Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Professions and complexity.

    • 63 posts
    August 25, 2017 3:50 AM PDT

    If this topic has been covered, I apologize.

    One of the many aspects that set EverQuest and Vanguard apart from simpler games like World of Warcraft is their respective crafting systems. In WoW, it is easy to kill animals. Perhaps in this game, certain animals should require calls. In real life, hunters use calls in order to attract prey. In real life, hunters need to know how to skin and butcher their respective kills.

    In real life, fishermen use a variety of techniques and technologies. They need to know about bait, bobbers, hooks, sinkers, and quality of fishing lines. Different types of fishing lines are used for different types of casts, different depths and whether the water is freshwater or saltwater.

    Anyone correct me if I am incorrect.

    I would love to see more complexity in every skill area. What about you all? If anyone has any real life experience that could contribute to this, please share!

    • 626 posts
    August 25, 2017 6:50 AM PDT

    From what we know today Crafting in Pantheon will be much closer to VG Crafting then anything else. 

     

    Make sure to check out the Crafting section of the fourms for more information overall about it. I do agree though the more the better :)

     

    https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/35/crafting 

    • 422 posts
    August 25, 2017 7:03 AM PDT

    Calls aren't required for hunting, depending on hunting style. They might help sometimes, but I never use them because i've never seen a noticable difference. Then I don't sit in one spot for hours waiting.

    How would these calls work? Would animals not be skinable unless you first used a call? Then, why bother having a call if you just need to blow it to get a skin, just make every animal skinable.

    Would they instead spawn special animals and those are the only skinable ones? This would mean that you could stand in one spot blowing the calls and killing/skinning all day.

    Either options is unrealistic, tedious, makes hunting for materials trivial and/or just doesn't make sense immersion wise.

    If the animal has skin it should be skinable. Hell I think you should be able to skin anything that isn't a plant or some kind of special mob, like elementals. Why can't I skin that Orc I just killed? It has skin.

    In anycase, I just don't see how the mechanic would work. Maybe you have an idea that I'm just not seeing.

    As far as the technology used in skinning, fishing and the like. I think it would be cool to have lures and such to build a little bit of a tactical/puzzle aspect into the system, but I also we should be careful not to go overboard. This is a fantasy world that is set in a medi-evil era. People had limited knowledge and access to technology. As long as we keep it within the era's technology limit (which they have said they will do) I think this could be really fun.

     

     

    • 281 posts
    August 25, 2017 7:18 AM PDT

    Mine main complaint with the gather aspect of crafting in most games is that there is some lone node in the middle of nowhere that you have to memorize the position of and that you gather a small amount from once and it is gone.  And animal items are just dropped by that animal on a random basis.  I want mines filled with nodes and the nodes have varying amounts of ore/materials.  Also, one's skill affects the ammount YOU can get from that node and what quality.  Same goes with skinning, etc.  If you skin an rabit and have high skill you get the whole skin and at high quality.  But if you are low skill and try to skin a unicorn, you'll get low quality scraps -- still useful for something but not the prize you want from this animal.  Point being that you use a skinning skill and appropriate tool.  It doesn't just drop off the animal like loot (though you could have that happen occasionally, but not the main method of "gathering".  Somethings, like wool, don't even require killing the animal.  Gathering plant material should have similar mechanics (though, obviously not called skinning, perhaps harvesting).

    • 422 posts
    August 25, 2017 7:26 AM PDT

    @DragonFist Agreed there. I never liked materials dropping as loot. First the loot was random and it didn't always drop. I mean, how the hell can that wolf I killed NOT have a pelt? Skinning isn't hard, so no matter what we should always get SOMETHING from the animal. 

    But yes I think skill should play a major role in quality and quantity for gathering. I have things that are just RNG.

    As far as harvesting goes, I still like the concept that was used in Landmark. Finding veins of iron to mine was just fun. Though the nodes were far FAR too many nodes in the game. But the concept was solid.

    • 9115 posts
    August 25, 2017 8:30 AM PDT

    Moved to the Crafting subforum :)

    • 174 posts
    August 25, 2017 10:44 AM PDT

    I think you have to factor in quality of animal killed as well as method used to kill animal regards to harvesting pelt.  A single arrow to drop a wolf should yield a quality pelt.  Multiple hacks with a sword to drop the same wolf should yield a lessor pelt, unless you have surgeon like skill with the blade.  Dropping a "mangy wolf" should drop a mangy pelt at best.  Now you shoulkd definitely be able to harvest strips off just about any animal, and then with sufficient skill in tailoring produce a "stitched pelt" or something...

    As for as the original point I'm all for more difficulty, but in regards to resources I think they are more headed in the direction of difficulty in finding the resources, skills in perception and such improving odds or more and better materials.  Time will tell.  Looking forward to testing harvesting and tradeskilling both.

    • 281 posts
    August 25, 2017 4:06 PM PDT

    I'm all for reasonable complexity.  As long as it doesn't become a burden and RNG hell like in Black Desert Online and some other games.  I like to feel that my skill in the profession gained me something other than "I can now craft the next tier". Not that there shouldn't be tiers.  But in the beginning, it would expect that it might take me a while to gather and craft one "Rabit Skin Glove -- Rank I".  However, when I have 5000 in Tailering it might take me a similar amount of time to make the "Dragon Skin Breastplate of Blade Bending -- Rank X" but I could litter the floor of my house with 100 "Rabit Skin Gloves -- Rank I" in the same time.

    I'm not trying to give exact mechanics here, just talking about general feel.  But "No RNG Results" should be a mantra.  I understand that pretty much anything in an MMO has some degree of RNG in it.  But some mechanics don't show it and others have you crafting the same thing over and over because of the 0.0002% chance to get the option that anyone would actually want.  That just isn't fun.  Not saying it should be easy, but work out a mechanic that doesn't feel like gambling instead of crafting.

    • 633 posts
    August 25, 2017 6:44 PM PDT

    I would like to see the complexity be in the creating of the item.  Have many sub-items to create an end result.  Make it so that people can level off of creating enough sub-items (as well as creating end-result items).  This would make there be a market for the sub-items that are needed.  People could create the sub items (say refined ore, or worked leather, or something like that) and then they could just sell those to others who may need them.

    Someone could take all of the time to gather up all the materials and such to make all of the sub items and keep doing combines until they get the result they need, or they could opt to save themselves some time by just buying some of the components already made by others and doing the last combine (or the last few combines).  The option would be there and it would make a larger market for crafting.

    This also would move the crafting market more torward making the sub-items to sell, instead of the end result to sell.  This would make it less likely that someone would make end items simply to sell, allowing people to go to crafters to get what end item they want and request it (and purchase it from the crafter).  People would still do it, but since there would be a market for the lesser combines, it would spread out the market so it wasn't just the final result was the only thing that was worth selling.

    This would also allow for very complex, multi-tiered recipes.  For example, if you wanted to make a Longsword of Red Dragon Slaying, you'd need 10 refined iron ore, 5 refined mithral ore, 2 worked leather, 2 dragon's blood ore, 1 dragon's eye emerald dust, and an ounce of dust of destruction.  The tree of combines would look like this:

    Longsword of Red Dragon Slaying:

    -  Enchanted Longsword Blade

        *  Refined Iron Ore (8 required)

            +  Iron Ore (2 required) (Harvested)

        *  Refined Mithral Ore (5 required)

            +  Mithral Ore (2 required) (Harvested)

    -  Enchanted Longsword Hilt

        *  Worked Leather (2 required)

            +  Animal Hide (2 required) (Harvested)

        *  Refined Iron Ore (2 required) (see above for recipe)

    -  Dragon's Blood Ore (2 required)

        *  Ounce of Dragon's Blood (harvested from a dragon, or drake)

        *  Enchanted Refined Adamantine Ore

            +  Refined Adamantine Ore (2 required)

                -  Adamantine Ore (2 required) (Harvested)

            +  Must be enchanted by an Enchanter casting Enchant:  Ore

            +  Can only be crafted in certain locations

    -  Dragon's Eye Emerald Dust (1 required)

        *  Dragon's Eye Emerald (1 required)

            +  Enchanted Emerald

            +  Emerald (Harvested or vendor purchase)

            +  Must be enchanted by a druid casting Enchant:  Stone

            +  Ounce of Dragon's Blood

        *  Enchanted Adamantine Worker's Hammer (1 required) (1 use item)

            +  Enchanted Worker's Hammer Head (1 required)

                -  Enchanted Adamantine Ore (2 required) (see above for recipe)

            +  Enchanted Ironwood Shaft (1 required)

                -  Ironwood (1 required) (harvested)

                -  Must be enchanted by a druid casting Enchant:  Wood

        *    Must be crushed into dust by a warrior using Skill:  Pumelling Crush

    -  Ounce of Dust of Destruction (1 required)

        *  Stone of Destruction  (1 required)

            +  Rune of Destruction  (1 required)
            +  Carved Stone Tablet (1 required)
            +  Must be enchanted by a wizard casting Spell:  Engrave Rune

        *    Enchanted Chisel (vendor purchased, 1 use item)
        *    Adamantine Worker's Hammer (1 required) (see above for recipe)
        *    Must be crushed to dust by a Dire Lord using Skill:  Pumelling Crush

     

    At first glance, this may seem like a lot of work to create a single sword, but when you could be any or all of the components to make it from other crafters, it's only as much work as you wish it to be.  If you want to save yourself some money and do as much as you can yourself, then you can.  But if you want to save some time and spend a little money you can purchase components you need from other crafters and just complete it yourself.

    The idea would be to create a market for components, as well as actually finished items.  Assuming each component to complete this sword could also be used in making a multitude of other possible items, there would be a good market for components.  For example, the Dust of Destruction would probably be a common component for many other "slaying" weapons, the Dragon's Blood Ore would be used in a lot of weapons and armors of varying levels, Enchanted Refined Adamantine Ore would be used in a lot of high end weapons, jewellery, etc.

     

    **  Edit:  I tried using the bullet points option, but it didn't work at all once I saved it, so I had to go back and undo all of the bullet points which makes the recipe really hard to read.  Sorry  :)


    This post was edited by kelenin at August 25, 2017 6:58 PM PDT
    • 281 posts
    August 25, 2017 8:28 PM PDT

    ^^like

    • 63 posts
    August 26, 2017 1:37 AM PDT

    kellindil said:

    Calls aren't required for hunting, depending on hunting style. They might help sometimes, but I never use them because i've never seen a noticable difference. Then I don't sit in one spot for hours waiting.

    How would these calls work? Would animals not be skinable unless you first used a call? Then, why bother having a call if you just need to blow it to get a skin, just make every animal skinable.

    Would they instead spawn special animals and those are the only skinable ones? This would mean that you could stand in one spot blowing the calls and killing/skinning all day.

    Either options is unrealistic, tedious, makes hunting for materials trivial and/or just doesn't make sense immersion wise.

    I agree that all mammals should be skinnable. What I had in mind was calls for rare spawns. I should have made that clear at the outset.

    You said that either option is trivial and unrealistic; I am really interested in hearing more of your thoughts on my response.

    You are also right that the game should take care not to go overboard. It is great when a game is challenging. It is not so great when challenging gives way to work.