Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Do you enjoy other spheres?

    • 68 posts
    June 10, 2019 12:39 PM PDT

    I like to do it all.

    • 1479 posts
    June 10, 2019 12:57 PM PDT

    I like them. But not as my main asset and interest in the game. They remain secondary and a way for me to break small amounts of time or focus on something once a decent level has been achieved.

    • 116 posts
    June 10, 2019 1:30 PM PDT
    I enjoy the possibility that these other activities present. Sadly, especially with crafting, I have not experienced a game in which it stayed meaningful.

    I am hoping PRotF surprises me, but how does a crafted item compete with a dropped rare? What is the purpose of crafting if everyone would rather camp the rare drops?

    Here’s to hoping that they surprise me!
    • 125 posts
    June 10, 2019 2:07 PM PDT

    Grayel said: I enjoy the possibility that these other activities present. Sadly, especially with crafting, I have not experienced a game in which it stayed meaningful. I am hoping PRotF surprises me, but how does a crafted item compete with a dropped rare? What is the purpose of crafting if everyone would rather camp the rare drops? Here’s to hoping that they surprise me!

     

    I can’t agree more, as much as I don’t personally like working crafting and fishing/cooking: I love seeing it be competitive with world drops, and also having material drops be worth currency. I’m a huge item googler and love know what my loot is for. Selling valuable mats to players and buying crafted gear is awesome to me, and helps promote social interaction/community. I’m glad and a mat-seller crafter-buyer if that that sphere exists, and I’m sad when it’s irrelivant. 

    • 646 posts
    June 10, 2019 2:28 PM PDT

    I tend to enjoy a little bit of everything.

    Also, roleplay. Lots and lots and lots of RP.

    • 1 posts
    June 10, 2019 4:24 PM PDT

    Yup, I love crafting and will always do it when a game presents it, both good and bad.   Sometimes you just want to take a night off, unwind and go grind mats and recipes.  Vanguard and SWG were probably my favorite games to craft in.  GW2 and Lotro were both good too.  It works especially well when they intertwine the different professions (ex. I need studs from a blacksmith to make my leather armor as a tailor).  I very much enjoy fishing as well. 

    • 19 posts
    June 10, 2019 4:45 PM PDT

    So much of the crafting I've seen seems to be little more than a time &/or money sink.  Although I've tried a lot, stat food & adult beverages are about the only crafting skills that held my attention.  And a little fletching to make some arrow ammo for pulling. 

    Some random thoughts: 

    • Make it so the crafted items are on par with quest and mob loot. 
    • Make it to where a crafted item can be re-worked into a better item once the crafter improves their skill. 
    • Make it to where armor and weapon smiths can repair items better and/or cheaper than NPCs (if item wear/damage will be in game).  And the smiths can get skill increases from doing repairs.
    • 388 posts
    June 10, 2019 9:41 PM PDT

    I might do some crafting. it's not something i enjoy much.. 

    If diplomacy is like Vanguard. No. diplomacy was terrible in vanguard.  (just my opinion. i know others liked it. i hated it ) 

     

    • 124 posts
    June 11, 2019 12:14 AM PDT

    To be completely honest, i like adventuring the most and crafting is my where i spent my 'downtime' of sorts. When i have 1 hour to play i'm more likely to gather or craft than i would finding a group. Purely based on past experiences of MMO's, i found crafting more a chore than enjoyable, mainly because there was no real benefit in the long term aside of being self sustainable.

    So will i be a crafter? Yes, will i enjoy it? Not the crafting, only the ability to be able to make stuff for me and my friends.

     

    On the topic of fishing . . . i have so far hated every type of fishing implementation in any mmo i have played. it takes too long, its too simplistic and doesn't really offer any challenge or danger. Its mostly 1 - 6 clicks. 1 to cast, other ones to reel in and MAYBE some minigame. Not my cup of tea. (i geuss that is also why i don't enjoy fishing in real life)

    • 228 posts
    June 11, 2019 5:13 AM PDT

    I'll try anything the game has to offer.

    In Vanguard I leveled my Disciple/Mineralogist in parallel, and I loved the way they supplemented each other. To get my hands on some of the high level recipies (without spending a lot of coin) I had to bring some friends together and go kill some high level monsters in dangerous lands. Consequently, it made sense to level in both spheres more less synchronously.

    I don't remember what Diplomacy was like, so I must not have enjoyed it much.

    • 297 posts
    June 11, 2019 5:24 AM PDT

    I find myself continually drawn to Crafting systems, but I find they almost never give me back anything comparable to what I put into them. I don't know why game designers seem to keep insisting on including Crafting and then making it nearly worthless, but that's apparently how it works most of the time. I would love a Crafting system that resulted in useful, or even just cool rewards like fun cosmetic items you couldn't get elsewhere.

    Diplomacy is a system that has never really interested me in any game. It's often just a tedious thing you have to do and very much feels like a cop-out timesink in place of compelling content.

    Fishing is, well, I guess people like it? I have never seen the point and only do it if I absolutely have to. 

    • 1315 posts
    June 11, 2019 6:01 AM PDT

    Good combat makes for a good measuring stick to measure your improvement against but it does not make a living world.  It is the digital society that makes an MMO feel like a living world and not just the flavor of the month button masher.  Creation and player to player interactions are what give players a feeling of partial ownership and a sense of belonging.

    Tools and activities that allow players to create either through crafting (the more customizable the more it feels like creation and not grinding) player housing (again the more configurable and open world the more a player can feel like they are leaving their own mark on the world) or shaping the game world ecosystem (diplomacy could be involved in founding player cities as well as complex NPC empire organizations) will give a game true depth of player ownership.  Likewise many tools that assist in players organizing themselves and entertaining each other the easier it will be to build relationships.  This also leads to the design concept that for the good of the game world no character should be self-sufficient and preferably no account will be able to and a single player should be unable to effectively operate more than one account at a time.

    Ultimately the Adventure portion of an MMO is relatively easy to design and build as its just art and math.  Creating a living world requires some very insightful and broad scoped design that takes in and uses human psychology to predict cause and effects while still leaving as much choice as is technologically possible.

    • 432 posts
    June 11, 2019 10:58 AM PDT

    I probably like crafting and harvesting more than camping somewhere and killing the same mob over and over . Crafting gives me much more the impression to be a part of a new world than just killing stuff .

    Crafting and harvesting means to me creation , trade , interaction , research . In EQ I started with an enchanter and obviously jewelcrafter . I always had people asking for resistance gear , enchanting metals or creating  viscous mana . Of course groups needed enchanters but there were many of them while there was only a handful of jewelcrafting GM . The design of JC in EQ was quite primitive but when one held through , it was very rewarding both from monetary and social point of view . So yes , crafting and harvesting is for me a fundamental part of an RPG and I especially love specific crafting quests that enable to find new recipes or get better tools . And then if there is housing or shipbuilding then crafting reaches a quite another dimension altogether .

    I didn't like Diplomacy in VG . It seemed pointless and didn't fit well . It looked like if someone said  : "Hey guys I have an idea , let's put a game of cards in Vanguard ." "Why ?" "No idea , just because it has not been done yet and because we can ." "Doh ."

    Fishing is a mixed bag . On one hand it may provide 10 minutes of relaxation when one has nothing else to do . But on the other hand it is mostly a waste of time because there are generally no rewards worth the effort . FFXIV did probably the best fishing because fishes could have been sold or used in aquariums and the rewards were worth the time spent . But if it s just click - wait - click - get a wortheless item - go to 1 then I'll probably pass .

    • 1281 posts
    June 11, 2019 12:07 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    Do you enjoy other spheres like Crafting, Fishing and Diplomacy as well as Adventuring or are you a strictly "Adventurer only" kind of person? #MMORPG #communitymatters

    Depends on the sphere and how I can make use of it. I loved brewery in EQ because it allowed me to make booze AND poisons. I'm not much of a crafter, fisher, or diplomat. I hope that brewery makes a comeback.

    • 128 posts
    June 11, 2019 12:30 PM PDT

    I abolutely love crafting, and think it a must-have part of the game.   Especially fishing, except for the spilling the beer part :P


    This post was edited by Nagasakee at June 11, 2019 12:31 PM PDT
    • 201 posts
    June 11, 2019 12:32 PM PDT

    Real crafting like VG or SWG or early EQ2 (but mostly VG along with the economy where all crafted gear was essential and useful. I loved being able to sell tons of blue and yellow gear) = absolutely.  one of the most important aspects of the game to me.  Complexity with a full set of crafting gear with stats and skills, factions, recipes, high demand for all types of items, ESSENTIAL.

     

    Trash crafting like WoW where you just click a button and ding 1, ding 2, ding 3 until a random number like 300 = garbage.  some nonsense where people max it out in an hour with enough money and use it to make 1 or 2 special items for raid combines or something...no.  Will ruin the game for me.


    This post was edited by antonius at June 11, 2019 12:33 PM PDT
    • 1399 posts
    June 11, 2019 1:28 PM PDT

    First I'll speak for my wife, as she's easy. She loves gathering and crafting more than adventuring. She grinds levels just if she has to in order to get the next pattern or gathering skill.

    Myself there is only one crafting I enjoyed and that was Research as a Wizard in early EQ. I enjoyed the searching for the needed Runes, I enjoyed the trading of Runes for Words like some trade Baseball cards, I enjoyed the scavenger hunt of finding a Rune I had been looking for in a merchants inventory, I enjoyed the surprise when a rare Rune showed up in a trade window from a Warrior wanting a port. I enjoyed this part of building a character much more than simply killing 1000 Orcs for the next level and free spells.

    Tailoring, Cooking, leatherworking, etc. Not so much. And WORSE when I'm going through an epic type quest and get to the point where it requires me to be a level 200 Brew master to get any further. THAT i find more than just irritating.


    This post was edited by Zorkon at June 12, 2019 6:35 AM PDT
    • 57 posts
    June 12, 2019 5:57 AM PDT

    For some reason, I tend to adventure to about 1/3 of the level cap and... more or less stop. Instead of feeling any impetus to rise to see all the content and rise to the top, I just kind of get to a comfortable place and exist in it, doing anything that allows me to keep hugging my homeland.

    • 238 posts
    June 12, 2019 10:52 AM PDT

    I prefer to be as self-sufficient as possible when adventuring so things like fishing and crafting come naturally in the pursuit of adventure. I am not sure what you mean by diplomacy though. If you are referring to diplomacy in the aspect of intraguild relationships then yes. I have usually and strangely enough been promoted to officer status in pretty much every guild I have ever been in, and in that situation, I usually act as a recruitment officer, but I've also had to intervene in situations where guild members weren't able to reach agreements on their own to maintain guild relationships as much as possible.

    However, if you are referring to diplomacy in the sense of an election based system where players can elect guild to rule over certain provinces, then no. I don't mind if a game has this type of system, but I find it to be a huge popularity contest and I would rather stay out of it. 

    • 520 posts
    June 12, 2019 11:46 AM PDT

    I like everything except trading - i tend to collect valuables and put it in the chest/bank till its full and then toss out less valuable items ... I just hope that i'll find some guildmember willing to sell all my stuff for a cut xP I guess i'd rather do something - like fighting, gathering plants, crafting - than waiting for a customer. As for gathering and crafting - I tend to spend most time at gathering (plants, wood, mineral, hides) as it's done while adventuring. I'm not a big fan of fishing though, however i'll still do it from time to time. As for crafting  I usually go for alchemy/cooking as potions and stat boosts are always needed for both myself and other players - no matter the class. Armor/weapon crafting is frequently secondary option usually only for myself or friends/guildies - as I've said already - I'm not big on trading - and sometimes I'd rather buy crafted weapons with the money I got from gathering/adventuring than crafting it myself.


    This post was edited by Hegenox at June 12, 2019 11:58 AM PDT
    • 62 posts
    June 13, 2019 9:47 AM PDT

    Depends. If the fishing mini-game is fun and challeging oh yes.. i will fish. I have been a fisherman in SWG (created 2 tutorials for this back then. One before the NGE and one after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA-SorALkzs) and when they introduced it in Vanguard. Other mmo's (ESO, EQ2, WOW) just didn't have a good fishing game to keep me occupied. I think Vanguards was the best in my opinion.

    And i will probably explore all the spheres the game has to offer. I just LOVED diplomacy in Vanguard. But mainly i am an explorer and adventures. Hopefully i won't be suprised by to many invisible walls (darn ESO for this)


    This post was edited by knoote at June 13, 2019 9:49 AM PDT
    • 332 posts
    June 13, 2019 2:12 PM PDT

    All ...

    One can not be a true min/maxer without doing all aspects of the game.

    • 173 posts
    June 14, 2019 10:14 AM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    Do you enjoy other spheres like Crafting, Fishing and Diplomacy as well as Adventuring or are you a strictly "Adventurer only" kind of person? #MMORPG #communitymatters

     

    I like it all.  I like even more that you mentioned Diplomacy.  I can't tell you how many horus I spent pushing leavers and learning all kinds of cool lore.  Crafting is also someting i spend several horus a week doing.  I find I have to balance my time in the different spheres since like most people I don't have unlimited play time.


    This post was edited by Holdolin at June 14, 2019 10:14 AM PDT
    • 454 posts
    June 14, 2019 12:12 PM PDT

    I’m all in with adventuring, crafting, fishing.  I have no experience with diplomacy.  I am really looking forward to perception.  I’d try farming, housing, and guild halls.

    • 75 posts
    June 14, 2019 1:10 PM PDT

    It depends on how each sphere is implemented. In most games I would say 90 percent adventurer/raider. 10 percent other ( usually things to complement adventuring, like gathering resources to sell or give to crafters for buff potions or special gear for different adventuring needs).

    As an example of a game that totally flipped the scales for me, when I played SWTOR I became addicted to Hutball. My usual 90/10 split above became more like 75/25 PVP/other. Maybe even higher.  It was just so much fun. The way the classes interacted and the arena made it a total blast for me. A typical day of play for me would be daily quests - 1 hour or so, raid 3 hours or so ( on our raid nights, I think it was 2x/ week ), and pvp at least 6 hours a day.