Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Labor points.

    • 338 posts
    April 19, 2017 5:49 AM PDT

    I know this is a touchy subject but I think it's very important to at least give it a discussion.

     

    Labor points gate how much a single person can craft or gather over a given period of time.

     

    I think it creates better interdependencies between the harvesters, raw material makers, and finished product crafters.

     

    If you spend all your labor on gathering supplies then you in turn skilled up your applicable harvesting skill and can't further your crafting that day.

    So this will create a dedicated niche for workers that will always be able to make a profit doing a specific task.

     

    These labor points would be account wide so you can't just shuffle over to an alt and keep going.(Maybe even a revenue source from people having more accounts to labor more.)

    As you level up you gain more Labor points to be used as you see fit.

     

    A side effect of a system like this is that labor becomes a real commodity that has actual value and is a real part of an economy.

    When you spend your labor to say make some intermediate product like say metal studs for some studded leather armor you can bet that those will have more value than they would in a system where labor is unlimited.

     

    I know this is a very unpopular(unfun) idea but I really think it's one of those necessary evils that creates so much more than it takes away.

     

    Would you be open to a system like this or is it a line in the sand for you ?

     

    Thanks in advance,

    Kiz~


    This post was edited by Angrykiz at April 19, 2017 7:37 AM PDT
    • 12 posts
    April 19, 2017 7:27 AM PDT

    It is an interesting way to look at the use of a skill, for labor.  I think most would find that it is an evil.  So that if the skill was used like Labor, but then would it apply to a skill like Casting.  Making it so your caster is only userful for so many spells in a given day?  Or are you thinking that you can only get so many skill ups per day?  I think that the crafters/havesters, will see this as a horrible disadvantage.  I like the way that it could make a market roll for a short time.  But i think sooner or later the market will be over run, either way, with goods, crafted or harvested.

    I think a more important aspect would be a strict bylaw that targerts with extreme prejudice Bot Farmers, and completely dismisses them from the game. 

    I think your idea has merit, it is an different vantage to the  economy of the game.

    Nikua

    • 338 posts
    April 19, 2017 7:29 AM PDT

    Disclaimer: This is not my idea, just an idea that some other games use to add value to gathering and crafting.

     

    Thanks,

    Kiz~

    • 1618 posts
    April 19, 2017 8:00 AM PDT

    This would never pass as a restriction on adventurer classes, so why should crafters be artificially restricted?

    • 1584 posts
    April 19, 2017 8:17 AM PDT

    I kinda like this idea and at the same time I don't, it makes it to where let's say there's skinning in the game that someone cant go to a spot where theres a ton of animals and get 100 skins an hour without hitting there cap fast, which would make it to where these skins are worth more than if 25 people are doing just this and skinning 1000 skins a day which would come to a 25000 skins being sold in market everyday, which is a plus but at the same time if someone is merely trying to lvl up there tradeskill they would be greatly hindered and if its anything like EQ you aren't guaranteed a skill up in your tradeskill even if you only have a 25% chance of making it which could cause you maybe only making 5 skill ups that day, which could be very frustrating.  So, if you are going to put a resritction like this on players you have to also put a good reward for doing it cause i could see a lot of great tradeskillers turned away by this if the reward for doing it isn't worth it.

    • 338 posts
    April 19, 2017 8:19 AM PDT

    The reward is your product always has value because labor was expended to harvest or craft it and labor is finite.

     

    Kiz~

    • 338 posts
    April 19, 2017 8:28 AM PDT

    Beefcake said:

    This would never pass as a restriction on adventurer classes, so why should crafters be artificially restricted?

     

    Because you are creating a product or providing a service and if that can be done to an unlimited capacity it will water down the economy so that very few goods or services will be worth anything.

     

    Adventuring and the economy is another ball of wax completely and has a different set of concerns regarding flooding the economy with items.

     

    Although I do hope that only through combining Adventuring and Crafting can the best items be made.

     

     

    Thanks for the reply,

    Kiz~

    • 1618 posts
    April 19, 2017 8:33 AM PDT

    Angrykiz said:

    Beefcake said:

    This would never pass as a restriction on adventurer classes, so why should crafters be artificially restricted?

     

    Because you are creating a product or providing a service and if that can be done to an unlimited capacity it will water down the economy so that very few goods or services will be worth anything.

     

    Adventuring and the economy is another ball of wax completely and has a different set of concerns regarding flooding the economy with items.

     

    Although I do hope that only through combining Adventuring and Crafting can the best items be made.

     

     

    Thanks for the reply,

    Kiz~

    Adventuring floods the economy far greater and faster than crafting does.  Your argument to hamstring the smallest offender just does not fly.

    • 422 posts
    April 19, 2017 9:35 AM PDT

    Totally against this. Archage did it and it was just a way to sell in game crap from their cash shop. It wasn't to gate supply or anything to do with the economy. It was a system designed to sell labor potions from their cash shop and nothing more.

    • 1584 posts
    April 19, 2017 9:40 AM PDT

    kellindil said:

    Totally against this. Archage did it and it was just a way to sell in game crap from their cash shop. It wasn't to gate supply or anything to do with the economy. It was a system designed to sell labor potions from their cash shop and nothing more.

    Than we can neuthralize that by not being able to buy labor potions from cash shop, problem solved

    • 422 posts
    April 19, 2017 9:59 AM PDT

    But then what purpose does it serve really? If materials are harder to get based on their "tier" in crafting then what point does it serve? The only reason Archeage could get away with it was that materials basically fell from the sky. It was an artificial way for them to restrict items entering the game done specifically to sell cash shop items. All they need to do is make materials a bit harder to find. This will still limit the influx of items but will not punish people who want to stock up or buy out the materials available and pound out some crafting in one big run during down time.

    I just personally think its a terrible system and would absolutely hate to see it in any game I play. It's just another way of telling someone how to play the game by limiting what they can do. I should be able to spend every waking moment harvesting and crafting if I want. Labor point systems just punish people who are willing to put in hard work in favor of keeping everyone from out progressing each other.

    • 338 posts
    April 19, 2017 10:07 AM PDT

    Maybe if tradeskilling is just hard and costs a lot of money and resources to raise skills that would just be enough...

     

    It's an interesting conversation to have I think.

     

     

    Thanks,

    Kiz~


    This post was edited by Angrykiz at April 19, 2017 10:08 AM PDT
    • 422 posts
    April 19, 2017 10:14 AM PDT

    And I really think that is the best way to handle it. Crafting big ticket items should take a good deal of effort, both in needing a lot of skill in the profession and in the difficulty of getting to or rarity of the materials. Its a more natural way of slowing down crafters so that items don't just poor into the economy. Those who really want to become known as master crafters can put as much effort into their craft as they wish and progress at their own rate. Not everyone will be willing to do that. I bet most people wouldn't be willing to do that. So there will not be hundreds or thousands (depending on server population size) of master crafters a week after launch. Maybe a handful, but they would have had to forgo everything else and bust their ass to do it.

    • 1584 posts
    April 19, 2017 10:18 AM PDT

    kellindil said:

    But then what purpose does it serve really? If materials are harder to get based on their "tier" in crafting then what point does it serve? The only reason Archeage could get away with it was that materials basically fell from the sky. It was an artificial way for them to restrict items entering the game done specifically to sell cash shop items. All they need to do is make materials a bit harder to find. This will still limit the influx of items but will not punish people who want to stock up or buy out the materials available and pound out some crafting in one big run during down time.

    I just personally think its a terrible system and would absolutely hate to see it in any game I play. It's just another way of telling someone how to play the game by limiting what they can do. I should be able to spend every waking moment harvesting and crafting if I want. Labor point systems just punish people who are willing to put in hard work in favor of keeping everyone from out progressing each other.

    Would be a little helpful if we knew what you had in mind of what you would want as in harvesting and tradeskilling limits and such so we can try to blend the 2 instead of just how much you don't like his/her idea.  It's just hard to figure out a good idea when there nothing but negativity towards her idea is all,

    • 422 posts
    April 19, 2017 10:54 AM PDT

    Well, honestly thats the thing. I really cannot see any good points to a system like this. It just stops people from playing how they wish. It doesn't reward effort, which is a core ideal of the VR team. It levels the playing field so that no matter how hard I try to progress I cannot progress faster than someone who is not willing to put in the work.

    A crafting system should really be gated by money and difficulty. Having some items that are useful but nothing special, like arrows or bags, be craftable from mostly purchasable or easily found mats. These are the "fodder" items one would make just to gain skill. They have some value, but its nothing you couldn't find at an NPC merchant, just maybe *slightly* better. Just to make it worth someone's time to find a crafter to make them arrows or bags. This will still require you to go out and find the currency needed to buy the trade items and progress. Now I do realize the limitation of this type of setup in that once the server becomes a bit top heavy later down the road it becomes trivial. There is another easy way to negate this, and still keeps with the core design of the game.

    Interdependance.

    At first, a crafter should be able to be independant. If you just start the game you wont know anyone and it might be hard to find people to help you. Shortly after starting your craft, you will run into the issue of needing to find, say, a metalsmith to make arrow heads for you. Since you can only have a single profession and single gathering skill you are limited. So I am making arrows to get skilled up. My friend wants to skill up in metalsmithing. He would also, at some point, need a woodworker to make handles and hilts for him. Now we both are required to progress together. This will keep someone from just powering through a tradeskill alone from vendor items in a day.

    Now we get to higher quality items. Items of power that require time. Materials would be rare. To make a poweful bow with nice stats I might need wood found only from a specific zone, from a specific mob like a treant or from a rare node that maybe only spawns once a day or so and then only one or two nodes in the zone at a time. The nodes, I would hope, are random so there is no telling where this rare node might appear. Then I would need bow strings, which I would need a tailor maybe to craft for me. The materials might be the gut of a fire drake or some such. I would need to go find this item. Maybe then it would need to be enchanted, as would the wood. Maybe it would take a few other componants, say 5 rare items in total, mixed with a few mundane standard items used in bow crafting. Then and only then will I be able to make this really nice bow that I could use or sell for a nice amount.

    Now the other issue brought up, Alts. To this I say, whats the issue really? So I want to be self sufficiant and anti-social. I make a woodworker, a tailor, and a metalsmith. I spend weeks or months harvesting and crafting, or weeks gathering currency to buy all the mats I need. I would need to skill them all up together. Now I put three times the work anyone else did into my crafts. Why shouldn't I be able to do that? I put in the time and effort, I should be rewarded for that. It circumvents the social aspect of the game but, again, who are we to FORCE someone into playing the game our way. 

    They mentioned in the news letter that you will be locked to one profession/harvest skill. It makes sense that they might make the process of progressing through ranks interdependant as well. It would further promote social interaction, would serve to slow down MOST people because not everyone is going to build an army of alts and spend weeks skilling up 3+ trade skills, and making the really good items much harder to craft without making them a requirement for progress will stop oversaturation of the economy.

    It is a much more natural way of gating progress without hamstringing those who are willing to pour every waking moment into trade skills. They can become a master smith with a decent amount of work, but crafting anything or power would require much much more of a time commitment. Then the only thing holding you back is your own willingness to work and your luck in finding the right materials for the ultimate item.

    • 105 posts
    April 19, 2017 3:04 PM PDT

    Angrykiz said:

    I know this is a touchy subject but I think it's very important to at least give it a discussion.

     

    Labor points gate how much a single person can craft or gather over a given period of time.

     

    I think it creates better interdependencies between the harvesters, raw material makers, and finished product crafters.

     

    If you spend all your labor on gathering supplies then you in turn skilled up your applicable harvesting skill and can't further your crafting that day.

    So this will create a dedicated niche for workers that will always be able to make a profit doing a specific task.

     

    These labor points would be account wide so you can't just shuffle over to an alt and keep going.(Maybe even a revenue source from people having more accounts to labor more.)

    As you level up you gain more Labor points to be used as you see fit.

     

    A side effect of a system like this is that labor becomes a real commodity that has actual value and is a real part of an economy.

    When you spend your labor to say make some intermediate product like say metal studs for some studded leather armor you can bet that those will have more value than they would in a system where labor is unlimited.

     

    I know this is a very unpopular(unfun) idea but I really think it's one of those necessary evils that creates so much more than it takes away.

     

    Would you be open to a system like this or is it a line in the sand for you ?

     

    Thanks in advance,

    Kiz~



    Labor/Crafting points is something we've discussed loosely, but we ultimately felt that it might be too restrictive as other posters have pointed out. We're working on some parts of the Crafting sphere that should allow for creating some really awesome items, with the aim of keeping the market from being super saturated with a ton of powerful items (and a ton of lesser desired items). We'll be touching on those points a bit more in the near-ish future ;)