Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Crafted Gear Levels

    • 334 posts
    December 6, 2018 9:19 AM PST

    So, this is a pretty niche preference, but I've always been particular about how crafting handled gear levels. In some systems, crafted gear is staggered in their level requirements. E.g., out of a set of crafted gear for the teens, boots and gloves might require level 10 to equip, but the chest piece and helmet might be level 13. In others, the crafted gear was all equippable at the appropriate level, so every piece of the gear was equippable at say, level 10, instead of being staggered.

    Personally, I've always preferred to have my craftable gear uniform in level requirements and not staggered. I'm hoping this is the case for Pantheon as well, but I'm curious if anyone else has opinions on this topic since it seems pretty niche.

    • 633 posts
    December 6, 2018 10:25 AM PST

    I prefer they don't have level requirements myself.  If someone can afford to make/buy the item then they should be able to wear it.

    • 159 posts
    December 7, 2018 12:33 AM PST

    kelenin said:

    I prefer they don't have level requirements myself.  If someone can afford to make/buy the item then they should be able to wear it.

    Wearing a max level crafted item at level one seems very silly to me. The environment would be designed for characters to have 10-20 strength (or whatever attribute), but with max level gear you would be at 100+ on your attributes I would imagine. How is that fun or challenging?

    I personally hope that that is never the case. I would be severely turned off by the gameplay.


    This post was edited by Kass at December 7, 2018 12:34 AM PST
    • 633 posts
    December 7, 2018 2:34 AM PST

    The assumption would be that if you are to the point where you can afford max level gear for a level 1 alt, you probably don't care about the "challenge" of being low level, you just want to get up to higher levels.  I know when I would go back and play alts on EQ, I didn't like the first 10 to 15 levels.  It started getting more enjoyable when I got to where the classes started getting a range of abilities to use.

    • 768 posts
    December 10, 2018 12:14 AM PST

    First question would be, on what is your requirement based on? 

    Adventure level? Level as a crafter? Specific skill points? Abilities?

    Seeing we're in a crafting thread. I'ld think you're aiming towards crafter level or skill based requirement. 

    Personally, I don't see a problem with the creation of gear that I could wear if my crafter level is high enough for it. Or my skillpoints have the sufficient amount to allow to equip/use/consume certain items.

    In fact, it could make sense, that you can wield an ashen lumberaxe when I have 10 skillpoints. And I can use a devoted ebon imbued lumberaxe when I have 50 skillpoints. (don't stumble over names or numbers here pls.)

    It could safely run parallel with the adventure gear. 

    To add this design into the game, it could actually give more meaning to an item. 

    Think of a level 1 item and a level 100 player using it.. in way it feels out of scale, no?

    They would be like: "Yeah, I'm still using my level 1 item/set to harvest. Why? Well that's the best there is. No! I have not improved anything on my way to 100... ?!"

     

    It just makes more sense if crafted gear item, scale up as well and their requirements along with them. Why not work for being able to use it? It's an achievement on its own.

    • 1785 posts
    December 11, 2018 6:46 PM PST

    So I will start off by saying that crafted items need to work just like looted items in terms of level/skill/whatever requirements.  Meaning if looted stuff has level minimums, crafted stuff should too.  If looted stuff doesn't, crafted stuff shouldn't.

    But, let me propose an alternative to you all - just something to help us all think outside the box a little more.

    We all generally accept that as you progress in crafting, you'll be able to use more rare/exotic materials to make your items.  You'll go from iron to steel to mythril to adamantine, etc.  This is why we start down the path of thinking about level minimums, because (at least if you're me), you want there to always be a place where iron and steel stuff is still useful, and you don't have every level 5 character twinked out in mythril armor or swinging an adamantine sword.

    But what if, instead of levels, we were going to have the materials impact the properties of the resulting item?  And what if that was done in such a way where "mundane" materials like iron and steel were still sometimes what you might want at high levels?

    Here's a completely skewed example (for armor)

    Iron - Base material, no modifiers

    Steel - +5% AC, +5% weight

    Mythril - -5% AC, -10% weight, +1 to additional stat values

    Adamantine - +20% weight, +2 to additional stat values

    ... and so on.

     

    I'm not saying that this is the best way to go or even the right way to go.  And you could take things a lot further than I have in my example.  BUT, if we want an adventuring game that isn't as much of a gear treadmill, AND we want a crafting game that has some depth to it, we should be thinking about how crafters can give adventurers more choices.  That way, it's not about "oh, I need to go upgrade my armor again".  Instead, it's about "I think I can be more effective if I customize my gear this way instead of that way".

     

    • 768 posts
    December 12, 2018 2:18 AM PST

    It does feel like a softer transition, from your example Nephele. 

    So instead of hard cuts (levels).. progression in crafted gear would be heavely dependant on your harvesting skill? Seems ok to me.

    It might leave out players that do not venture outside their safety of the city. 

    Designwise it would seem, you're actually removing  a lot of recipes from the world. I don't know if that as plus or downside. 

    However, if you're using the core recipe/technique to make your breastplate and indeed the choice of materials will decide your outcome, it still allows for upgrades to be made. 

    The search for recipes would be altered. (I would have to think about how that shifts everything...) (I won't go into recipes further as it's not the main focus of this thread, I think.)

    On the other side, crafting gear and scaling them up, could feel more rigid. As the way displayed it, there is little unknown or to it. Base recipe, different resource and for every steel item, the result would be +5% AC, +5%weight. 

    This could be a good idea for craftingsets.. But it doesn't allow for much flexibility in stats or playstyles.

    Now perhaps, a possible difference could be made to solve some arguments with your suggestion.

    Let's say, indeed the different metallic or stone resource offer different stats. 

    copper: +1 STA

    iron: +1Crit mit

    steel: +1 constitution

    mythril: +1 INT

    Now this could change things a lot more. And it opens up a lot more ways to costumize gear and provides the demand for crafted gear and crafters. 

    As content progresses, I'ld keep harvesting skills or tradeskill points to be the key to unlocking using new resources and thereby new stats. 

    But from the ground up, crafters can make a level 10 chestpiece with various outcomes, depending on what or how many of each resource is being used. And later on with expansions new resources could provide new stats again. And it will be up to the player to decide what kind of stats and thus resources they want their breastplate to be build out of.  (If you see where I'm going with this.)


    This post was edited by Barin999 at December 12, 2018 2:20 AM PST
    • 557 posts
    December 12, 2018 8:03 AM PST

    My complaint with crafting in so many games is there is often no compelling reason to level up your skill.  The demand for high end crafted goods gets completely outstripped by dropped items.

    I really think the solution to this is to have the best gear in game made by the best crafters on the server using the rarest items dropped by the toughest mobs.  This makes crafters an integral and important part of the adventuring environment, not merely an add-on/afterthought that is completely optional to the community at large.  Guilds would recruit crafters in the same way they would recruit tanks or healers.

    For too long, crafting has been something that was too much at arm's length from the core game.

    I haven't seen a reasonable argument against this model beyond "that's not how MMORPGs work".

    I believe that with regard to twinking our low levels with uber end game gear, it's been addressed in that the buffs/bonuses will be capped/scaled as you level. 

    • 7 posts
    December 15, 2018 4:10 PM PST

    Celandor said:

    My complaint with crafting in so many games is there is often no compelling reason to level up your skill.  The demand for high end crafted goods gets completely outstripped by dropped items.

    I really think the solution to this is to have the best gear in game made by the best crafters on the server using the rarest items dropped by the toughest mobs.  This makes crafters an integral and important part of the adventuring environment, not merely an add-on/afterthought that is completely optional to the community at large.  Guilds would recruit crafters in the same way they would recruit tanks or healers.



    ^^^ This right here.   The best gear avaliable should always be crafted in some way or else there will be no demand for it and thus a waste of time.

    As to the level requiremets....   I can absolutey see there being CRAFTER level requirements (or a skill point min.)  to craft increasingly more difficult items within the same tier.  Or I can see it without a "requirement" but the changes of successfuly completing the items without at least having said skill level should be abysial to the point that you are pretty much guarenteed to just be waisting your mats.  Thats pretty much how it works in real life.  You start out making the simple, smaller items that are easier to work with before attempting the bigger, more complex items in a set.  

    As to adventuring level to equip, it would make sense to me that you could swap out a full set of gear at once.  Say once you hit level 11 you can put on your tier 2 gear, not just the bracers.  From an astetic standpoint, I hate it when my gear is mix and match just due to arbitrary level requirements.   I should be able to put on the whole set of hardened leather armor at 21, not bracers at 21, gauntlets at 23, greaves at 25, pauldrons at 27, chest at 29, so on.....