Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Crafter's Roundtable: Interdependency

    • 1785 posts
    August 7, 2018 7:10 AM PDT

    It's time for another Crafter's Roundtable, brought to you by Pantheon Crafters.

    It seems like whenever we talk about crafting, many of us agree that interdependency, or requiring crafters to rely on each other, is a good thing. But is it, really? Some games have started off with a lot of interdependency and than later removed it, or loosened the restrictions by quite a bit. This would imply that the developers of those games felt that interdependency became a barrier to players.

    So for today's crafter's Roundtable, we want to hear everyone's thoughts: How much interdependency is appropriate in crafting? When does it become too much, and why?

    We invite you to post your opinions here, or, for the truly brave, come visit the original thread in the Pantheon Crafters forums and tell us how you feel there, too!

    • 1315 posts
    August 8, 2018 4:38 AM PDT

    If I were designing the craft interdependency I would have most user desired crafted items include at least one ingredient from other trade skills. For the majority of the crafting spectrum that “other skill” item would be makeable by either specialization and at fairly early levels, or at exactly the same level as the player wanted item. End game high quality items I would require ingredients from 3 different specializations also at the top tier of crafting.

    I would however have these “other skill” items be part of only the final combine and possibly a no fail combine so that only finished products include player sourced items.

    This also ties into the hope that there might be a Craft Specific Salvage option that lets you reduce one of your own failed crafts back to all or nearly all the raw materials contained in the item up to that point.  This way crafting becomes more of a mater of time spent in the mini-game system than in the cash dumped into grinding out failures.

    • 19 posts
    August 8, 2018 4:12 PM PDT

    I have been playing final fantasy 14 and recently found out after reaching max level on all the crafters/gatherers that there is no real profit at the end game for casual people.  Upon a new patch that adds new crafting recipes there is about at 2 week window where you can make money if you're highly devoted.  Other than that the market for high end items is below cost to make.  The crafting materials sell for more than the finished items themselves.  I see this as a problem of too many max level crafters in all trades.  There are simply too many items being created and not enough buyers.

    • 1785 posts
    August 8, 2018 5:23 PM PDT

    Snozzberry said:

    I have been playing final fantasy 14 and recently found out after reaching max level on all the crafters/gatherers that there is no real profit at the end game for casual people.  Upon a new patch that adds new crafting recipes there is about at 2 week window where you can make money if you're highly devoted.  Other than that the market for high end items is below cost to make.  The crafting materials sell for more than the finished items themselves.  I see this as a problem of too many max level crafters in all trades.  There are simply too many items being created and not enough buyers.

    As an established crafter in that game I agree with your analysis :)  Most of the money I make there each week actually comes from selling lower-level items.  There are too many people trying to sell the latest/greatest stuff, and because of that there's just not much profit in it for the time it takes.

    The interdependency they have between professions made sense early in the game's life, but because they allowed everyone to level all the professions up on the same character, it rapidly became trivial.  It's at the point now where I advise new crafters to work them all up simultaneously, so that they don't run into a situation where they need a low level glue or something and the only ones up on the market are all going for ridiculously high prices.

    That being said, the amount of interdependency they have, with a finished item recipe typically needing 1-3 things from other professions (once you get past the entry levels) feels about right to me for having 8 distinct professions in the game.  That's just my personal opinion though :)

     

    • 1315 posts
    August 8, 2018 6:58 PM PDT

    Snozzberry said:

    I have been playing final fantasy 14 and recently found out after reaching max level on all the crafters/gatherers that there is no real profit at the end game for casual people.  Upon a new patch that adds new crafting recipes there is about at 2 week window where you can make money if you're highly devoted.  Other than that the market for high end items is below cost to make.  The crafting materials sell for more than the finished items themselves.  I see this as a problem of too many max level crafters in all trades.  There are simply too many items being created and not enough buyers.

     

    Raw materials being more valuable than crafted goods is usually a functions of a few things:

    1. Crafting is materials limited and not time limited

      1. Adventuring leveling is about kills/quests per hour not gold spent per hour

      2. Crafted items are no better than ready to use items of the same level

    2. If I could kill 100 level 15 bandits and get a full set of bandit armor with some stats I am not going to pay a crafter the total money I would make for killing 200 bandits to make me a set of studded leather armor similar to bandit armor but with less stats.

    a. If instead the studded leather armor was level 18 armor and the next set of drop armor was at level 21 then I would likely pay for studded leather.

    3. Everyone can be everything so there is no scarcity or inter-dependency

    Rather the point of this thread, if you can make everything you need yourself then there is no reason to buy and sell with others. If you can only make one path of items and need components from other paths then through supply and demand you will end up with a spread of crafts chosen by players and a reason for trading.

    4. More materials can be used in an hour than can possibly be collected in an hour by a player.

    This is similar to number 1 but independent of time to craft. If bulk used primary materials are really hard to get then vs how much you can use in an hour then the material will always go to the highest bidder. This usually pushes value of the raw materials past the product.

     

    Solutions

    1. a)Decrease the number of combines per level but make the crafting process mini-game enjoyable and interactive but consume closer to a mob fight amount of time.

      b)Allow rework of failures on the same raw materials which will consume more time.

       

    2. a) Dropped items are easier to acquire than crafted items including dropped materials and therefor crafted items should be Better than dropped items from the same level of mobs as the materials came from.

      b) Dropped items have specific skins but crafted items can be made to look the way the player wants.

     

    1. a) One crafting per character or even per server, extra ruthless would include harvesting as a class to pick.

      b) Have recipe inter-dependency such that all the specializations are needed by other specializations in many recipes.

       

    2. a) Make the bottle necks for crafting be the optional materials not the core materials

      b) Create harvesting in such a way that you deliberately need to exclusively set out to do it but when you do the yield is very high per unit of time then you need to find a place to store it.

     


    This post was edited by Trasak at August 8, 2018 6:59 PM PDT
    • 557 posts
    August 9, 2018 12:50 PM PDT

    Trasak wrote (slightly reformatted for clarity of response)

    Raw materials being more valuable than crafted goods is usually a functions of a few things:

    1. Crafting is materials limited and not time limited

    * Adventuring leveling is about kills/quests per hour not gold spent per hour

    * Crafted items are no better than ready to use items of the same level

    Solutions

    a)Decrease the number of combines per level but make the crafting process mini-game enjoyable and interactive but consume closer to a mob fight amount of time.

    b)Allow rework of failures on the same raw materials which will consume more time.

    The position in previous games and I believe the mindset of the Pantheon devs is that the best items in-game at any tier should come from boss mob encounters or general camping/adventuring.  In EQ this was particularly true for weapons and most armour.  Jewelcrafting may have been the only trade skill which was an exception.  If we look at the Velious era on P99, velium stat jewellery is still quite popular for end game players and twinks alike.  Modest low-level jewellery for the untwinked player is still a viable option, but beyond about level 30, player made armour is no longer attractive and I can't think of any example where player-made weapons were worth wielding at any level.

    You touch on the larger issue in one of your comments below, but isn't the real issue that player-crafted items don't have perceived value?   I'm all for having a fun mini-game for crafting, but if the end product is still of marginal value, I'm unlikely to keep mini-gaming at my crafting station. 

    Keeping in line with the overall risk/reward aspect of MMORPG play, I think that combine failures should risk failure and the loss of materials.  We can't ask to have better end result items without upping the stakes for the maker.

     

     

    2. If I could kill 100 level 15 bandits and get a full set of bandit armor with some stats I am not going to pay a crafter the total money I would make for killing 200 bandits to make me a set of studded leather armor similar to bandit armor but with less stats.
    * If instead the studded leather armor was level 18 armor and the next set of drop armor was at level 21 then I would likely pay for studded leather.

    Solutions

    a) Dropped items are easier to acquire than crafted items including dropped materials and therefor crafted items should be Better than dropped items from the same level of mobs as the materials came from.

    b) Dropped items have specific skins but crafted items can be made to look the way the player wants.

    I'm definitely in favour of improving the desirability of our crafted items - whether it's stat or cosmetic improvements over the run of the mill dropped gear.  Specifically, I'd like to see mobs drop more crafting materials and fewer finished products.  Perhaps the orc I just killed drops his worn studded leather tunic.  I can take that to a player leatherworker and have him turn it into a "fine studded leather tunic" with better stats.  This isn't all that dissimilar to how the Velious quest armour worked in EQ, except we're inserting a player craftsperson rather than a quest NPC to deliver the final product.   Dependent on the skill of the leatherworker, perhaps the tunic would end up with imbues, additional stats or durability - making it desirable to seek out skilled players.   In this model, guilds are going to want to have a full range of master craftspeople in their ranks and our crafters are highly valued members of the Pantheon community.   Crafting becomes core to the game and not merely an afterthought time sink that fills a checkbox in the MMORPG feature matrix.  Very few games have MEANINGFUL crafting.

     

     

     3. Everyone can be everything so there is no scarcity or inter-dependency

    * Rather the point of this thread, if you can make everything you need yourself then there is no reason to buy and sell with others. If you can only make one path of items and need components from other paths then through supply and demand you will end up with a spread of crafts chosen by players and a reason for trading.

    Solutions

    a) One crafting per character or even per server, extra ruthless would include harvesting as a class to pick.

    b) Have recipe inter-dependency such that all the specializations are needed by other specializations in many recipes.

     

    Given the thread is primarily about interdependency, I'm going to play devils advocate here and ask "Why bother?"   Many past games have caved to player demand on this and where this wasn't the case, players have found ways to work around any restrictions.  If you mandate "one crafting professional per character", players will create an alt for each profession.  If you mandate "one crafting character per account", players will buy more than one account.  All you have accomplished is to drive more revenue to VR and disadvantage players who don't have the real world income to support multiple game accounts.  If you mandate group crafting for certain combines, the affluent players will box.

    Let's assume that there are four ingredients for a recipe.  I'm able to source three of them through my own exploration, harvesting or perhaps from vendors.  The fourth item is unobtainable so I need to look to the marketplace for it.  Does it really matter if it was a player crafted item that I can't produce or something which came from a far off land that I haven't travelled to?   I still had to reach out to acquire it.  Why the pre-occupation with cross trade interdependency?

    Of course, unless we meet the conditions in #1 where my produced item has value, I'm not going to bother in any case.   If I'm jumping through so many hoops just to level my skill, there has to be some reward in the way of advanced/desirable items that I can create and sell.

    Outside of that, I'm all for working together at a project level where players are building something significant like a bridge, player housing or a ship.   

     

     

    4. More materials can be used in an hour than can possibly be collected in an hour by a player.

    * This is similar to number 1 but independent of time to craft. If bulk used primary materials are really hard to get then vs how much you can use in an hour then the material will always go to the highest bidder. This usually pushes value of the raw materials past the product.

    Solutions

    a) Make the bottlenecks for crafting be the optional materials not the core materials

    b) Create harvesting in such a way that you deliberately need to exclusively set out to do it but when you do the yield is very high per unit of time then you need to find a place to store it.

    I'm not sure I see the distinction between optional and core materials.  Are optional materials something used to further imbue and item or are they for making items that are the grindy things that we will produce simply to level and vendor?  I do agree that the bottleneck for crafting should be materials and not time.

    I'm also unclear why harvesting should be very high yield and then create an inventory management task from that assumption.  Is the assumption that a player who wants to craft but not adventure, will find it easy to sink as many hours into playing Pantheon as someone who is adventuring?   Do I need stacks and stacks of materials so I can keep feeding the minigame crafting engine?

    My thoughts would be for more results from lower material quantities, but make the materials difficult to come by.   I guess that's just my play style bias coming out in that I think crafters should be harvesters.

    I suppose in the end I only have two strong feelings about Pantheon crafting.   I don't want carpal tunnel syndrome if I want to master a craft.   I want the possibility of creating the best items in game with the right skills and materials.  The assumption here is that some of those mats are going to be raid drops at various tiers within the game.

    • 1315 posts
    August 9, 2018 5:21 PM PDT

    Kudo's for suffering through that horrible board formatting. I pasted from open office and no amount of hitting the clear formatting button would actually work. Reading through your post and rereading what I actually wrote rather than what I intended to write I think we are really close to being on the same page.

    I appreciate when someone can play devil's advocate without a strong bias which I feel you achieved, to the point that I am not actually sure what your opinion is.

    The ultimate goal of inter-dependency is to create crafting communities similar to adventuring communities rather than just crafting leveling roadblocks. I am in visioning areas where crafters of similar skill levels all go to craft. When they hit something they need from another craft they do a general shout out and the items are immediately available from one of the other players right near by working. Even better would be if the trade is not for cash but for supply goods that you make.

    Finding some way to incentivize this behavior will be tough honestly as crafting in most MMOs is a fairly solo/on your own time sort of experience and you are often quickly out of materials. If another player is not readily available then that is where the temptation to switch to an alt on the account or a boxed account comes in.

    SWG PRE-NGE took inter-dependency all the way to only one character per server and all harvesting skills consumed the same character points as the crafting skills and the adventuring skills. Almost all dropped items in SWG were also garbage compared to quality crafted/sliced items. Between these two things SWG had the most vibrant and vital crafting system I have ever experienced and all past and future systems will be compared against it.

    There is nothing we can really do to stop people from multi boxing and designing with it in mind is just too restrictive. If people are willing to spend enough money to have all the crafting specializations on different active accounts then I guess thats a win for VR. Many spouses who play together will effectively have that benefit but they would still be limited to specializations out of crafts.

    The only real way I can think of to make inter-dependency work is to make it time effective. This would mean that leveling crafting on an alt, just for ingredients for your main, is so time inefficient that you would rather just pick up the item you need from a players store front (how ever that might work). For that to work then leveling crafting needs to be time constrained primarily. Keeping two crafters at the same level would take just as much time as keeping two adventurers at the same level and they would both still need ingredients from other crafters from time to time even if they have synergies. If a player has played enough to truly master two crafts on two different characters then that is their reward for all the work involved.

    This then ties into the bit I was not to clear on/got eaten by the terrible formatting. I was actually trying to say in the 4th section that being able to use more materials in an hour of just crafting than you can possibly collect in an hour of pure harvesting is bad. Part of how I thought to model that is based on the character hiring a wagon to go out to a mine with them. They mine the ore and put it on the wagon up to x amount then they escort the wagon back. There are time limits and costs associated with the wagon in addition to needing to protect it so that you focus on the harvesting for that period of time. The ore you can fit into one wagon would represent many inventories full of material by hand but you can reduce it down to a manageable amount when you return to town through smelting, milling, tanning or what have you.

    Now the optional items bit, the optional items are what make a crafted item go from being slightly worse than dropped items to slightly better than dropped items. Without the optional items the crafted item would still be use able but only if you have had trouble getting a drop for that slot. You can and frankly should level up on the non-augmented items rather than learn the recipe with rare monster drops.

    You reserve the rare monster drops for when you have fully mastered the recipe and all your raw materials are high quality and sub-combine items are master crafted (this ties into my suggestion of recipe master from the other thread).

    Writs of crafting or anything like that would call for the un-augmented versions of the items and only players would give you enough to be worth using the rare optional materials. Those rare optional ingredients could be epic raid boss rare drops that make the top end crafted items.

     

    Its a wall of text I know and there are a ton of assumptions built in and its all built on my desire to have crafting as significant as adventuring.

     

    • 557 posts
    August 9, 2018 6:16 PM PDT

    Heya, Trasak.  Really liked your post and the clarification provided.

    What I have trouble with is seeing the line between "barrier to advancement" and "incentive to commune with fellow craftspeople".

    My fear is that at some point post-launch it becomes difficult to find anyone doing mid-tier crafting.  If the goods we're making aren't in high demand to the adventuring community and only have value to other crafters, then I think we've failed the litmus test for a successful crafting system.  The novelty of in-game crafting wears pretty thin fairly quickly if there isn't a meaningful outlet for your goods and services.  If the crafting community isn't vibrant with active members at all levels, then the interdependency becomes more of a barrier than an incentive.

    My larger fear is that unless crafted items are vital to the adventuring community that crafting remains a bolt-on novelty feature which pays lip service and checks off a box in the games feature matrix, but does nothing to advance the MMORPG genre.  Game developers seem to be afraid to cross the line where adventurers have interdependencies with crafters.   Everyone is talking about how you'll have to adventure to explore, harvest and discover mats and recipes.  Nobody is talking much about the other side of the coin.

    I'd love to see a game where the top guilds are competing to recruit the best craftspeople on the server and where guilds devote energy to collecting mats and recipes for the crafters in addition to the traditional spells and gear for their adventurers.   Just like with adventuring, the top tiers of crafting may only be available to those who chose to participate in guilds and have access to the relevant content drops.

    I know these ideas will go over like a lead balloon with many crafters who want nothing more than to stay in town making iron ingots while they watch YouTube in another window or like to sneak in some crafting while they're at work (shame shame).

     

     

    • 119 posts
    August 10, 2018 3:43 AM PDT

    I like the idea of optional goodies being something you might need to see another crafter or an adventurer about. Gating core progress by making you seek out others (which may or may not be available due to whatever reason) is a good way to frustrate a lot of people. I think it's also reasonable to require that items of high value/usefulness might need at least 1 other profession's help. I feel this is reasonable because most things of great value in the game will come from a group effort, and crafting should not be the 'solo man's path to riches' and stand apart in that regard. It doesn't bother me in the slightest to think that for my legendary sword to be completed, I might have to hire one of the higher-skilled blacksmiths on the server. Honestly, I think when crafters can build a reputation like that, it's amazing and gives the world so much depth.

     

    This is a pretty narrow thing to focus in on, but I wanted to mention it; one of the (minor?) drawbacks of interedependence can be being unable to find somethign due to a player's play time/schedule. If you play when a lot of folks aren't on, it can be rough to participate in the trade/crafting boom. It's unfortunate that such meta-game influencers exist, but there are ways around them. A trade goods marketplace/player vendor system is one, and to keep man-to-man trading the best route, a hefty tax/fee could be placed on the item. This would also serve the purpose of a money sink, since those taxes would essentially go into a void. Honestly though, this sounds a bit too much like your standard MMO auction house. Meh.

     

    What if different regions had a board posting, where players could essentially post WTS ads, and interacting with said advertisement enabled the user to purchase the item via 'mail' from wherever the seller might be at that point. For example;

    Roku the Enchanter has a few rare pieces of enchanted coral to sell. However, she's always awake at strange hours, so there's not much chance to do a direct transaction. So, she toodles down to the marketplace and interacts with the board and places an ad - For Sale; 1 piece of Enchanted Coral. 95pp. The ad will stay up for say, 24-48 hours. Roku now goes to a second town, via a friend's mage portal, and places a second, similar ad there. She now has two ads on opposite sides of a continent, but it's time to log off and go to work.

    Let's imagine that someone in need of that coral checks the board and sees the first ad later that day, and buys it. They pay 95pp, plus a 5% 'shipping fee' to have it delivered. The game checks; Roku is presently on the other side of this continent. The delivery will take approxomately X minutes.

    Unfortunately, the buyer actually needed two pieces. They're stuck in this city currently and want to stay there anyways for whatever reason. They check their guild list, see that a few folks are on in and various cities. They ask their guildies to check the postings for enchanted coral - bingo, Roku's second posting is found and purchased. Either the guildie could buy it and re-send it to the person, or maybe there'd be some kind of 'forward to' option. Who knows. 

    In addition to live trading, this would also see people traveling to various hubs to check postings, which in turn would likely give a boost to the travel economy.

    Kind of went off on a tangent there. Might not even be a problem worth adressing with interdependance.

    • 24 posts
    August 13, 2018 10:22 AM PDT

    So i see both pro's and cons to this. however, do to the nature of this game i vote Yes to interdependency. and here's what i'd propose. however, if you see something you don't like, please don't stop reading and get a wrong impression.

    Crafting similar, but not identical, to the original EQ2, reason being, it added elements of immersion where people that enjoy crafting in games can take pride in something that took actual effort and not just luck to make. as you "level" your crafting skills you would get other skills based your crafting level based. this turns your crafting into an active mini-game instead of a 30 minute AFK Session of pumping out Arrows for rangers. granted you could afk it if you really wanted to and just pump out 2,000 Low-Quality arrows for +2 damage, or you could pay attention, play the game accordingly and make Master-craft Arrows for +10 damage +1% crit. just examples, values subject to change and balance accordingly.

    Interdependancy, as you level your craft skills in certain fields i'd say have a character speciallize in a certain field, but still be able to craft low or mid-grade versions of the other fields of crafting solo. so let's say you wanted to make a Master Craft Greatsword, for yourself. this would require you to be specialized in "Blacksmith: Weapon Craft Mastery". however, if you take Weapon Craft Mastery as your specialization, then you can't Master Grade Sharpening Stones for the materials, as they are acquired from another field of specialization. perhaps something along the lines of "Honing mastery", which could enhance already made gear, and the Honer Specializer can't craft Master Grade Armor or Weapons. this method would allow the Blade Smith to make a really good sword, or a Honer to make a sword he found just as good as the blade the Weapon specializer crafted, however if you get the honer to supply Mastercraft stones to the blade smith and then further sharpen it after it's made, requiring both players to work together, then they could make weapons that would be just under Boss Grade Drops with enough effort.

    I feel this kind of system would ensure intermediate gear between normal Dungeons and Raids so that players needing that little extra edge can fill the gap, and the crafted gear not be more powerful than boss drops themselves. unless of course a boss drop was required in the crafting of the item.

    with an interdependent crafting system though, you'd need some kind of a Pre-order System where a member could be place a request on a board to get that 1 Master Grade Material, and if someone seeing it and completes the order. Maybe then grant a certain value and a +% to the experience in that field of craft. That way players looking to speed level something like Tailoring, can check and see that (Player A) wants ALOT of a certain color of rug, if housing is ever a thing, and they craft that order just for the extra +20% Tailoring EXP. or keep it strictly a monetary reward, but then you have issues with auction house inflation destroying the economy as it does in most MMOs, that's why i'd promote exp rewards over in-game currency as a reward.


    furthermore; upon reading in the Pantheon Wiki my idea can run along some of thier ideas.

    • "Find a crafter with a Bane enchantment against vermin or slimes to upgrade his Silvered Longsword."

    (Job done by Honing Mastery (Permanent), or maybe an alchemist (Potion of Coagulation), 30 minute duration). this allows 2 different fields options. in case the more desired option isn't available.

    • "Find a crafter with a recipe to re-forge the Longsword with a new Material that is better suited to fighting against slimes or vermin."

    (Job done by a Weapon Master to plate the old weapon in new metal permanently changing the weapons bane, or Scribe to write runes onto the blade that allow 2 weapon Banes at once, or to add a bane to a weapon that previously had none. this could also throw a Master Scribe into the mix on making a weapon made by others even better)

    • 557 posts
    August 13, 2018 10:54 AM PDT

    Definitely like your approach, Snoochy.  Two thumbs up.

    • 29 posts
    November 8, 2018 3:08 PM PST

          In most MMORPG’s, attempting to do things independently will be a difficult process. While crafting is often considered an individual process, most dedicated crafters have a plethora of alts. It is important to find a balance between allowing crafters the opportunity for individual achievements while still providing an environment for team-based goals as well. Most of the crafting systems I have seen innately encourages team play as most are pretty complex and it's one of the reasons why I love to craft. If the economy was to be completely player-driven, characters crafting independently would be a necessity. I believe there should be a two profession limit for each character, this would diminish but not rule out any interdependency for the single players out there. Pantheon already pushes for team-oriented gameplay so I don't see why the crafting system should be any different.

    • 88 posts
    November 8, 2018 4:29 PM PST

    I'm a fan of interdependency even extending beyond crafting.  Working with others and forming relationships is what builds a server's community.  But hey, I feel the 2nd M in MMO is a benefit and not a detractor. 

    • 230 posts
    November 16, 2018 10:04 AM PST

     Personally I've found interdependency a waste of time. Even in games where I could only be one type of crafter, interdependency added nothing to the game....well maybe hassle.

    I want crafting to be fun, ending up paying 100g for parts, on an item I can sell for around 10g is counterproductive. I was part of a guild and had a mate who made the leather straps I needed, but he had to waste his time making something that got him zero experience and no coin. I provided everything including consumables, and yes I offered but he wasn't interested in taking money from a guild brother.

     

     Every time I've dealt with this in a game it's just aggravating. Now if they come up with a new and interestng way to deal with interdependency I would be open to listening.

    • 416 posts
    November 17, 2018 6:01 AM PST

    As implemented in the games I've played so far, I'm against interdependency between crafting classes. As DracoKalen stated above it only seemed to provide hassle and not real cooperation. The argument that adventuring requires players to work interdependently so crafting should as well does not hold water for me. Trying to compare adventuring to crafting is not even like comparing apples to oranges but more like trying to compare an elephant to a lump of coal they are so completely different.

     

    I would love to see more interdependency between the adventuring and crafting spheres where adventurers are activively seeking out crafters before they head out to adventure and crafters welcoming this so they can hone their craft. Ideally, all gear would be crafted, then the two spheres would be very interdependent, but VR is not going that route. So in addition to supplying the usual gear, maybe crafters could give some sort of temporary buff- these could do all sorts of things, improve weapon damage, improve ac, provide some sort of atmosphere mitigation, or help overcome some creature's damage resistance. Or maybe crafters could create consumables that would accomplish similar results. Balancing these would be tricky of course.

     

    If we wanted to make crafting classes truly dependent on each other then require the completion of certian recipes to have those crafters present to actually craft the item. For example, maybe both leather workers and blacksmiths need leather straps with fasteners to complete some of their recipes. Then the recipe would require the blacksmith and leather worker to actually work together, at the same time, to complete that recipe. In this way both blacksmiths and leather workers would be actively seeking each other. A lot of care would need to be put into making such a system work.

     

    • 168 posts
    November 17, 2018 7:06 AM PST

    I stayed away from this as I have very mixed feelings on it. But no longer.

    Crafting should not be overly interdependant (Code for forced socialization). It is my refuge when I only have 30 minutes of gameplay and as such I would prefer it to be a solo activity or at least base elements at all levels a solo activity. Next thing you know there will be some disagreeable sort insisting that baiting my fish hook should be a tag team endeavor. For studded leather vest, let me make the vest and get my skills and let me aquire the studs (metalworker) from elsewhere (AH or alt crafter as I will not waste my time spamming some chat when I have only 30 minutes; although I will spam for a guildy crafter). Crafting has been and always will be a solo refuge for me when I just do not have the time for any camping, raiding, or exploring.

    I strongly disagree with 1 craft per server. It is really simple. I pay for this game and I subscribe to this game and I want to do everything in this game. Yes, if it's 1 craft per player you are right that I will roll alts (been there done that). Go find some other game mechanisms to enforce socialization manifestos. It's my money and I prefer to have access (successful access) to every system the game  has to offer in time. I am a completionist so as an example; even if I hate daily quests I will eventually get them completed.

    The above paragraph basically says that, yes, socialization is an important staple of this game, but nowhere and at no point in time have I seen, read, or otherwise been informed it is intended to be integrated into 100% of every game mechanism imaginable. Face it, we all have different versions of what socialization/community means and my version specifically involves interaction within groups and within a guild (alliances too) but in a restricted fashion external to that. If they get the interdependance correct in the group setting and make a stout guild framework in the game then no artificial Forced Socialization mechanics will be needed as it will occur organically.

     


    This post was edited by Dashed at November 17, 2018 7:14 AM PST
    • 9 posts
    January 26, 2019 11:01 PM PST

    I'm with Snoochy on the specialization ideas.  Those ideas bring diversity to the entire crafting landscape which limits homogenization of the value of crafting items.  I also believe in certain kinds of interdependence. 

     

    Say you would like to create a sword as a by blacksmith, well, you certainly should be able to create that sword and get some skill points for it.  A jewel from a jeweler shouldn't be required to make the sword however if you wanted to make a slightly enhanced version of the same sword then you could obtain the extra interdependent item from someone else and make a slightly better sword.

     

    I do wish there was a way to limit a single account from being able to craft everything.  I'd love for crafting to be unique and special.  Race, class, and religion should impact crafting.  Being an excellent crafter should be something guilds seek out.  There should certainly be a social aspect to crafting and part of the overall plan for your character. 

    • 124 posts
    February 4, 2019 1:45 AM PST

    Didn't read all the comments above, as i don't have the time to do so at work, and from home there isn't really a 'track' feature so i can save it up. So later i might do this.

    Still i want to add my opinion.

    I strongly believe that interdependancy should exist between crafters. Afterall i cannot expect a leatherworker to make me a belt buckle for the belt he is fashioning. But i can expect him to make me pants. So yes there should be interdepence, but it shouldn't be extreme like in the start of EQ2 (where they also failed to include the drops required to make fighter skills). I agree that even tho it was a great way as an alchemist to make some money, it was a bit over the top. So for Pantheon i would like to see something of the following:

    1. Make interdependancy logical - as mentioned, making a buckle for a belt. 
    2. Maybe get a 2ndary complimentary tradeskill to your main - a buckle is a buckle, same item used on level 1 as level 50
    3. Do not allow high end tradeskilled items being crafted by only 1 profession - master craft buckle only made by a smith
    4. Integrate class specific spells for imbuements - metal spikes for extra damage, imbued rings for resists, magical moss covering for additional healing effects etc.

    Preventing crafting from becomming trivial, i read this up here somewhere. I do believe this should be the case. Except for the high end hardcore guilds who have a selection from droped loot at any given time. 

    1. Crafted items should be equal to group content dropped items, but (slightly) worse than raid / timeline quest content. Maybe it should be more focussed on one attribute compared to the dropped items. Velious resist gear as an example, low ac/hp but good resists. Dropped items where the other way around.
    2. Make crafting 'mandatory' for master craftsmen - lose xp in it if you don't practice it for a very long time

    And a final note: Leveling up should never be a real problem. There should always be a way to level up your crafting skill (writs etc.). Make usable items for market give more xp but require interdependant items. Give 'trivial' recipe's less xp but also easily acquired items, or maybe make them more expensive.