) there is a benefit to encouraging creation of "alts". And limiting the number of crafts for one character does this. It is also the traditional MMO approach though some games allow an unlimited number of crafts. But FFXIV wgich does still has a specialization system and limits how much one character can specialize so you need "alts" to do everything.

    • 69 posts
    December 12, 2016 10:34 PM PST

    Back when EQ was new-ish, people looked for other crafters that were a master in a certain skill.  It greatly influenced how social the game was back in the beginning.  Looking for a blacksmith to make banded armor at the cost of 1-2 PP per AC was common and a way to meet someone new while they crafted stuff for you.  When EQ changed tradeskills to allow being a grandmaster in all, the crafting community disappeared because everyone could theoretically do it all themselves and it killed the social aspect of the community of crafters.

    World of Warcraft had a great idea in allowing only 1 crafting specialization per toon, but they kind messed up with each tradeskill also having to choose another sub-specialization within the only tradeskill you specialized in (example being having to choose armorer OR weaponsmith as a blacksmith).  I thnk that if you're a blacksmith, you should be able to make all blacksmithing recipies with high enough skill level, not just half.

    The developers have stated a few times about how they want the social aspect of MMOs to come back.  I believe that allowing only 1 tradeskill that can be maxed per toon greatly helps make the game more social in forcing the crafting community to work together with other crafters in order to make a complete product.  I enjoy crafting/tradeskills and although it can be frustrating at times to find someone to help create something, I think it would further the social aspect in game by making the playerbase cooperate with other crafters.

     

    • 40 posts
    December 13, 2016 3:32 AM PST

    Beefcake said:

    I cannot agree here. Tradeskills should not be locked to adventure class. People should choose a tradeskill because they want to do it. People should play the adventure class because they want to do it. Otherwise, the game will feel more like work.

    No one should be "forced" to play tanks or clerics. If you don't like tanking, you should not play one just to be an armoror or what not. That leads to misery in groups from tanks that hate their job or suck. If the dev cannot make tanking or healing fun, that is a whole problem itself. You can't fix a lack of tanks by locking them to trade skills.

    Note, I am not claiming that the developers cannot make tanking fun, just saying your locking issue does not help the situation.

    I do find it funny that you want trade skills to be class locked, but not racial because you think the looks of your toon are too important to lock. For me, the class is far more important than my looks.

    But, I do believe that certain recipes can be race locked, such as special dwarven plate, elven swords, etc. But only done rarely. 

     

    Your class dictates what type of weapon you're going to use, what type of armor, what...  So why not give heavy armor wearers the ability to blacksmith?  Light armor wearers the ability to tailor.  Giving everything to one character makes crafting pretty...not special.  Crafting is work!  In EQ, when crafting was really difficult, you could expect hundreds of hours just to max out one craft.  I don't really want it that difficult (carrying one pelt at a time, etc) but I don't think that it should be given either.  It helps the economy when you can sell X thing that is useful and not everyone else can.  They can sell X other item that you can't sell.  You'll eventually be able to get them all but you will have to play other classes.  I think that with a skill having 2-3 different classes that can learn it, you can pick one that you'd like in there.  Those who put more into game reap more rewards.

     

    As for the race, if we look at EQ, the halflings go do the Harveysacks.  Most people didn't really enjoy the look of Halflings but most serious tradeskillers who made money from it had one to make those bags.  They could level the same class that they had leveled previously if they wanted to (if the class was avail to Halfling).  Most people never touched that char again other than to make those bags.  If they liked the new class that they tried out, it was frustrating because they might hate the look but like the new class...So they would have to remake another character with the race that they wanted and level the same class again.  They couldn't just race change the halfling since the bags were tied to his race.  Most races have so little different when we consider the big picture that knowing a recipe that someone a bit taller or shorter or hairier or...doesn't make sense to me.  Classes are totally different abilities.  It makes sense that they know different spells and therefore different tradeskills.

    • 28 posts
    December 13, 2016 7:50 AM PST

    I would not like to be restricted by arbitrary limits I would rather have a tradeskills take a huge amount of time andduring resources in order to master.  this would in turn do two things, for the most part it would keep most of the community with the desire to only work on one or two tradeskills since the time investment and resource investment would be high.  it would create a "limit" all on its own at least for the vast magority with the game telling you u just can't do it.

     

    • 40 posts
    December 13, 2016 8:29 PM PST

    Alic said:

    I would not like to be restricted by arbitrary limits I would rather have a tradeskills take a huge amount of time andduring resources in order to master.  this would in turn do two things, for the most part it would keep most of the community with the desire to only work on one or two tradeskills since the time investment and resource investment would be high.  it would create a "limit" all on its own at least for the vast magority with the game telling you u just can't do it.

     

     

    I agree with most of your idea but if the tradeskill is going to be hard to max out (like EQ's first days when you could carry one rockhopper pelt at a time only), then no.  There's hard and there's insane.  That is not something that most of us want to re-live I think.  Whatever is left of my sanity does not want to do it again.  I agree with making it difficult to some level or making quests for patterns or...It shouldn't just be given.  Tradeskilling allows you to sell things and to make money.  Farming TS items and selling them allows you to do the same.  People who spend their time doing either need to be somewhat rewarded but I'm obvsiously agains that reward being max all tradeksill in 8 hours like you can now do in EQ.  When the shawl came out, my stuff was all maxed and I had a TON of mats in my many banks.  Thankfully, I was a necro and able to solo the first few quests but then it was to get people to come and they were all doing their tradeskills (some more intelligently than others if they asked for my help-because I would give them the fastest route and mats (mostly anyone does that for friends and guildies).  It still made me a bit upset that now, everyone and their mom's were doing what made me rich.  What I put well overe 150 hours in, created a rogue for one tradeskill, an enchanter to enchant bars...  Seeing people do that in 8 hours when you hauled 1 pelt at a time...A part of me kind of wanted to die even if I had made a fortune on tradeskill goods.  But people always abuse too.  I made full sets of X armor to people I considered friendly to see them on the baz the next day for 10x the price.  I know what was in baz and what wasn't.  I know every tradeskiller able to make that item on the server...

     

    So I'm all for difficulty (maybe a small boost for Holidays, etc) but I hope that they don't go the extra hardcore way EQ went then the extra easy way just to keep people busy.  If we're gonna do it that way and it's tougher on a char, I'm for the char to be able to max out all TS unless it's exceptional like tinkering was to gnomes and alchemy to shaman and bar enchanting to chanters and poisonmaking to rogues. You will not die if you don't have them as you have the main important ones and those who are really into TS will make another char.  I hate melees and I maxed out a rogue in EQ just to get that poison which I didn't even need myself for guildies.  It gives people the choice and I like that.  So I'm with you on a lot of your points.

    • 284 posts
    December 13, 2016 9:36 PM PST

    Patrick I am not sure, but I believe your concern about profitability in a difficult crafting regime to be unfounded. It seems to me that, based on statements and interactions that happened even in the most recent twitch stream that there will be many avenues and ways in which to find niches in crafting re: profiteering. In particular, I am referring to:

    1. When they reached the extremely hot forge, the implication from their discussion was that: to use the forge one must attune to it; however, any materials that require that forge specifically could be used elsewhere
    2. At several points in their adventure, the team commented on particular buffs and maluses afforded to players based on the materials used in their base weapon (bronze, iron, etc.)
    3. Finally, and most core to Pantheon's development I believe, is that equipment will play a huge part in protecting the PC from incliment climates

     

    I believe based on these statements and discussions that there will be many points of profitability for an arbitrary player that will not require complete mastery of a skill per se. To me this situation would mean that, while a true Grandmaster blacksmith, for example, would require an immense amount of time and money invested (not to mention adventuring to many obscure locales) a journeyman in Thronefast who specialized in making ponchos (because he found a good spot for farming them and because he had mastered the handful of skills related to poncho making) would do just fine for himself.

    I would prefer such a system (and I realize my example is somewhat of a strawman, but I'm using the best evidence I have) to one in which maxing out crafts was as childishly simple as it is in most modern MMOs. 


    This post was edited by Jimmayus at December 13, 2016 9:46 PM PST
    • 172 posts
    December 13, 2016 9:36 PM PST

    Alic said:

    I would not like to be restricted by arbitrary limits I would rather have a tradeskills take a huge amount of time andduring resources in order to master.  this would in turn do two things, for the most part it would keep most of the community with the desire to only work on one or two tradeskills since the time investment and resource investment would be high.  it would create a "limit" all on its own at least for the vast magority with the game telling you u just can't do it.

     

    This is exactly how I feel about tradeskills.  

    You should be able to have the potential to master them all, but mastering one should be so time consuming that mastering a second or third would be too much of a money pit or time sink to get anywhere with having more than one at a high level

    • 40 posts
    December 13, 2016 9:56 PM PST

    Jimmayus said:

    Patrick I am not sure, but I believe your concern about profitability in a difficult crafting regime to be unfounded. It seems to me that, based on statements and interactions that happened even in the most recent twitch stream that there will be many avenues and ways in which to find niches in crafting re: profiteering. In particular, I am referring to:

    1. When they reached the extremely hot forge, the implication from their discussion was that: to use the forge one must attune to it; however, any materials that require that forge specifically could be used elsewhere
    2. At several points in their adventure, the team commented on particular buffs and maluses afforded to players based on the materials used in their base weapon (bronze, iron, etc.)
    3. Finally, and most core to Pantheon's development I believe, is that equipment will play a huge part in protecting the PC from incliment climates

     

    I believe based on these statements and discussions that there will be many points of profitability for an arbitrary player that will not require complete mastery of a skill per se. To me this situation would mean that, while a true Grandmaster blacksmith, for example, would require an immense amount of time and money invested (not to mention adventuring to many obscure locales) a journeyman in Thronefast who specialized in making ponchos (because he found a good spot for farming them and because he had mastered the handful of skills related to poncho making) would do just fine for himself.

    I would prefer such a system (and I realize my example is somewhat of a strawman, but I'm using the best evidence I have) to one in which maxing out crafts was as childishly simple as it is in most modern MMOs. 

     

    Well yes.  It was like that in EQ as well.  The higher you train you skill, the least amount of people can do what you can and you get to sell more.  The guy who is making his poncho's for example is making money because people will buy them if he's selling a relevant lower level item.  Most people who can do better than the poncho won't bother making that anymore and will make whatever else they can make and can charge more for.  I didn't mean that you shouldn't make any money if you're not maxed out but there needs to be an incentive to max it out.  Yes, making gear is great but these are and have always been ways to make money.  So if you can get your tradeskill to 4 and sell poncho's for 10 000 gold and get to level 50 and only sell massive armor for 250 gold, I don't see much of a point in getting over level 4 since that's where my money will be.  OK, I'd get it done due to my lovely OCD lol but do you see what I mean.  There should be a scale. And of course, it needs to reward from early on or a lot of people will quit.  It gives people a sense of what the tradeskill is and people of a higher level in that tradeskill can help someone who is serious in leveling it with ideas, mats, etc.  I have pretty much always done that because if someone is willing to put in the work and if I can help them out a bit, I don't see why I shouldn't.  Others feel differently of course and it's their right.

    • 284 posts
    December 13, 2016 10:14 PM PST

    Oh I'm sorry I must have misunderstood, I am in complete agreement with your position. I believe this is partly the development team's position as well (based similarly on the above points I listed), and I can only imagine that there will be plenty of specialized recipes in this game centered around perception quests and climate-related attunements that also require some base level of skill.

    To stay on topic, I firmly believe the system they've hinted at (i.e. one in which attunements will play a huge part and thus mastery is not just a time-grind) is one which needs no arbitrary caps as suggested by the OP or by class-based restrictions as suggested in the post.

    The last does beg the question: what about race-restricted? I never played EQ, but from what I understand they designed as system in which the recipes for certain items were culturally specific and thus you needed affiliation with that culture in order to make the item. Would such things be ok? I believe so, as they are almost by definition not arbitary restrictions, seek to engage the player in the lore and the world of Pantheon, and serve to create even more niches. 

    • 2886 posts
    December 14, 2016 4:09 AM PST

    Jimmayus said:

    The last does beg the question: what about race-restricted? I never played EQ, but from what I understand they designed as system in which the recipes for certain items were culturally specific and thus you needed affiliation with that culture in order to make the item. Would such things be ok? I believe so, as they are almost by definition not arbitary restrictions, seek to engage the player in the lore and the world of Pantheon, and serve to create even more niches. 

    I can totally imagine some sort of Ogre armor or something that is specific to their culture. Maybe there is a specific way ogres have been making that armor for generations, but of course Elves aren't necessarily gonna know how to make it. There are trade secrets. That just makes sense logically. It may be easier for an Ogre to learn how to make it because they are right there in their starting city. But if a crafter of another race somehow hears about it and wants to learn how to make it, they may have to travel all the way to that city, develop a good reputation with the citizens, and then train under that crafter until they know how to make it themselves. It of course would be a much longer process but it is still theoretically possible.