Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Beginning Tradeskills

    • 259 posts
    June 27, 2018 5:18 PM PDT

    This past week I concentrated primarily on tradeskills while playing EQ/P99. I ran around killing many, many creatures that gave me no experience at all. But these creatures drop silks, pelts and such that you need to craft your tradeskill items. My cleric with his blacksmithing skill can craft noobie metal weapons and armor. My son is playing an enchanter and has started his jewelcrafting career. He can craft noobie earrings and rings. I'm also playing a druid and to have someone able to work on the tailoring tradeskill. He can craft cloth and leather noobie armor. None of our characters are over level 20 currently as we are having so much fun harvesting, crafting and giving away noobie items. I also run around giving away cleric buffs in noobie land. These were called buff stations in original EverQuest. In P99 these types of community events occur all the time in every noobie zone. These player events are something I see lacking in most current MMO’s but are still alive and thriving in EQ/P99, which relates back to my previous article on community.

    I will not be covering the other very awesome tradeskills available in EQ/P99. I have completed all these tradeskills back in original EverQuest, but I just don’t have the time to play that many characters right now.  These are baking, brewing, fletching and pottery. Baking and brewing are self-explanatory, food and drink of course. This is also a great beginning tradeskill as everyone must carry food and drink on your character to not receive the penalty for becoming hungry and thirsty. Fletching is self-explanatory as well, bows and arrows. Pottery is not as easily explained as it covers base components needed for other tradeskills. As an example, you need a mixing bowl to combine your ingredients as a baker that is created by a potter.

    These beginning tradeskills are a great way for a new character to increase his damage output with crafted weapons being better than dropped items. To increase his survivability for the same reason, and to earn a little coin which is always needed in a new and upcoming MMO such as Pantheon. It’s very nice to have a full set of player crafted armor and a player crafted weapon available to new characters beginning their life in game. Those first 10 to 20 levels can be hard with just dropped gear. I am a strong believer in these early tradeskills having a meaning and purpose for the young crafters starting their career. I hope that when we get more information released from VR that they will absolutely be using Beginning Tradeskills in Pantheon. If you've played through this before you know what i'm talking about, if not you need to try it. How do you feel about Beginning Tradeskills?


    This post was edited by Shyin at June 28, 2018 4:56 AM PDT
    • 1785 posts
    June 27, 2018 11:29 PM PDT

    So, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at - let me restate and tell me if you meant this or something else :)

    You're asking whether crafted items will be useful to low level characters in Pantheon?

    • 168 posts
    June 28, 2018 8:10 AM PDT

    Shyin said:

    Those first 10 to 20 levels can be hard with just dropped gear. I am a strong believer in these early tradeskills having a meaning and purpose for the young crafters starting their career. I hope that when we get more information released from VR that they will absolutely be using Beginning Tradeskills in Pantheon. If you've played through this before you know what i'm talking about, if not you need to try it. How do you feel about Beginning Tradeskills?

    Yeah, I also believe that for the crafting system to be concidered even slightly "robust" it must be relevant and desirable to all players at all levels. If crafting is just about making 50 of something so you can level up, then, I would say it is generic and only designed for end game.

    Here is an idea to force it to be relevant; player A crafts a set of level 9 legs for Player B, (individual item not full set) and Player A has his name on it "Made by Grumpy", then Grumpy as player A gets crafting skill bump for as long as that item was used in making a kill. Very minor such as .0005%. It really doesn't contribut much to Player A's crafting skill, but yet if there are enough of those level 9 or level 16 crafted items out there it will actually add up. Simply put; if your crafted gear gets used, you get a very minor bump up in skill. Now to throw a bump in the road, all gear must naturally or unnaturally deteriorate over time. Gear degradation exists in many games so it is far from a new thought.

    • 1785 posts
    June 28, 2018 9:21 AM PDT

    Dashed said:

    Shyin said:

    Those first 10 to 20 levels can be hard with just dropped gear. I am a strong believer in these early tradeskills having a meaning and purpose for the young crafters starting their career. I hope that when we get more information released from VR that they will absolutely be using Beginning Tradeskills in Pantheon. If you've played through this before you know what i'm talking about, if not you need to try it. How do you feel about Beginning Tradeskills?

    Yeah, I also believe that for the crafting system to be concidered even slightly "robust" it must be relevant and desirable to all players at all levels. If crafting is just about making 50 of something so you can level up, then, I would say it is generic and only designed for end game.

    Here is an idea to force it to be relevant; player A crafts a set of level 9 legs for Player B, (individual item not full set) and Player A has his name on it "Made by Grumpy", then Grumpy as player A gets crafting skill bump for as long as that item was used in making a kill. Very minor such as .0005%. It really doesn't contribut much to Player A's crafting skill, but yet if there are enough of those level 9 or level 16 crafted items out there it will actually add up. Simply put; if your crafted gear gets used, you get a very minor bump up in skill. Now to throw a bump in the road, all gear must naturally or unnaturally deteriorate over time. Gear degradation exists in many games so it is far from a new thought.

    In SWG we called that concept "usage experience".  It was awesome - but when they turned it on, it quite literally broke the server.  Now, this was like 16 years ago, so it might be more doable now. :)

    I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a crafter that didn't want the items they make to be viable at all levels.  I think the challenge is in building a system where new crafters are still able to compete in that market against veteran crafters.  Most games do a poor job of this, for various reasons, and what happens is that as time goes on, becoming "useful" as a crafter starts to involve more and more of a grind to "catch up" with everyone else.  Even in EQ, that was the case.

    • 259 posts
    June 29, 2018 6:58 AM PDT

    Dashed said:

    Shyin said:

    Those first 10 to 20 levels can be hard with just dropped gear. I am a strong believer in these early tradeskills having a meaning and purpose for the young crafters starting their career. I hope that when we get more information released from VR that they will absolutely be using Beginning Tradeskills in Pantheon. If you've played through this before you know what i'm talking about, if not you need to try it. How do you feel about Beginning Tradeskills?

    Yeah, I also believe that for the crafting system to be concidered even slightly "robust" it must be relevant and desirable to all players at all levels. If crafting is just about making 50 of something so you can level up, then, I would say it is generic and only designed for end game.

    Here is an idea to force it to be relevant; player A crafts a set of level 9 legs for Player B, (individual item not full set) and Player A has his name on it "Made by Grumpy", then Grumpy as player A gets crafting skill bump for as long as that item was used in making a kill. Very minor such as .0005%. It really doesn't contribut much to Player A's crafting skill, but yet if there are enough of those level 9 or level 16 crafted items out there it will actually add up. Simply put; if your crafted gear gets used, you get a very minor bump up in skill. Now to throw a bump in the road, all gear must naturally or unnaturally deteriorate over time. Gear degradation exists in many games so it is far from a new thought.

    You know I had never really thought about your idea for minor skill raises on the gear that you have crafted and sold to players. I’m not quite sure how that would play out in the long run, say at max level. Maybe you could receive minor cost adjustments to your materials after max level depending on your item count that you have in use? Maybe a bump in success rates on your crafting of new gear? Maybe a small increase in those hard sought after super rare items? You have got me thinking hard about this one. Good job, LOL. I can't remember through the past or present any MMO's having used that concept.

    As far as gear degradation, that concept has been used many times in many MMO’s. I feel that it gives a more realistic feel to the game. I hope that we see it implemented in Pantheon in a way that follows that realistic feel as you will need to go see a crafter to have your gear repaired and upgraded. Thanks for the interesting idea.