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Crafter's Roundtable: Ability Points and Crafting/Gathering

    • 1785 posts
    January 31, 2020 9:14 AM PST

    Cross-posted from Pantheon Crafters.  It's been a while since we've done one of these, so just to restate:  The goal of every Crafter's Roundtable is to generate community discussion that might help the developers at Visionary Realms as they move forward with implementing the Crafting sphere in the game.

    During the developer stream last night (January 30th) we learned about the concept of Ability Points, which are points you earn through gameplay that are used to empower your class abilities. The system was described as a hybrid of EQ-style Alternate Advancement and WoW-style Talent Trees, with the idea that players could use these to pick and choose from incremental power increases, without being locked into different builds or specializations. It was also mentioned that there would be multiple ways to earn these points and that players would be able to continue earning points even after reaching the level maximum - but that you would not earn points for doing something like fishing.

    Of course, that sparked a broader discussion among some of the community members present of whether you *should* be able to earn points for doing crafting and gathering. That's not really what this thread is about though.

    Consider: Many of us want some depth and complexity as part of crafting and gathering gameplay in Pantheon. We don't want crafting to simply be a magic box that we put things into - instead, we should have to do some thinking and push some buttons to successfully craft an item. Likewise, many of us would prefer gathering to not be simply a matter of finding a resource node and clicking on it multiple times to retrieve all the resources. There should be more to it than that. Thus, it stands to reason that there may be some crafting and gathering abilities that players acquire and use within the game.

    If it is the case that there are various crafting/gathering abilities in the game, then should those abilities also have something like the Ability Points for adventuring that can be used to upgrade them? Would it be a fun addition or simply more grind in your opinion? How should those points be earned if they exist? How would we all prefer to see them work?


    This post was edited by Nephele at January 31, 2020 9:16 AM PST
    • 3852 posts
    February 4, 2020 8:05 AM PST

    ((Of course, that sparked a broader discussion among some of the community members present of whether you *should* be able to earn points for doing crafting and gathering. That's not really what this thread is about though.))

    In the spirit of understanding what you are seeking comment on, not of nit-picking, isn't this precisely what this thread is about? As you went on to say:

    ((If it is the case that there are various crafting/gathering abilities in the game, then should those abilities also have something like the Ability Points for adventuring that can be used to upgrade them? Would it be a fun addition or simply more grind in your opinion? How should those points be earned if they exist? How would we all prefer to see them work?))

     

    I would love to see a complex harvesting system where different abilities contribute to your ability to harvest successfully. Do I expect this - no not at all. But there could be abilities that affect the distance at which you can see a node, the amount of information you get from a node (at the worst .... duh that may be metal. At the best - tier 4 obtanium with a 12% chance of a useful rare.), the speed at which you harvest, the chance of getting a rare, the quantity of rare materials you might get from the node, the number of times you can harvest one node before it poofs etc. 

    These abilities could and perhaps should go up with use - or maybe successful use. Very slowly. Not with your adventuring level not with your crafting level - what do those have to do with how well you harvest? Of course tools and other equipment can boost skills. Once you max an ability out continued use might as well give a small chance at bonus points.

    Given a system with harvesting abilities - will they be the same for everyone who puts the time in. Perhaps not. Race may be a factor - the old +2 to a dwarf's mining skill approach for example. Now bonus skill points can be a factor. Suppose there are three abilities. Suppose you can earn up to 10 bonus points. Suppose each ability can go up 10 points by use of bonus points. We will need to decide where we want the points to go. IMO always good to have choices and not one cookie-cutter approach for all harvesters.

    Similar theories for crafting but I used harvesting as an example because perhaps less of us care about it. I am one who does.

     

    • 1785 posts
    February 6, 2020 9:56 AM PST

    dorotea said:

    ((Of course, that sparked a broader discussion among some of the community members present of whether you *should* be able to earn points for doing crafting and gathering. That's not really what this thread is about though.))

    In the spirit of understanding what you are seeking comment on, not of nit-picking, isn't this precisely what this thread is about? As you went on to say:

     

    Ah, good point dorotea :)  I should have been more clear in that statement.  The original discussion that I wanted to steer us away from was whether you should be able to earn adventuring ability points for doing crafting and gathering actions.  Not crafting/gathering ability points. :)

    • 2419 posts
    February 6, 2020 3:20 PM PST

    Nephele said:

    ..should those abilities also have something like the Ability Points for adventuring that can be used to upgrade them? Would it be a fun addition or simply more grind in your opinion? How should those points be earned if they exist? How would we all prefer to see them work?

    You're asking, then, if there should be 2 pools of Ability Points, one earned through adventuring that are applied only to adventuring related skills/abilities/spells and another pool earned through harvesting/crafting that are only applied to harvesting/crafting skills/abilities?  If that is correct, I could support that idea.  It would be quite interesting to be given options to modify a given harvesting skills, for example, such as you could either reduce the time it takes to harvest or increase the chance for a rare find.  For crafting you might see an option to decrease crafting time or decrease failure rate, just for the sake of argument.

    These two pools, adventuring points and crafting points, would need to be kept completely separate, spendable only in their assigned area.

    • 4 posts
    February 7, 2020 9:32 PM PST

    I've given this a lot of thought over the years of what would make a good crafting system

     

    Something of a combination of the crafting systems of

     

    • EQ 1 / AA Crafting Abilities (the more experiance from working a tradeskill => AA / Talent Tree like abilities / easier to make items)

     

    • FFXIV crafting which pulled off what Vanguard tried in the use of 'process' abilities that effect the quality / stats of the output item. General idea is you have so many cp / crafting points as kin to mp / hp and you expend cp using your process abilities to either make or fail your item. (if you run out of cp before the item is complete... item is destroyed)  CP can be from either specialized crafting gearsets or experiance lvl in that craft

     

    • FFXIV also employed making crafting tradeskills into full on traditional class equivlents (warrior/cleric/enchanter).. i think that is something they got pretty well right, also the class skills were heavily interdependant on each other by way of submaterials and class armor pieces you need for your class but only a different class/tradeskill can make. That also made things more fun and interesting since its not just one big grind out session to get skill points ala EQ1 classic in a more siloed manner and most are typically forced to socialize with the community at that point to get what they need

     

    • Lineage 2 - One of the best parts was that you could take any weapons, sheilds, etc, etc and break them into sub materials or in its case usually crystals.  Those crystals then also are consumed to make other items as well as for the purpose of overenchanting items; the more overenchanted, the higher the risk it will destroy itself and all the coin you spend on crystals and the item is poof (major economy sink controled by the average coin needed to advance a weapon to its end / most enchanted state.. plenty of loons that love to gamble)

     

    I am a grandmaster crafter / game economist and will be watching this topic with great interest.. I have the itch to tradeskill again and it needs scratched

    • 238 posts
    February 8, 2020 2:15 AM PST

    Nephele said:

    Cross-posted from Pantheon Crafters.  It's been a while since we've done one of these, so just to restate:  The goal of every Crafter's Roundtable is to generate community discussion that might help the developers at Visionary Realms as they move forward with implementing the Crafting sphere in the game.

    During the developer stream last night (January 30th) we learned about the concept of Ability Points, which are points you earn through gameplay that are used to empower your class abilities. The system was described as a hybrid of EQ-style Alternate Advancement and WoW-style Talent Trees, with the idea that players could use these to pick and choose from incremental power increases, without being locked into different builds or specializations. It was also mentioned that there would be multiple ways to earn these points and that players would be able to continue earning points even after reaching the level maximum - but that you would not earn points for doing something like fishing.

    Of course, that sparked a broader discussion among some of the community members present of whether you *should* be able to earn points for doing crafting and gathering. That's not really what this thread is about though.

    Consider: Many of us want some depth and complexity as part of crafting and gathering gameplay in Pantheon. We don't want crafting to simply be a magic box that we put things into - instead, we should have to do some thinking and push some buttons to successfully craft an item. Likewise, many of us would prefer gathering to not be simply a matter of finding a resource node and clicking on it multiple times to retrieve all the resources. There should be more to it than that. Thus, it stands to reason that there may be some crafting and gathering abilities that players acquire and use within the game.

    If it is the case that there are various crafting/gathering abilities in the game, then should those abilities also have something like the Ability Points for adventuring that can be used to upgrade them? Would it be a fun addition or simply more grind in your opinion? How should those points be earned if they exist? How would we all prefer to see them work?

    I am going to say no but only because I want to see crafting and gathering as their own unique systems. I feel likeability points are great for class skills related to combat, but when extended to crafting it places limitations on and within these systems regarding what you can and cannot implement. 

    What I would like to see formed is a complex crafting system where all professions are reliant on each other. For example, you are crafting an ax, in order to craft this ax you need metal (mining), Leather (skinning) for the hilt wrap, a gem to designate stat allocation, and perhaps magical dust for a special effect (though maybe enchanting is a profession). While this scenario may be a bit intensive the main point I'm trying to get across is that I want to see professional cohesion. I don't want to see something like wow where if your a black smiter all you need to do is have mining to craft goods. I want to see all professions have multiple demand outlets for their products thus increasing their income potential throughout the game.

    Another thing I would like to eventually see is specializations within professions. For example, you start off as a blacksmith, but eventually, you get to chose to specialize in armor crafting or weapon/ammunition crafting. Maybe this specialization doesn't prevent you from crafting the other but instead allows you to get higher stats out of the appropriate item or allows you to craft items with innate abilities. Not really sure how these should work without seeing a list of all the available professions in the game, but this ties back into complex crafting and diversity within the professions themselves.

    Gathering (fishing, mining, herbing, skinning) is a concept that I don't have many thoughts on. I would like to see these professions be relevant in multiple professions vs just one or two. Fishing, for example, could be used for the cooking profession but could also see use in the alchemy profession, the enchanting profession (ex: enchant weapon + damage against amphibian/aquatic requires fish scales), and maybe even crafted acclimation items such as pressure resistance (requires a special type of fish scale).

    As for how gathering itself actually works the only comment I have is to keep it dumb and simple. I feel like the only way to complicate the click and mine mechanic is to fundamentally change how your world works. For example mining in EQ landmark was a click and mine, however, you had to have a special pickaxe for each higher-quality ore and you actually had to follow the vein (which was only possible because of the voxel system). I don't actually think there is a way to break from the normal click and do in this situation while actually keeping the mechanics reasonably fun. As Joppa said if your not careful you run the risk of implementing tedium instead of a decent experience.


    This post was edited by Baldur at February 8, 2020 2:25 AM PST
    • 4 posts
    February 8, 2020 4:43 AM PST

    Baldur said:

    As for how gathering itself actually works the only comment I have is to keep it dumb and simple. I feel like the only way to complicate the click and mine mechanic is to fundamentally change how your world works. For example mining in EQ landmark was a click and mine, however, you had to have a special pickaxe for each higher-quality ore and you actually had to follow the vein (which was only possible because of the voxel system). I don't actually think there is a way to break from the normal click and do in this situation while actually keeping the mechanics reasonably fun. As Joppa said if your not careful you run the risk of implementing tedium instead of a decent experience.

     

    Gathering is a tough nut to crack; almost by definition you are typically in the end just node farming and running around which then tends to invite gold farmers to go to town and then they tank the materials market. My jewelcrafting during wow BC / LK turned into consuming daily what would take 4-5 people all day long to gather so the chinese flooded in and i extended my manderian pinyan.. few miners would dare commit what they did because its not a job to them where as the chinese farmers want usd and think of it as a real job

    Only scalable idea i've ever had on that front is tying gathering more to adventuring with special sub skills so you get more materials along the way.  Think EQ mob farming for materials but with a twist of having to use a gathering specialized ability on the mob first to get a decent amount of materials to be added to the loot table and then either A: kill the mob or B: pickpocket the mob and run away with the risk of it getting pissed off and chasing you down

    Also could cross in something akin to say a special sight skill.. think ultravision but grants you the ability to see which mob has the potential of goods to go rob

     

    Something else I just remembered but this is not from any game i've played, rather is a mechanic i saw from the sword art online anime and I think is something that SHOULD definently go in

    Make some super specialized materials only gatherable by those with also the matching high level skills to consume it which also drives market rarity for an item and its value.  Smith needs a very rare ore? Only someone specialized to that level should be the only one to see it outside of maybe a very low drop rate otherwise.

    Unique way to force crafting item rarity beyond the typical zone level / zone access flags materials funnel 

     

    But even that can fall before the chinese zerg army looking for dollars, i've seen situations where they will end up full on playing the game / making their own farming parties managed by localized bosses that come in to chase off competitors..  yes they can and have behaved like pimps so that is another downfall to watch out for.  Skill up timesinks are the only thing i've seen that can actually slow them down.  If they can make a toon and PL it to where they need in just a week or two then whatever material will get flooded out if its worth decent coin to gather.


    This post was edited by Elasia at February 8, 2020 5:08 AM PST
    • 238 posts
    February 8, 2020 2:34 PM PST

    Elasia said:

    Baldur said:

    As for how gathering itself actually works the only comment I have is to keep it dumb and simple. I feel like the only way to complicate the click and mine mechanic is to fundamentally change how your world works. For example mining in EQ landmark was a click and mine, however, you had to have a special pickaxe for each higher-quality ore and you actually had to follow the vein (which was only possible because of the voxel system). I don't actually think there is a way to break from the normal click and do in this situation while actually keeping the mechanics reasonably fun. As Joppa said if your not careful you run the risk of implementing tedium instead of a decent experience.

     

    Gathering is a tough nut to crack; almost by definition you are typically in the end just node farming and running around which then tends to invite gold farmers to go to town and then they tank the materials market. My jewelcrafting during wow BC / LK turned into consuming daily what would take 4-5 people all day long to gather so the chinese flooded in and i extended my manderian pinyan.. few miners would dare commit what they did because its not a job to them where as the chinese farmers want usd and think of it as a real job

    Only scalable idea i've ever had on that front is tying gathering more to adventuring with special sub skills so you get more materials along the way.  Think EQ mob farming for materials but with a twist of having to use a gathering specialized ability on the mob first to get a decent amount of materials to be added to the loot table and then either A: kill the mob or B: pickpocket the mob and run away with the risk of it getting pissed off and chasing you down

    Also could cross in something akin to say a special sight skill.. think ultravision but grants you the ability to see which mob has the potential of goods to go rob

     

    Something else I just remembered but this is not from any game i've played, rather is a mechanic i saw from the sword art online anime and I think is something that SHOULD definently go in

    Make some super specialized materials only gatherable by those with also the matching high level skills to consume it which also drives market rarity for an item and its value.  Smith needs a very rare ore? Only someone specialized to that level should be the only one to see it outside of maybe a very low drop rate otherwise.

    Unique way to force crafting item rarity beyond the typical zone level / zone access flags materials funnel 

     

    But even that can fall before the chinese zerg army looking for dollars, i've seen situations where they will end up full on playing the game / making their own farming parties managed by localized bosses that come in to chase off competitors..  yes they can and have behaved like pimps so that is another downfall to watch out for.  Skill up timesinks are the only thing i've seen that can actually slow them down.  If they can make a toon and PL it to where they need in just a week or two then whatever material will get flooded out if its worth decent coin to gather.

    I know how you feel about the Chinese gold army I recently started playing WoW again and I am having to complete with multiboxing glore at higher in the higher content. It is extremely annoying watching 10 druids instant tag one herb node to the point it instantly disappears or when you tag it "No loot can be found" pops up. It is almost to the point that it is an abuse of the system.

    I think the only way to actively deal with the Chinese gold army is to make multi-boxing and botting extremely difficult with the game design and also implement specialized skills/ items that aren't the easiest to get in terms of acquisition/rng drop chance. I also think that enforcing bans while making combat more difficult and leveling harder, will also lead a dealy in the escalation of this problem.  I played TERA and they implemented a system that reduced the overall amount of nodes that you could hit in order to prevent gold farmers. It is one of the reasons that I quit that game, to be honest. I believe that if a player is paying for the game and they have the time then they should be able to do what they want including just farming for their play session. In my honest opinion placing limits on how much can be gathered each day is the worst solution to this issue that I have ever witnessed as it hurts everyone, not just those choosing to abuse the system.

    I am not really a fan of the concept of hidden nodes. I think that the player should be aware of things that they actively need to work towards obtaining. Hidden nodes limit this aspect of player perception and could lead to instances where a player could think they have unlocked everything based on their perception of the world especially if the means to obtain them are obscure. Conversely, though the presence of hidden nodes could be ok if the means to unlock them were fairly easy to find/obtain. Still, though I don't think that limiting the player's perception of the world is a viable answer to impact gold farmers.

    I am really interested in hearing VR's plans regarding professions, how they plan to deal with gold sellers, and how they plan to prevent multi boxer's from abusing professions. 


    This post was edited by Baldur at February 8, 2020 2:38 PM PST
    • 3852 posts
    February 11, 2020 8:05 AM PST

    I essentially agree with all of the above comments. Sad - it gives me little to say. Wait ...I haven't addressed goldspammer multiboxing.

    A niche game like Pantheon may not attract much of this nonsense but let us brainstorm for success not failure.

    Hidden nodes - bad idea. Daily limits - even worse idea. All as Baldur said. Limits on multi-boxing will surely be driven more by adventuring considerations, as will enforcement of anti-botting rules.

    Basic question one - is it a good idea to tray and make this harder in the first place? If they flood the markets and reduce prices it will be good for crafters and bad for harvesters - should VR care? I ask this as someone whose first love is harvesting. My answer is yes VR should care - because gold spammers are bad for the game and making their lives harder is a worthwhile goal independant of whether we are helped or hurt by armies (well this isn't WoW - maybe platoons) of spammer farmers.

    Basic question two - what can be done? A few thoughts for consideration. That they would make it harder for the spammers is certain but whether this is worth the restrictions on real players is the issue.

    1. If spammers often use free trial characters rather than spending the money to subscribe - putting free trials on a separate server would isolate the problem to that extent. Repeatedly debated on these forums so I won't discusss pros and cons but I do want to list a bunch of anti-spammer possibilities in one place and since this thread seems to have morphed onto this topic - why not here?

    2. Prevent free trial characters from gathering. How many people giving the game an honest test hop will be so negatively affected that they will refuse to subscribe? Subscribers will not be restricted in any way. But I think unless spamming gets bad and no better solution comes to mind this is a terrible idea. 

    3. Time sinks required to raise skill as Elasia mentioned.  Suppose your first 100 points in harvesting were "practice" runs to teach you enough to get useful materials. This is actually not a bad idea in general to slow progress down in keeping with our basic tenets. 

    4. I think of an old saying. If a man gives you a problem, remember. No man, no problem. If the evil buggers cannot spam and *sell* the gold they won't bother collecting it in the first place. Plus, if there is no spam any damage they can do is seriously reduced. Some games have wonderful spam filters - you basically never see an advertisement for gold or powerleveling paid for by real money. EQ2 used to have a great filter - probably still do. Put in a good spam filter its far less of a burden on real customers than any other fix.


    This post was edited by dorotea at February 11, 2020 8:06 AM PST
    • 1860 posts
    February 11, 2020 9:42 AM PST

    Vandraad said:

    These two pools, adventuring points and crafting points, would need to be kept completely separate, spendable only in their assigned area.

    Why do you think these would need to be kept in separate pools?  Why would it matter if I wanted to spend my point on a crafting ability instead of an adventuring ability?  Especially when it isn't an either/or choice and you can get them all eventually anyway?


    This post was edited by philo at February 11, 2020 10:03 AM PST
    • 768 posts
    February 14, 2020 10:52 PM PST

    I'm sorry, I don't have a short version for this so far. I'll get back to you on that. (Nephele what are you doing to me here, there is just no way I can press this in a short answer...)

    For those that like reading ramblings: https://www.pantheoncrafters.com/threads/crafters-roundtable-ability-points-and-crafting-gathering.319/

    Pool of ability points:

    3 options. A) 1 pool for all, handy but more dramatic impact on progression. B) 2 parallel pools, less risky for the player but could mean you need to earn ability points seperatly as wel. C) a hybrid of 1 pool with requirements of the three aspects; harvesting, adventuring, crafting. This one can create bottlenecks and risks railroading but stimulates players to play beyond their initial intend.

    Earning none combat ability points:

    Harvesting; keeping track of how many and where you've harvested certain resources and rewarding points at certain milestones. same goes for looting and salvaging of resource X.

    Crafting: keeping track of how many, where and with what you've crafted item X and rewarding at certain milestones. Same goes for looting or salvaging an item that relates to skill or class. Reaching skillpoint X is also an option. Gaining faction, completing quests, discovering recipes, completing storylines are all options for rewarding ability points.

    Ability point progression:

    No to: speed increase of harvest or craft, item or node (yield) identity, no consumption crafts (where no items are consumed after completion), to a fix (meaning; not a % chance increase but an actual amount) increase, 

    Yes to: regional progression points, terrain or geological ability points, influencing challenge rating ability points, X % chance to increase % Y, influencing proficiency of tool (crafting, harvesting or other) usage, harvesting an additional time, faction gain boosts (% ofc).

    Upgrades via ability points:

    This heavily depends on the mechanic behind skills and actual abilities used while crafting or harvesting (if any at all).

    Gathering and crafting are two aspects of this game that can go very broad and diverse when it comes to abilities. Since we don't know how deep they go into designing the details, it's everyone's guess ofc. 

    I'll assume, there are harvesting skills, but they are global skills (while I secretly hope differently). Meaning with a mining skill you can mine everywhere and all the time, as long as you've matched the tier of that node with your skill or are in range of that. I've already mentioned this earlier so I'm not going to fully repeat myself here; discovery of nodes, % chance increase of unique resources, % chance of increase % of yield X, gaining skill point X after Y amount of ability points are spent.

     I like the idea of spending ability points in order to unlock content/lore/quests. Even if you don't know where that content is located. It gives a certain mystery and adventure to something very ordinary. (If you see what I mean here.) It can stimulate players to explore the world even further. It's a risk, but will it ever pay off... this temptation appeals to me.

     I'll assume again, that there will be tradeskill abilities used while crafting. Aside of that, there are trade skills.

    • These kind of points can expand the range of recipes a player of level X can attempt. Example, don't stumble over number; A level 2 player can work level 2-4 recipes. Level 5 is usually not possible to attempt so far. Investing ability points can push towards enabling that at level 2.
    • They could grant extra skill points if enough ability points are invested.
    • They could grant an upgrade of tradeskill ability X if enough points are invested. Since we don't know if there are any such abilities or how they would affect the craftingproces, I won't go into it much. Basically it can improve with X%.
    • Unlocking master, expert, specialized techniques, recipes, ability trees is another possibility
    • Tresholds of points spent or specific trees can grant direct beneficial impacts on the crafting process
    • Decreasing challenge rating or a % chance thereof
    • Actual amount of Faction points gained (mind you Faction points only, so no stat increases, speed increases)
    • Unlocking combined tradeskill craft recipes/abilities for advanced or unique recipes (if that is a thing in game) (Example: for those rare occassions where one player just needs to be able to use techniques/abilities of different classes at ones, while solo crafting. I'm not saying it's a permanent  thing, it's for unique/specific content only.)

    Ability point sinks:

    I hate the idea that they'll turn into a sink of stupendous amounts points spent for just a pinch of progressive experience. KEEP the sinks relatively SMALL and actually IMPACTFUL. You will otherwise just undermine the entire experience and value of ability points. And make it just dull grind feature in the game.

    I do have actual more elaborate arguments for the above and a bit more detailed suggestions, you can read all that in the link to the other forum above. 

     

     


    This post was edited by Barin999 at February 15, 2020 11:30 PM PST
    • 1315 posts
    February 15, 2020 4:47 AM PST

    Slow posting is slow.

     

    Short answer.

        1. Crafting, harvesting and diplomacy should all pull from a different ability point pool.

        2. All characters should have base access to all primary basic abilities of crafting, harvesting and diplomacy.

        3. Through the course of play you earn C H or D ability points

        4. How you spend your ability points is what makes you a miner over a hunter, smith over an alchemist and a spy over a merchant (just sneaking that in there)

        5. A “standard” number of play hours will give you enough points for one specialty to be unlocked. 1.5, 3, 6, 12 times standard amount of play time will let you unlock an additional if you can find enough opportunities.

     

    An example: Hammering Basic lets you hammer nails or hammer metal (crudely). Putting an ability point into Hammer basics lets you choose either Carpenter Drive or Metal Striking. Carpenter Drive lets you smoothly hammer nails into wood without damaging the product which will have an effect on the final product. Metal Striking is an even stroke hit with a heavier hammer to change the shape of an ingot in a more controlled and uniform manor.

     

    • 1315 posts
    February 15, 2020 4:52 AM PST

    philo said:

    Why do you think these would need to be kept in separate pools?  Why would it matter if I wanted to spend my point on a crafting ability instead of an adventuring ability?  Especially when it isn't an either/or choice and you can get them all eventually anyway?

    Ill jump in here too.  I am hoping there will be a big different between CAN get everything and WILL get everything.  In a standard 200-400 hour level life you get 100 out of 400 possible points.  Each additional 100 takes an exponential amount of time to gain.  So while you CAN get them all WILL you?

    By spliting Adventuring and Non Combat you can create too non-interactive pools that can have a quick ramp up based on experiencing that content without requiring the other or directly benefiting from it.

    • 1860 posts
    February 15, 2020 8:00 PM PST

    Trasak said:

    philo said:

    Why do you think these would need to be kept in separate pools?  Why would it matter if I wanted to spend my point on a crafting ability instead of an adventuring ability?  Especially when it isn't an either/or choice and you can get them all eventually anyway?

    By spliting Adventuring and Non Combat you can create too non-interactive pools that can have a quick ramp up based on experiencing that content without requiring the other or directly benefiting from it.

    They can ramp up at the same speed or faster or slower regardless of the pools they come from if that is a concern just by the way it is balanced.

    All characters should have base access to all primary basic abilities of crafting, harvesting and diplomacy.

    That is not the way it will work.  A player's crafting abilities will be limited.  VR wants to encourage players to be dependant on others.  This has been talked about a few times over the years.


    This post was edited by philo at February 15, 2020 8:03 PM PST
    • 768 posts
    February 15, 2020 11:23 PM PST

    Trasak said: 

    An example: Hammering Basic lets you hammer nails or hammer metal (crudely). Putting an ability point into Hammer basics lets you choose either Carpenter Drive or Metal Striking. Carpenter Drive lets you smoothly hammer nails into wood without damaging the product which will have an effect on the final product. Metal Striking is an even stroke hit with a heavier hammer to change the shape of an ingot in a more controlled and uniform manor.

     

    I'd like to quickly touch on that. Do you consider ability points a choice or a must have? 

    Ability points that have an impact on the final product, can lean more towards railroading rather than choice? Or how do you see that diversing over time? Where ability points define which stat is increased on the final product (or subcomponent or by product). 

    Ability points could allow a crafter to get specialized towards crafting items with a higher X stat. So that player's possible reputation will reflect their ability choices. (I do like that idea somehow.) If however there is no diversity of choice there, every crafter of the same class will construct the same items with the same stat boosts (aka the commonly known railroad). I can imagine that crafters will choose to spent ability points into increasing stats which lean towards their own adventuring class or playstyle. So it can give a lot of identity to the crafter and diversity on the market. 

    Downside with that, could be that it devalues the item's original identity or the sale value of the crafted product if that stats differ too greatly. If the ability points allow slight improvements, it's up to the buyer to purchase which ever axe leans more towards their own class/playstyle. Looted axes or the base product if you will can still provide a bottom price that is not much lower than the "improved" versions made by those players that have spent those specific ability points. (if you catch my ramblings)


    This post was edited by Barin999 at February 15, 2020 11:25 PM PST
    • 768 posts
    February 15, 2020 11:37 PM PST

    Trasak said:

    ... I am hoping there will be a big different between CAN get everything and WILL get everything.  In a standard 200-400 hour level life you get 100 out of 400 possible points.  Each additional 100 takes an exponential amount of time to gain.  So while you CAN get them all WILL you?

    If I think about it long enough, I can imagine it being somewhat of a tease. But I'm still not won over for the Can get it all design. For most players, I think, it will not be such a POSITIVE stimulance, but much rather be experienced as a must grind design. "I've reached milestone X. What to do? O yeah, I'll grind out those other ability points now, doing repetition this or that." I just don't see much flair or fun in that. 

    I'd rather know or learn while playing that I will just not be able to get everything before new content is introduced. Making me feel like I'm continously progressing without capping of each time and that no matter how long I've played this game, there is no finish line. That I should aim to going for what I enjoy doing the most in this game, rather than crossing off those final bits and pieces.

    Or just keep it into the unknown design of the game. But then again, how long can things be unknown...

    It can actually feel discouraging to start a game where you see the finish line in the distance and think: Right, so I need to get 400 of these to max out and I have 1 atm. Let's get cracking...?? Fun? 


    This post was edited by Barin999 at February 15, 2020 11:41 PM PST
    • 1315 posts
    February 16, 2020 5:23 PM PST

    philo said:

    They can ramp up at the same speed or faster or slower regardless of the pools they come from if that is a concern just by the way it is balanced.

    All characters should have base access to all primary basic abilities of crafting, harvesting and diplomacy.

    That is not the way it will work.  A player's crafting abilities will be limited.  VR wants to encourage players to be dependant on others.  This has been talked about a few times over the years.

     

    The speed maters if you want the first 50-100 to be from the standard leveling process but the 101-XXX to be from higher challenge content. In theory leveling content will be balanced against the number of ability points you are likely to have at that level and end game content will be based on having above 100.

    If both crafting and adventuring pulled from the same pool then you would see low level adventurers doing crafting quests to get extra ability points to spend on adventuring abilities to make leveling easier and safer. I would rather see a chunk of points for both adventuring and crafting be from standard progression and another chunk from challenging content. The only real way to control that is by keeping to pools separate so you cant cherry pick the easy crafting and adventuring rewards to match what only a pure adventurer raider should be able to get to. Likewise raiding in order to unlock a high level of crafting mastery seems to be a bad system. Though there may be high level crafting challenges inside of high level adventuring challenges and high level adventuring challenges that only spawn immediately after a high level crafting event.

    Last I heard they were considering going back to letting you craft everything but some how requiring dedication to achieve the abilitys.  Maybe this was a hint towards the ability system and an acknowledgment of the fact that people will just make crafting mules.

     

    @Barin999

    First off I also disagree with the choice to make it so that a character can unlock all abilities to the maximum. I would prefer to see diminishing returns and exponential cost increase on abilities with a cap on how many you can ever use. This would be for both crafting and adventuring. Having everyone be the same after enough time is just boring.

    If we are stuck with it then at least for crafting I though Ability points my be a good tool to assemble sudo crafting classes. Different combines will require certain base skills for the most basic designs. Advanced designs will require basic abilities that have been evolved through points. If you are using a more advanced skill than is require for that combine then it can increase the quality or tier of the output. Likewise the more basic skill will push the results down and the failure rates higher.

     

     

     


    This post was edited by Trasak at February 16, 2020 5:31 PM PST
    • 5 posts
    March 5, 2020 10:04 AM PST

    I've played all sorts of MMO's over the years and so I became a pledge for Pantheon to hopefully get my two cents out there. 

     

    In EQ you just gathered items by killing stuff, combine and made an item.

    In Vanguard you gathered items and combined to make an item, but had to switch back and forth between crafter or adventurer.

    In ESO you can just get a bunch of ability points through completing the story, exploring and collecting things like shards, or just by leveling up. Once you're at a max level you could simply respec and put all those points into crafting if you wanted to. 

    Dark Age of Camelot you just gathered as much money as you could, bought items from vendors, combined them and gained skill.

     

    I would like to see reward specific to my crafting through actually crafting.

    Maybe you only gain abilities through crafting quest lines. You could hide these quests on random npc's in any zone so that it still feels adventurous.

    Maybe you need to fight your way into a dungeon to use a special forge or rescue someone that will teach you how to do something specific so you could advance a quest line and gain a new ability.

    Remember that awesome earring in Everquest that you had to max all your tradeskills to be able to create? This was single handedly one of my favorite achievements of any game i've ever played.

    I'd also like to see gear that makes me better at my crafting/gathering. It could even be items you add to your existing armor and weapons. This could add some aestetics and make gear choices a little more important. 

     

     

    • 1785 posts
    March 5, 2020 8:31 PM PST

    Welcome to the community Peppip and thanks for making your voice heard!

    We probably won't hear much from VR about crafting for a while yet, but in the meantime, I think I will have some new posts up in a few days for discussion.  I hope you'll voice your opinion on those when the time comes too!

    • 5 posts
    March 6, 2020 8:37 PM PST

    Lookin forward to topics I can contribute to Nephele :)

    • 3852 posts
    March 10, 2020 7:50 AM PDT

    For what it is worth I agree with those that do not feel that one character should be able to get and do absolutely everything. I have a strong bias towards variety over homoginization. 

    Having read the earlier posts in this thread I think that the arguments against having one combined pool of ability points are strong ones. I do not want to adventure to raise points for crafting once I have gotten the points that can be easily gotten from crafting. I do not want people that do not give a rat's hindquarters for crafting incented to do it in order to get points they will use for adventuring. Still less do I want to have to choose whether to have a very weak adventuring character because her points were spent to buy crafting abilities or a very weak crafter because her points were spent to buy adventuring abilities.


    This post was edited by dorotea at March 10, 2020 7:51 AM PDT
    • 1860 posts
    March 21, 2020 2:24 PM PDT

     I like the idea of a player having to make a choice of whether they want to spend their points on adventuring abilities or crafting abilities (single pool for both).

    This would basically make it so that those who are heavily adventuring focused would never be as good at crafting as those who spend points on crafting skills at the expense of their adventuring skills. 

    If they pull from separate pools those crafting points have to be spent in the crafting sphere instead of having to make a choice.  That makes it much more common for players to have their crafting abilities skilled up instead of having an advanced crafter stand out as being something unique.

    (granted everyone can earn everything eventually but you'd be racing against the next update/expansion that adds more abilities).


    This post was edited by philo at March 21, 2020 2:32 PM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    March 23, 2020 5:03 AM PDT

    @philo

    I don’t think the point of crafting is too choose it in opposition to adventuring.  Pantheon just is not setup to be a game where someone can truly pursue crafting 100% of the time.  If you make crafting and adventuring draw from the same pool of points all you will be doing is forcing people who want to both craft and adventure to make alts.  It is gamer instinct to min-max to a certain extent and using abilities for crafting that could go towards vital raid abilities is a non starter.

    I would much rather see a system where a specific character can be both an adventurer and a crafter.  They would be completely separate spheres of growth that could be pursued independently while also benefiting synergistically from both.

    SWG did originally have a system where you had to craft or adventure but that was tied to a one character per server choice and an entirely player created item economy (at least anything that wasn’t garbage or Mandalorian).  It will be then easy to point out that system can easily be circumnavigated simply by having 2 or more accounts.

    It really becomes a round and round discussion where either every character might as well be able to have both a combat class and a profession or a true one character per server and one account per person and you are banned if it is discovered you are controlling two or more.

    If you want to make choices matter then make it so that one cannot get all the abilities in the tree.  Force players to specialize within their craft rather than weather they are going to craft or fight.


    This post was edited by Trasak at March 23, 2020 5:05 AM PDT