Iksar said:There is a huuuuuge issue with having crafted items be relevant and powerful beyond the upper levels of crafting though, which is that the item economy can MUCH more quickly become flooded. If for example there is a sought after sword on the server; 3 comparable swords that drop from 3 different zones/named mobs around level 30 with a 40% drop rate and spawns every hour then you'd end up with close to 30 drops per day average in total of the 3(assuming all are killed exactly upon spawn with no timer variance). Now let's say there are crafters that can do equal (or better), maybe 50 blacksmiths want to get in on this market so now you end up with nearly triple the amount available in one day alone. Without heavy cooldowns or extreme rarity crafters can easily flood markets, especially as a server matures. Now this is of course all hypothetical, since as we currently know it there won't be level restrictions for gear and they won't scale down stats to the users level.
In the current known system most people will likely pass the best gear they can get/buy to their alts, which trends more heavily toward the top items as the server matures. How can crafting compete against such items when not nearing the upper levels of the craft? More importantly: Why should it? In the bottom 75% skill level of a crafting profession you should pretty much only (with perhaps very limited exceptions/consumeable) be gearing people with "good" items on a new server/new (first run) players or otherwise just offering cheaper gear compared to merchants. There shouldn't be anything special about the player character making some bronze armor or a steel sword other than being able to offer it at a good price compared to npc merchants, as the player is just some journyman crafter at that point who is probably just learning how to make these things. I feel crafters shouldn't really have the ability to make quality/magical/comparable gear to magical/stat dungeon/world drops (for the most part) until they are experts/masters of their craft, even then it should be quite rare to get the items necessary and/or maybe the schematic is the rare drop AND a one time use requiring the player to find another schematic if they want to make a second of the item.
Something just doesn't sit right with me allowing crafters to keep on par with dungeons save for upper tiers of the craft/character level, which should still see the flow of items they can make be low so they can't flood servers compared to mob drop rates.
Either way, it's a very tight rope to balance which is probably why crafting hasn't really advanced in 10+ years. I feel like we will be stuck until crafting actually takes skill to perform well in a game and not just gather components and hit craft or some predicable mini-game where you hit buttons in set orders where maybe something bad happens and you just hit the corresponding "fix it" button. Maybe you make the good items an active group effort of 6+ crafters working together on something, passing back and forth for 30+ minutes with a high chance of failure depending on how knowledgable and skilled they are as a player. Maybe crafting a magical/powerful item just takes a very long amount of time and effort from the player spanning hours, carefully crafting and inspecting each part of the whole until the final construction/combination of all parts.
I will address my thoughts to your response in paragraph form once again.
If you based making upgraded crafted weapons on needing a base weapon that would alleviate your fear on over-weaponization. I discussed that in a previous post. That would help with too many weapons flooding the market. For instance, as an example, you're making some skill based special dagger. Maybe it would require a rusty dagger as a base dropped weapon to have a bonus betwen skill level 10 and 20, maybe an iron one for skill level 20 to 40, maybe a steel one for 40 to 60, etc. Something like the purerer the source weapon the better the results if you're of sufficiently high skill level of master craftsman.
Twinking lower-level alts has always been a problem in MMOs and has been since the very beginning of EQ. It will happen in Pantheon too with or without crafted upgrades. That doesn't really apply to the thread at hand. Crafted weapons would be less likely to work with twinks if they were based on skill levels. You could certainly give that Dagger of Uberness to your twink alt, but if he doesn't have a piercing skill of 75, he can't use it.
Again, your concern about flooding the server with crafted skill based weapons has already been addressed.
In the original EQ, crafting success, I know this because I was a master brewer as a Rogue to make my own poisons, had levels as well. It wasn't just "combine these five thinks and it will work". If you were too low of a level, you couldn't craft an item to begin with. Once you attained the proper minimum skill level to craft something, you had a chance for success or failure based on your skill level. So for instance if you were brewing whiskey and it required a skill level 50, and you had just attained 50, you had a very high chance of failing. WHen you attained a level 60, you were MUCH less likely to fail. A failed combinging destroyed the components as I recall. So, again, your concerns are unfounded as far as this goes. HOWEVER, this is all predicated on what sort of crafting system that Pantheon incorporates into the game. I am basing my comments on the crafting system as it was in EQ.
If I had to put money on it, I would expect a crafting system similar to vanguard or ffxiv, where progression as a crafter gives you better actions to use as well as more things you can make.
That said there is a thread in the crafting forum talking about what we would all like to see and there are many good ideas to pull from out there.
For me I always go back to Sie Ming's original papers on MMO crafting. If the crafting system, itemization, and economy can fulfill those broad requirements I will probably enjoy the game for a long time. If they can't, my sub is likely to end as soon as i run out of new content to see.
I never understood how a Druid in eq1 could use a scimitar and get skills in 1hs but could not wield a short sword, a katana or even a dagger.......
Durp said:I never understood how a Druid in eq1 could use a scimitar and get skills in 1hs but could not wield a short sword, a katana or even a dagger.......
I agree. That was really silly. A Katana, I could potentially see since they are traditionally wielded two-handed, but short swords are 1hs. Daggers I get since they are piercing weapons.
Durp said:I never understood how a Druid in eq1 could use a scimitar and get skills in 1hs but could not wield a short sword, a katana or even a dagger.......
This is just left over from druids in D&D. Gary Gygax said that when they were deciding what weapons druids should use, it was the closest thing they had to a sickle, which real-life Druids typically used to harvest plants. (It is also somewhat of a symbol of the crescent moon.) Sickles were added to the game later, but scimitars had already become a fan favorite, so they just stuck. And of course MMORPGs are heavily influenced by D&D, so by this point it's kind of just tradition. But that's why it only applies to scimitars and not other slashing weapons.
Ill post a general idea that I use in my table top RPG games when I DM that I believe could be applied to both crafting and dropped weapons as well as level restrictions.
A standard in TRPGs is that the loot found is often randomly generated and composed of a mixture of full value trade goods and magic items that if not useful to the group gets sold for half value. To keep the fun story element of each treasure and to keep loot balanced across the party I would allow the group to break down an item into its sub components for 10% of the value and rebuild it with additional resources. Mostly this allowed the +2 flaming great sword to be broken down to a masterwork great sword and a magic stone containing the +2 flaming component. The players could then add the +2 flaming component to his family heirloom sword, replacing its previous magical enhancement on the sword, after having broken down the heirloom sword.
How I see this being useful to Pantheon and other MMOs is that raid and or rare drops can, for a price, be broken down into one or more magical components and its base physical item. With further investment the magical components can be fused to a player made physical base or a different dropped physical base.
To build on the OPs concept physical bases can have a level/stat requirements to wield and the magical effects can require certain skill requirements to activate. A general example of this would be that a steel great sword may weight 6lbs and an adamantine great sword could weight 24 lbs. One would need considerably higher strength, and level, to swing a 24 lbs sword around effectively all day than an 8 lbs one. Additionally the “lightning blade” effect could require either Channel lightning of X level or one handed blade skill of x level in order to activate.
If you are still reading this I will put forward an additional layer of complexity and interaction between dropped items and crafting skills. I would break all physical items down into three parts: Blueprint/Design, Style, and Material. A players crafting skill of all three types has effect on the final item quality. To improve the final quality monster drop additives could be added to the sub component combine and the final combine. Without additives a skill capped crafter can randomly reach 95%-105% of item strength with high quality materials but a first time successful combine with minimal skills and poor quality materials could be as low as 40% of item strength or even lower. With raid dropped item additives the base item power can reach as high as 120-130% from a master craftsman with Pure quality materials. The player crafted enchantments could/should follow a similar structure.
How this would tie in with mob drops in my mind would be that common mobs drop items in the 30-50% range, elite mobs dropping 70-80% range, rare mobs or boss mobs in the 95-105% range and raid bosses in the 120-130% range. This would be both for the physical base quality and the magic quality element but the exact value is random. The items, once broken down into its sub parts, could be further broken down into its sub material components and used for crafting training as an alternative to only node farming for crafting materials. Material components can be graded from Poor quality to Pure, matching the % quality of the drop, and upgraded with the appropriate resource consuming refinement processes.
With this combined drop/crafting structure both paths could lead to the same endpoint item but a dropped item that is a perfect match for your character, most items will not be, would be a great deal cheaper than an item rigorously crafted when considering drop rate vs materials consumed. Due to requiring dropped additives to achieve high quality results the item availability should be able to be tuned roughly to parity with dropped items by controlling the drop+failure rates.
This is what happens when my systems engineering brain gets ahold of an idea and runs with it.
Trasak said:Ill post a general idea that I use in my table top RPG games when I DM that I believe could be applied to both crafting and dropped weapons as well as level restrictions.
A standard in TRPGs is that the loot found is often randomly generated and composed of a mixture of full value trade goods and magic items that if not useful to the group gets sold for half value. To keep the fun story element of each treasure and to keep loot balanced across the party I would allow the group to break down an item into its sub components for 10% of the value and rebuild it with additional resources. Mostly this allowed the +2 flaming great sword to be broken down to a masterwork great sword and a magic stone containing the +2 flaming component. The players could then add the +2 flaming component to his family heirloom sword, replacing its previous magical enhancement on the sword, after having broken down the heirloom sword.
How I see this being useful to Pantheon and other MMOs is that raid and or rare drops can, for a price, be broken down into one or more magical components and its base physical item. With further investment the magical components can be fused to a player made physical base or a different dropped physical base.
To build on the OPs concept physical bases can have a level/stat requirements to wield and the magical effects can require certain skill requirements to activate. A general example of this would be that a steel great sword may weight 6lbs and an adamantine great sword could weight 24 lbs. One would need considerably higher strength, and level, to swing a 24 lbs sword around effectively all day than an 8 lbs one. Additionally the “lightning blade” effect could require either Channel lightning of X level or one handed blade skill of x level in order to activate.
If you are still reading this I will put forward an additional layer of complexity and interaction between dropped items and crafting skills. I would break all physical items down into three parts: Blueprint/Design, Style, and Material. A players crafting skill of all three types has effect on the final item quality. To improve the final quality monster drop additives could be added to the sub component combine and the final combine. Without additives a skill capped crafter can randomly reach 95%-105% of item strength with high quality materials but a first time successful combine with minimal skills and poor quality materials could be as low as 40% of item strength or even lower. With raid dropped item additives the base item power can reach as high as 120-130% from a master craftsman with Pure quality materials. The player crafted enchantments could/should follow a similar structure.
How this would tie in with mob drops in my mind would be that common mobs drop items in the 30-50% range, elite mobs dropping 70-80% range, rare mobs or boss mobs in the 95-105% range and raid bosses in the 120-130% range. This would be both for the physical base quality and the magic quality element but the exact value is random. The items, once broken down into its sub parts, could be further broken down into its sub material components and used for crafting training as an alternative to only node farming for crafting materials. Material components can be graded from Poor quality to Pure, matching the % quality of the drop, and upgraded with the appropriate resource consuming refinement processes.
With this combined drop/crafting structure both paths could lead to the same endpoint item but a dropped item that is a perfect match for your character, most items will not be, would be a great deal cheaper than an item rigorously crafted when considering drop rate vs materials consumed. Due to requiring dropped additives to achieve high quality results the item availability should be able to be tuned roughly to parity with dropped items by controlling the drop+failure rates.
This is what happens when my systems engineering brain gets ahold of an idea and runs with it.
Yeah. I'm a systems engineer as well. That's sort of where my idea came from. "Home built gaming system" vs. "Off the shelf gaming system"....hehehehe
There is really only one really big problem with all classes being able to equip and use any weapon: Item balance. When you consider that a Cleric should not be able to do the same auto attack damage as a Rogue, you can readily see why weapons need class limitations. It would be nigh impossible for the dev team to create weapons that scale appropriately on a class by class basis if all classes were equally proficient with all weapons. You could maybe mitigate that with weapon skill level limitations class to class, but as others have said, people would expect you to use a weapon that best suites your class's weapon skill level then.
Kalok said:If you based making upgraded crafted weapons on needing a base weapon that would alleviate your fear on over-weaponization. I discussed that in a previous post. That would help with too many weapons flooding the market. For instance, as an example, you're making some skill based special dagger. Maybe it would require a rusty dagger as a base dropped weapon to have a bonus betwen skill level 10 and 20, maybe an iron one for skill level 20 to 40, maybe a steel one for 40 to 60, etc. Something like the purerer the source weapon the better the results if you're of sufficiently high skill level of master craftsman.
Twinking lower-level alts has always been a problem in MMOs and has been since the very beginning of EQ. It will happen in Pantheon too with or without crafted upgrades. That doesn't really apply to the thread at hand. Crafted weapons would be less likely to work with twinks if they were based on skill levels. You could certainly give that Dagger of Uberness to your twink alt, but if he doesn't have a piercing skill of 75, he can't use it.
Again, your concern about flooding the server with crafted skill based weapons has already been addressed.
In the original EQ, crafting success, I know this because I was a master brewer as a Rogue to make my own poisons, had levels as well. It wasn't just "combine these five thinks and it will work". If you were too low of a level, you couldn't craft an item to begin with. Once you attained the proper minimum skill level to craft something, you had a chance for success or failure based on your skill level. So for instance if you were brewing whiskey and it required a skill level 50, and you had just attained 50, you had a very high chance of failing. WHen you attained a level 60, you were MUCH less likely to fail. A failed combinging destroyed the components as I recall. So, again, your concerns are unfounded as far as this goes. HOWEVER, this is all predicated on what sort of crafting system that Pantheon incorporates into the game. I am basing my comments on the crafting system as it was in EQ.
Even if you required dungeon dropped weapons for improvement by a blacksmith it would be a little bit insulting. In a game thats main focus is adventuring with groups and dungeon diving through a dangerous world I would find it a bit of a slap in the face if crafting were shoed in to acquire the best items. I can understand crafting having good stuff on occasion (jewelry in EverQuest) but outclassing world drops at any given level range? I get the desire for crafting to be relevant for those that enjoy it but I don't think it should overshadow similar level dungeon drops, save for maybe a few pieces at max level.
Twinking does apply here as well. If you have the proposed crafter enhanced Rusty/Iron/Steel Dagger with whatever skill level boost for a level range, why would someone take that over the level 50 dungeon dropped Deathbringer dagger? If the crafted weapons outclass any dropped ones as long as they are within the skill range then you've made twinking even stronger but just ensure that crafters nearly always have the upper hand in the market. Further, you push the game back towards the modern methods of level requirements for gear.
But regular twinking isn't necessarily a problem so long as player stats scale by level like they did in EQ. In EQ it was mostly only an issue in the early levels when players figured out straight +HP/Mana gear was far more worthwhile than STA/WIS/INT until later levels, but otherwise players only had more hp/mana but their damage wasn't absurd due to spells not scaling in damage with any stats and melee having both damage caps and bonus damage & STR damage being tied to player level & slowly scaling. Once those players HP/Mana went low they weren't substantially better than others as hp/mana regen was just as slow for them as non-twinks. With tweaks it could be reduced to a non-issue and I believe in the May stream they said their goal is to make it so that while a twink character is stronger than a non-twink that the difference will only add up to being slight.
Crafting isn't incredibly social nor difficult. Even if you need a dragon heart from some raid boss to make an item, that's all well and good and I could see the item made from it being on par at best to items dropped the world or maybe even BiS for some class(es). But the challenge was in the killing not the crafting. I don't think the crafting deserves a disproportionate reward to those out there doing the dirty work and putting their lives on the line and as such should always be on a horizontal level to dropped items in the best of times. Which is what I was getting at with my previous last paragraph, until such a time that a MMO can introduce crafting in a way that actually takes skill from the player to accomplish and not just an investment of time, I don't believe it should often offer advantage over other items in the world. I imagine that's why most MMOs end up having crafting just offer enhancements/enchantments instead of physical items.
anemathis said:There is really only one really big problem with all classes being able to equip and use any weapon: Item balance. When you consider that a Cleric should not be able to do the same auto attack damage as a Rogue, you can readily see why weapons need class limitations. It would be nigh impossible for the dev team to create weapons that scale appropriately on a class by class basis if all classes were equally proficient with all weapons. You could maybe mitigate that with weapon skill level limitations class to class, but as others have said, people would expect you to use a weapon that best suites your class's weapon skill level then.
It's not too hard to balance really. For example: In Everquest a cleric could use a mace but that didn't mean they could put out the same auto attack damage as a melee DPS beyond the first handful of levels because they did not get access to things like double attack or dual wield and they didn't often have a bunch of bonus strength. Paired up again with the fact that their weapon and offense skill levels tended to slowly fall behind once they started grouping because they can't melee and cast at the same time & had to meditate between spells instead of attack anyway.
Iksar, if you have a moment would you mind giving me your gut feeling on my general suggestion I wrote up above?
TLDR version:
Additionally I would put forward that learning to make a specific physical base and or magical enhancement will require consuming multiple versions or a special pattern, again requiring participating in group content.
Well my gut feeling is that it sounds like advocating random numbers/quality on drops kind of like Diablo and other action RPGs. Unfortunately I don't feel that translates well to an MMO where you can spend hours just trying to get a named to spawn and drop whatever item you are after. If you spend hours/days at a camp hoping for x item and then it drops and is a low quality drop then it would be extremely defeating & have the added side effect of locking up camps more than ever as players will be spending much more time at any given camp trying to get a top quality drop. It also is a bit misaligned with the proposed vision in the FAQ:
(13.9) "Our desire to bring back the value and personality of items drives our item design. This means that the frequency of upgrades will be slower and when you do get a new piece of gear not only will the experience be memorable but so will the item. We want you to collect your items and be able to remember their names. When you get that epic item or rare drop after an incredible dungeon crawl, we want you to be in awe of what you have accomplished and the reward that came from it. Items will be memorable, deserved, cherished, and desired."
As for breaking down items for their bonus components...it sort of follows the same idea. You cannibalize what could/should otherwise be memorable & exciting drops into just components to frankenstein a crafted item perfectly suited together, an item with less/no identity to the world/server/playerbase as a whole.
Actually, I believe this sort of thing was discussed in a different thread...that it looks like either you or someone with pretty much the same name created. Here is the thread and Aradune's input: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/5734/randomizing-gear-stats/view/page/1
Aradune said:Wow, lots covered and talked about, great posts, good references back to the FAQ, etc.
I just wanted to add/verify one little thing: to really make this system work like we want it there need to be several items desirable by someone of the same class and level. That doesn't mean we're going to copy the item and put it in more than one place, although that's close. The plan is to alter, give personality and name to a set of items, and make them desirable to that class and level range. And then, yes, put them in different parts of the world.
I wanted to bring this up specifically because it also will help significantly with competition for items. If you put the best item for a specific class of a certain level range in one spot, not only does it make itemization less interesting, it also makes everyone in that category want the same thing, and then it creates too much competition and crowding.
The easy way some games (the specific games some of you mentioned accurately) try to get around this is indeed random loot. We could create 30 items that clerics levels 20-23 would find desirable, change their stats just slightly, procedurally generate a name for the item (the item of the Whale!), and then randomly put them in level appropirate mobs around the world.
Many of you probably have noticed that I like to bring up two extremes and point out that very often the best route is down the middle. Human nature often likes to mimic a pendulum. There's a problem with something someone designed. A different person comes in later, tasked with fixing the issue, and moves the pendulum from one extreme to the other, often eliminating the first issue but then creating a new problem (sometimes worse, sometimes perhaps not as bad, as the original issue). This isn't just in game design either -- look at the world, politics, laws that are passed, etc. Back and forth things go between two extremes because it's often far easier to implement a pendulum swinging fix, whereas extra time, thought, and effort is often necessary to find that happy, balanced, medium.
Back to topic, heh. So our task is not to have fewer items that everyone will have or at least want at any given time. So also is it not to procedurally spew random items with no context or meaning all over the world. The middle ground is to keep items handcrafted (made by a designer, not a formula), spend the time to give it some context, a proper name, etc. And then, based on its rarity, the demand for it, etc., create items similar in power but still handcrafted, and place those elsewhere.
Tougher to do? Yes. Will there still be items over camped? Probably -- we will mess up and create an item but not realize the demand there will be for it, place it somewhere, and as people find out about it, there may be some crowding and frustration. Our job then is also to monitor and watch for these situations and react in a reasonable amount of time. Not ideal, no, but IMHO better than the two extremes.
Iksar said:Kalok said:If you based making upgraded crafted weapons on needing a base weapon that would alleviate your fear on over-weaponization. I discussed that in a previous post. That would help with too many weapons flooding the market. For instance, as an example, you're making some skill based special dagger. Maybe it would require a rusty dagger as a base dropped weapon to have a bonus betwen skill level 10 and 20, maybe an iron one for skill level 20 to 40, maybe a steel one for 40 to 60, etc. Something like the purerer the source weapon the better the results if you're of sufficiently high skill level of master craftsman.
Twinking lower-level alts has always been a problem in MMOs and has been since the very beginning of EQ. It will happen in Pantheon too with or without crafted upgrades. That doesn't really apply to the thread at hand. Crafted weapons would be less likely to work with twinks if they were based on skill levels. You could certainly give that Dagger of Uberness to your twink alt, but if he doesn't have a piercing skill of 75, he can't use it.
Again, your concern about flooding the server with crafted skill based weapons has already been addressed.
In the original EQ, crafting success, I know this because I was a master brewer as a Rogue to make my own poisons, had levels as well. It wasn't just "combine these five thinks and it will work". If you were too low of a level, you couldn't craft an item to begin with. Once you attained the proper minimum skill level to craft something, you had a chance for success or failure based on your skill level. So for instance if you were brewing whiskey and it required a skill level 50, and you had just attained 50, you had a very high chance of failing. WHen you attained a level 60, you were MUCH less likely to fail. A failed combinging destroyed the components as I recall. So, again, your concerns are unfounded as far as this goes. HOWEVER, this is all predicated on what sort of crafting system that Pantheon incorporates into the game. I am basing my comments on the crafting system as it was in EQ.
Even if you required dungeon dropped weapons for improvement by a blacksmith it would be a little bit insulting. In a game thats main focus is adventuring with groups and dungeon diving through a dangerous world I would find it a bit of a slap in the face if crafting were shoed in to acquire the best items. I can understand crafting having good stuff on occasion (jewelry in EverQuest) but outclassing world drops at any given level range? I get the desire for crafting to be relevant for those that enjoy it but I don't think it should overshadow similar level dungeon drops, save for maybe a few pieces at max level.
Twinking does apply here as well. If you have the proposed crafter enhanced Rusty/Iron/Steel Dagger with whatever skill level boost for a level range, why would someone take that over the level 50 dungeon dropped Deathbringer dagger? If the crafted weapons outclass any dropped ones as long as they are within the skill range then you've made twinking even stronger but just ensure that crafters nearly always have the upper hand in the market. Further, you push the game back towards the modern methods of level requirements for gear.
But regular twinking isn't necessarily a problem so long as player stats scale by level like they did in EQ. In EQ it was mostly only an issue in the early levels when players figured out straight +HP/Mana gear was far more worthwhile than STA/WIS/INT until later levels, but otherwise players only had more hp/mana but their damage wasn't absurd due to spells not scaling in damage with any stats and melee having both damage caps and bonus damage & STR damage being tied to player level & slowly scaling. Once those players HP/Mana went low they weren't substantially better than others as hp/mana regen was just as slow for them as non-twinks. With tweaks it could be reduced to a non-issue and I believe in the May stream they said their goal is to make it so that while a twink character is stronger than a non-twink that the difference will only add up to being slight.
Crafting isn't incredibly social nor difficult. Even if you need a dragon heart from some raid boss to make an item, that's all well and good and I could see the item made from it being on par at best to items dropped the world or maybe even BiS for some class(es). But the challenge was in the killing not the crafting. I don't think the crafting deserves a disproportionate reward to those out there doing the dirty work and putting their lives on the line and as such should always be on a horizontal level to dropped items in the best of times. Which is what I was getting at with my previous last paragraph, until such a time that a MMO can introduce crafting in a way that actually takes skill from the player to accomplish and not just an investment of time, I don't believe it should often offer advantage over other items in the world. I imagine that's why most MMOs end up having crafting just offer enhancements/enchantments instead of physical items.
anemathis said:There is really only one really big problem with all classes being able to equip and use any weapon: Item balance. When you consider that a Cleric should not be able to do the same auto attack damage as a Rogue, you can readily see why weapons need class limitations. It would be nigh impossible for the dev team to create weapons that scale appropriately on a class by class basis if all classes were equally proficient with all weapons. You could maybe mitigate that with weapon skill level limitations class to class, but as others have said, people would expect you to use a weapon that best suites your class's weapon skill level then.
It's not too hard to balance really. For example: In Everquest a cleric could use a mace but that didn't mean they could put out the same auto attack damage as a melee DPS beyond the first handful of levels because they did not get access to things like double attack or dual wield and they didn't often have a bunch of bonus strength. Paired up again with the fact that their weapon and offense skill levels tended to slowly fall behind once they started grouping because they can't melee and cast at the same time & had to meditate between spells instead of attack anyway.
Again in paragraph response form.
How would it be insulting? Brad et al, have already said that this would be a living and breathing WORLD, not just a fighting game. People have already expressed an interest in being, primarily, crafters. I'm not sure how that is insulting at the least. Crafting isn't used to "create the best items" in this case. Crafted weapons would be more of an "incremental upgrade" to a standard weapon. Since the crafted weapons have an upper limit, there is always going to be better dropped stuff as higher level content is discovered. I'm still not getting it how crafted is always going to be better than dropped. This is to AUGMENT the drop system, not replace it.
Nowhere did I state that crafted weapons were always going to be better than dropped weapons, especially not high-level or named dropped weapons. What it WILL be better than is the base dropped weapons, and it should be. Again, if your twink is a level 10, you're not going to be able to use a crafted dagger that requires the skill level of someone who has to be at least a level 15 to attain that skill. The same cannot be said of a dropped weapon as there is no skill level tied to dropped weapons. I think you have that backwards. You COULD twink someone with a badass dropped weapon due to that, that they COULD use. That makes it more likely "abuse" the system with a powerful dropped weapon, as opposed to a crafted weapin.
Skipping over your second paragraph about twinking as I agree that abuse will, most likely, be a minority.
Crafting CAN be made social and difficult if it is done correctly. You're making assumptions based on previous incarnations of crafting in other games. Especially if you add things like ingrediants that are required to be purchased from another crafter. That makes the crafting "classes" interdependent on each other much like the combat classes are already. Most MMOs modeled their crafting after the crafting system that was introduced in EQ, which was very much an after-thought. EQ had been out a long time before any serious attention was given to crafting. Given that they have already stated that they want to create a vibrant and social world I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with a new "MMO definition" of what crafting looks like. Crafting cane be made to be more than just simple button mashing, much like combat has progressed past the early days of simple button mashing. Previous posters in this thread have mentioned how much they have loved crafting things in other games. It all boils down to how VR chooses to implement it. Which none of us know a thing about right now. It's just speculation at this point.
Dismissing the whole crafted weapons/armor/whatever out of hand based upon previous crafting implementions isn't really useful for any of us. Rather than dismissing it out of hand, we should be coming up with a may to make crafting better to make it, not only feasible but "fun to do". They do listen to suggestions. Plus they are early enough along in the development stage that it would be easy for them to say, "Hey! That's a great idea. We should totally implement that before go-live."
Kalok said:Crafting CAN be made social and difficult if it is done correctly. You're making assumptions based on previous incarnations of crafting in other games. Especially if you add things like ingrediants that are required to be purchased from another crafter. That makes the crafting "classes" interdependent on each other much like the combat classes are already. Most MMOs modeled their crafting after the crafting system that was introduced in EQ, which was very much an after-thought. EQ had been out a long time before any serious attention was given to crafting. Given that they have already stated that they want to create a vibrant and social world I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with a new "MMO definition" of what crafting looks like. Crafting cane be made to be more than just simple button mashing, much like combat has progressed past the early days of simple button mashing. Previous posters in this thread have mentioned how much they have loved crafting things in other games. It all boils down to how VR chooses to implement it. Which none of us know a thing about right now. It's just speculation at this point.
I want to pile on a little bit here.
While there have certainly been tons of game with bolted-on simplistic crafting systems that did nothing to improve player interaction, there have also been plenty of games where crafting was seen as a way to help bring players together outside of adventuring. I could list dozens of examples on either side but I think the key component is this: When studios go out to build games, they have to pick a focus. Are they making games with shared experiences that are meant to be played together, or are they making games with individual experiences that happen in a shared world?
Pantheon is obviously in the former category. I'll put a game like SWTOR or even BDO in the latter category. Sure it has things meant to be done with other players, but those aspects of the game are in the minority, the core of the game experience is about the individual player and their individual character, and the crafting system minimizes player interaction in many cases.
This doesn't mean that I agree with Iksar on this subject at all, but I totally understand where he is coming from.
The key question that determines what kind of a game we're playing is "Do I need to socialize with and talk to other players for the majority of my progression through the game, or only for some things?" This applies whether we're talking about earning adventuring experience by fighting or by questing, whether we're talking about completing content and "story", or whether we're talking about crafting.
"But Neph, crafting is inherently a solo experience!" - I can hear you all thinking this. After all, if you're making a sword, it's just you, the forge, and whatever resources you're using to make it. There's no one else standing at the forge with you when you're making it, so you're doing it all on your own! Right?
This kind of logic is a trap. Unlike adventuring, where the act of combat is what matters, for crafting, it's not the act of making the thing that matters. It's everything that goes into preparing to make the thing, and everything that happens after.
If I needed some friends to venture with me into a dungeon to collect the ore that I used to make that sword, is it really a solo experience at that point?
If I had to seek out and acquire some of the components for the sword from other crafters with different crafting professions, is it really a solo experience?
If I had to buy a stone to set in the sword, that dropped from a raid boss last week, where the raid involved 4 groups of players working together, is it really a solo experience?
If I put that sword up for sale in my little virtual shop in the market, along with all the other swords I make, and through the course of the next week, 30 other players come and buy swords from me, is it really a solo experience?
Or is it a social experience, one where community and repuation matter, even if I don't ever interact with most of the other players involved face to face.
Some of the best, most social, MMOs I have ever played were games that had crafting-based economies. Just sayin'.
Kalok said:Crafting CAN be made social and difficult if it is done correctly. You're making assumptions based on previous incarnations of crafting in other games. Especially if you add things like ingrediants that are required to be purchased from another crafter. That makes the crafting "classes" interdependent on each other much like the combat classes are already. Most MMOs modeled their crafting after the crafting system that was introduced in EQ, which was very much an after-thought. EQ had been out a long time before any serious attention was given to crafting. Given that they have already stated that they want to create a vibrant and social world I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with a new "MMO definition" of what crafting looks like. Crafting cane be made to be more than just simple button mashing, much like combat has progressed past the early days of simple button mashing. Previous posters in this thread have mentioned how much they have loved crafting things in other games. It all boils down to how VR chooses to implement it. Which none of us know a thing about right now. It's just speculation at this point.
Dismissing the whole crafted weapons/armor/whatever out of hand based upon previous crafting implementions isn't really useful for any of us. Rather than dismissing it out of hand, we should be coming up with a may to make crafting better to make it, not only feasible but "fun to do". They do listen to suggestions. Plus they are early enough along in the development stage that it would be easy for them to say, "Hey! That's a great idea. We should totally implement that before go-live."
A bit insulting on grounds that the primary focus of this game is cooperative group-focused adventuring or in VR's own words: "A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics." Maybe I am understanding what you are saying wrong, but what I get from the proposed idea is that any crafted/improved weapon that has a skill requirement tacked on would be more powerful than other weapons in a certain range. On that it would just make twinking potentially more complicated for some as they gather up weapons to cover each range, making the rich yet more powerful than those who can only afford one good higher level non-crafted weapon.
As for crafting being social, I just don't see it. Having to purchase items from other players isn't what I'd call social in the sense that when I go to the market in the real world to buy groceries I don't consider that being social. Maybe if I went to the same butcher shop weekly and over time got to know the person behind the counter but if there were many competing butchers just a glance away from one another that bond would most likely never happen (an auction house or auction zone). Unless the actual crafting is an interactive group experience I don't see it. Otherwise unless many/most crafting components for desireable items are no-drop then all one really needs to be a high level/skilled crafter is money. Not much risk to profit off the labor of others.
I'm not trying to say crafting shouldn't be enjoyable or worthwhile, just that participation should be optional. That most things created from crafting should have an equivalent available elsewhere in the world for non crafters, even if it is much harder to find/obtain. Players shouldn't be forced into needing crafters or needing to be crafters, but their offerings should still be enticing if only by virtue of saving others time hunting something down in the world.
Nephele said:Kalok said:Crafting CAN be made social and difficult if it is done correctly. You're making assumptions based on previous incarnations of crafting in other games. Especially if you add things like ingrediants that are required to be purchased from another crafter. That makes the crafting "classes" interdependent on each other much like the combat classes are already. Most MMOs modeled their crafting after the crafting system that was introduced in EQ, which was very much an after-thought. EQ had been out a long time before any serious attention was given to crafting. Given that they have already stated that they want to create a vibrant and social world I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with a new "MMO definition" of what crafting looks like. Crafting cane be made to be more than just simple button mashing, much like combat has progressed past the early days of simple button mashing. Previous posters in this thread have mentioned how much they have loved crafting things in other games. It all boils down to how VR chooses to implement it. Which none of us know a thing about right now. It's just speculation at this point.
I want to pile on a little bit here.
While there have certainly been tons of game with bolted-on simplistic crafting systems that did nothing to improve player interaction, there have also been plenty of games where crafting was seen as a way to help bring players together outside of adventuring. I could list dozens of examples on either side but I think the key component is this: When studios go out to build games, they have to pick a focus. Are they making games with shared experiences that are meant to be played together, or are they making games with individual experiences that happen in a shared world?
Pantheon is obviously in the former category. I'll put a game like SWTOR or even BDO in the latter category. Sure it has things meant to be done with other players, but those aspects of the game are in the minority, the core of the game experience is about the individual player and their individual character, and the crafting system minimizes player interaction in many cases.
This doesn't mean that I agree with Iksar on this subject at all, but I totally understand where he is coming from.
The key question that determines what kind of a game we're playing is "Do I need to socialize with and talk to other players for the majority of my progression through the game, or only for some things?" This applies whether we're talking about earning adventuring experience by fighting or by questing, whether we're talking about completing content and "story", or whether we're talking about crafting.
"But Neph, crafting is inherently a solo experience!" - I can hear you all thinking this. After all, if you're making a sword, it's just you, the forge, and whatever resources you're using to make it. There's no one else standing at the forge with you when you're making it, so you're doing it all on your own! Right?
This kind of logic is a trap. Unlike adventuring, where the act of combat is what matters, for crafting, it's not the act of making the thing that matters. It's everything that goes into preparing to make the thing, and everything that happens after.
If I needed some friends to venture with me into a dungeon to collect the ore that I used to make that sword, is it really a solo experience at that point?
If I had to seek out and acquire some of the components for the sword from other crafters with different crafting professions, is it really a solo experience?
If I had to buy a stone to set in the sword, that dropped from a raid boss last week, where the raid involved 4 groups of players working together, is it really a solo experience?
If I put that sword up for sale in my little virtual shop in the market, along with all the other swords I make, and through the course of the next week, 30 other players come and buy swords from me, is it really a solo experience?
Or is it a social experience, one where community and repuation matter, even if I don't ever interact with most of the other players involved face to face.
Some of the best, most social, MMOs I have ever played were games that had crafting-based economies. Just sayin'.
This is the kind of crafting "socializaton" I was talking about. Very well said.
Iksar said:Kalok said:Crafting CAN be made social and difficult if it is done correctly. You're making assumptions based on previous incarnations of crafting in other games. Especially if you add things like ingrediants that are required to be purchased from another crafter. That makes the crafting "classes" interdependent on each other much like the combat classes are already. Most MMOs modeled their crafting after the crafting system that was introduced in EQ, which was very much an after-thought. EQ had been out a long time before any serious attention was given to crafting. Given that they have already stated that they want to create a vibrant and social world I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with a new "MMO definition" of what crafting looks like. Crafting cane be made to be more than just simple button mashing, much like combat has progressed past the early days of simple button mashing. Previous posters in this thread have mentioned how much they have loved crafting things in other games. It all boils down to how VR chooses to implement it. Which none of us know a thing about right now. It's just speculation at this point.
Dismissing the whole crafted weapons/armor/whatever out of hand based upon previous crafting implementions isn't really useful for any of us. Rather than dismissing it out of hand, we should be coming up with a may to make crafting better to make it, not only feasible but "fun to do". They do listen to suggestions. Plus they are early enough along in the development stage that it would be easy for them to say, "Hey! That's a great idea. We should totally implement that before go-live."
A bit insulting on grounds that the primary focus of this game is cooperative group-focused adventuring or in VR's own words: "A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics." Maybe I am understanding what you are saying wrong, but what I get from the proposed idea is that any crafted/improved weapon that has a skill requirement tacked on would be more powerful than other weapons in a certain range. On that it would just make twinking potentially more complicated for some as they gather up weapons to cover each range, making the rich yet more powerful than those who can only afford one good higher level non-crafted weapon.
As for crafting being social, I just don't see it. Having to purchase items from other players isn't what I'd call social in the sense that when I go to the market in the real world to buy groceries I don't consider that being social. Maybe if I went to the same butcher shop weekly and over time got to know the person behind the counter but if there were many competing butchers just a glance away from one another that bond would most likely never happen (an auction house or auction zone). Unless the actual crafting is an interactive group experience I don't see it. Otherwise unless many/most crafting components for desireable items are no-drop then all one really needs to be a high level/skilled crafter is money. Not much risk to profit off the labor of others.
I'm not trying to say crafting shouldn't be enjoyable or worthwhile, just that participation should be optional. That most things created from crafting should have an equivalent available elsewhere in the world for non crafters, even if it is much harder to find/obtain. Players shouldn't be forced into needing crafters or needing to be crafters, but their offerings should still be enticing if only by virtue of saving others time hunting something down in the world.
Again... Paragraph by paragraph...
I still don't see how it's "insuting". You've already heard from two people that would love to spend a large portion of their time crafting rather than poking things. I'm not sure how youi're getting "more powerful than weapons of a certain range". Brad has already said that weapons are not level based, ergo, they're not "of a certain range". Explain to me how twinking using crafted weapons would be any easuer than using drop weapons that have no level limit. A level 5 character could use the dropped 'Sword of Kill Everything' but wouldn't be able to use a craft modified weapon that required a skill level that starts at level 10, let's say. So, twinking would be MUCH easier with dropped weapons. I think you're worrierd about nothing. And even if that were the case, what does it matter if some in-game rich character buys a crapton of nice gear for his twinked alt? He earned the in-game cash, so at some point he had to work for it, it doesn't automatically appear out of thin air. It's not like he is spending r/l cash to equip his twink alt.
Just because YOU don't see it doesn't mean that it isn't, or won't be. You've heard from two others that say differently, who, admittedly, probably do alot mroe crafting than you have done. In addition, we have no idea how the crafting mechanics are going to work yet, so there's that. Why SHOULDN'T people profit off of their hard work to become a master crafter? How is that different from you profiting off of whatever skills you have earned poking things with a sharp stick?
Why wouldn't participation in crafting be optional?? It's not liek the weapons would be no-drop or soul-bound. You coule BUY them, thus YOU would not have to be a crafter to get one. A non-crafting character could buy a crafted weapon from someone that WANTS to be a crafter. Once again, I think that you're borrowing trouble.
Quite frankly, most of the points you've made that I am quoting in this post have been "asked and answered" on previous posts both by myself and others. It makes me feel like you have some pre-conceived notion on how you want things to go and damn anyone that would like to see anything different, due to you repeatedly making the same basseless statements over asnd over.
My original post, and subsequent additions was merely an IDEA to make things more interesting AND to give crafters the option to profit from their hard-earned time spent getting their crafting skills up. This is just a game. It's supposed to be fun. Relax.