Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Unofficial Ask Neph anything thread

    • 246 posts
    April 5, 2021 10:54 PM PDT
    So one thing I was thinking about in I guess might be a concern is will there be enough crafting assets nodes and would not in the starting areas so that people can work on equipping themselves within Pantheon during launch. I guess what I mean by this is in the area where you be between 1 and 5 or possibly 1 to 10 are we going to be able to find nodes for all the crafting systems not saying they're abundant but at least there. And on that will just be kind of equal-ish for every race
    • 1785 posts
    April 6, 2021 7:43 AM PDT

    Raidil said: So one thing I was thinking about in I guess might be a concern is will there be enough crafting assets nodes and would not in the starting areas so that people can work on equipping themselves within Pantheon during launch. I guess what I mean by this is in the area where you be between 1 and 5 or possibly 1 to 10 are we going to be able to find nodes for all the crafting systems not saying they're abundant but at least there. And on that will just be kind of equal-ish for every race

    That is a valid concern my friend!  Our goal is definitely to ensure that starting areas have enough in the way of available resources to help support the player population at launch - but it will be a tricky balance to pull off.  This is one of the things we'll be looking at very closely during the later stages of alpha and beta testing, since those will help give us the best idea of what we need to do for distribution, placement, yields, and so on.

    • 1315 posts
    April 7, 2021 10:39 AM PDT

    Have you considered the idea of active resource locating rather than just passive node spotting?

    Rather than everything being an open world spawn on triggers or timers that everyone can see split harvesting into to main tasks, locating and collecting.

    The locating skill can be similar to SWG survey skill where you used a tool to help you find concentrations of resources you wanted.  Once you are in an area deemed to have adequate concentrations one uses another ability to force a spawn of a node to gather from.  What spawns can be driven by your locating skills and knowledge as well as environmental modifiers. 

    Once spawned a player can spend the time required to fully harvest said node or decide to leave it behind if they did not find the material they wanted and did not want to spend the time or inventory slots on what was found.

    All the skills could/should have a reuse timer to limit the amount of resources entering the game world per hour.  All of the work done to make node spawning logical can still be used as the basis for finding high enough concentrations.  There can still be some world spawn nodes if only as a way for the game world to let players know that a concentration has shown up for a certain period of time.

    Active hunting will remove the nastier bits of player contention over rare spawn materials, as rare spawns can also be found through active skills.  Active hunting will make raw material supply rates a per active player rate function rather than a per zone rate function, a harvester will be just as productive during peak times as off hours.  Active resource locating is much harder to automate, doubly so if the resource concentrations maps are more like topography maps than a linear scale and said maps change periodically.  When to harvest rather than continuing to look for a higher concentration becomes a tactical decision if the spawning action takes a significant amount of time that then also has a significant cooldown.

    A lot of problems are solved by moving 90% of harvests from open world spawn nodes to active locating of personal nodes and the remaining 10% still leaves a significant immersion factor.

    • 1785 posts
    April 7, 2021 11:30 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    Have you considered the idea of active resource locating rather than just passive node spotting?

    For now, this isn't a direction that we want to go for Pantheon.  There are pros and cons to every potential system and this would be no different - too many for me to go into in detail right now.  Suffice to say that implementing this in a way that is fun, engaging, and accessible for players with limited time to spend would introduce a lot of additional complexity into the game and the economy, and we don't feel like that's the right choice for Pantheon currently.  It's possible we may look at something like this in the future, but if we do it will be for something more specific than the entirety of gathering.

     

    • 337 posts
    April 8, 2021 8:55 PM PDT

    Ok, Neph. I've been thinking lately about one question I would want to ask you and I think I narrowed it down.  So, here goes:

    In the "current" iteration of crafting, what is the maximum number of items I could use to make just one dagger, including raw resources and their products if they are to make sub-items such as blades and hilts and so on?

    • 1785 posts
    April 10, 2021 10:41 AM PDT

    Benonai said:

    Ok, Neph. I've been thinking lately about one question I would want to ask you and I think I narrowed it down.  So, here goes:

    In the "current" iteration of crafting, what is the maximum number of items I could use to make just one dagger, including raw resources and their products if they are to make sub-items such as blades and hilts and so on?

    Hmm.  So for purposes of this question let's assume a "normal" dagger made using only gathered resources - ie, no special NPC component drops.

    All told, you'd be looking at probably around 5-6 raw resources maximum if you make the hilt yourself.  however, those 5-6 resources would probably only take up 3 or so slots in your inventory (due to stacking).  To be clear, that's making the blade, and the hilt, and then combining them potentially with an optional ingredient.

    If you were to acquire a fancier hilt made by another player (for example a jewelcrafter) then you'd not need resources for that, but the other player would.

    • 1860 posts
    April 10, 2021 12:02 PM PDT

    Thanks for keeping up on this Neph and being so open to answering questions.  Much appreciated.

    • 246 posts
    September 5, 2021 12:00 AM PDT

    So nephele can we have some screenshots of crating??? Lol maybe some finish product a sneak peak of a Recipe Or maybe the Crafting stations

    • 1785 posts
    September 5, 2021 7:57 PM PDT

    Raidil said:

    So nephele can we have some screenshots of crating??? Lol maybe some finish product a sneak peak of a Recipe Or maybe the Crafting stations

    I don't have any good visuals to share just yet but don't worry, once there's something functioning well enough in game to show off, we will absolutely show it off in a dev stream/newsletter/etc :)

    • 26 posts
    October 22, 2021 7:24 PM PDT

    Hopefully this hasn't been asked yet, but with all the articles about New World's economy having insane Deflation, what do you plan to do to make sure Pantheon can somehow have a functional economy?  How will you combat inflation as is often the case in most games?  I know this is a vast topic so best of luck ;)

    • 1785 posts
    October 22, 2021 10:20 PM PDT

    Simms59 said:

    Hopefully this hasn't been asked yet, but with all the articles about New World's economy having insane Deflation, what do you plan to do to make sure Pantheon can somehow have a functional economy?  How will you combat inflation as is often the case in most games?  I know this is a vast topic so best of luck ;)

    This is honestly a big question and something that we'll be able to talk a lot more about once our game's economic systems are fully in place.  But one of the key things we will be doing is paying attention to our data, proactively.  We'll have the ability to take a look at all sorts of information about cash flow and the economy and we'll also have the ability to quickly make adjustments.  For example, if we find out that money is coming into the economy too fast, we'll not only be able to slow it down, but we'll be able to look and see where/how that influx is happening.  That way we can make precise adjustments to correct issues, rather than just taking a sledgehammer approach.  The same is true if we're finding that players don't have enough purchasing power for the things they want or need.  We'll be able to evaluate the situation quickly and make adjustments at whatever scale is needed to help get things back on track.

    I expect us to be doing quite a bit of this during beta (and even some during alpha) but it's also something that we'll always be doing after we launch.  Game economies aren't something that you can build and walk away from or that you can manage with a simple spreadsheet.  They're the culmination of organic interactions between and among players, and if we want our game's economy to continue to be viable and most importantly fun and engaging for players, we're going to have to always be paying attention to the care and feeding of ours - whether we're 1 month out of launch or it's 4 years and several expansions later.

    From a design perspective, what we're doing right now is trying to make sure we have plenty of ways that we can make adjustments when needed - so that those adjustments end up being minor or almost invisible to players.  Massive economic nerfs are no fun for anyone, so it's a lot better if we can use smaller changes to help nudge things in the right direction when needed, instead of making bigger changes that solve one problem only to cause another.

     

    • 1921 posts
    October 23, 2021 8:07 AM PDT

    Nephele said: ... For example, if we find out that money is coming into the economy too fast, we'll not only be able to slow it down, but we'll be able to look and see where/how that influx is happening. ... 

    Can you elaborate on what methods would be used to slow it down, and what the planned or expected influx points are going to be?

    • 1785 posts
    October 28, 2021 11:22 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    Nephele said: ... For example, if we find out that money is coming into the economy too fast, we'll not only be able to slow it down, but we'll be able to look and see where/how that influx is happening. ... 

    Can you elaborate on what methods would be used to slow it down, and what the planned or expected influx points are going to be?

    Not in any major detail.  What we're trying to do right now is build in lots of places where we can control cash inflow/outflow both at a granular level as well as a broad level.  So for example, vendor prices:  We'll have the ability to easily adjust vendor prices for items either globally, regionally, per vendor, or per item.  By having all these different tuning knobs available to us, we can adjust more quickly to make sure that we don't run into big problems with money supply over the life of the game.

    The trick is that we're adjusting the parameters of what is essentially an organic system.  That means we can make changes to try and nudge it in the direction we want it to go, but the results may not be immediate, and sometimes we may find unintended consequences if we make too many adjustments or too large of an adjustment (or both).  One of the big things we will be doing in Beta (and probably even in later stages of Alpha) is gathering a lot of economic data so that we can at least have a baseline established for launch.  The more data we can gather to build that baseline, the better we'll be able to target the changes we need to make on an ongoing basis.

    I realize that's just a bunch of words but please rest assured that we're taking economic health very seriously.  It's very important for the long-term potential of Pantheon, and while we will almost certainly encounter problems and issues that we have to respond to, we don't plan to just sit around and let things go off the rails as has happened in some other games.

    • 1921 posts
    October 28, 2021 4:53 PM PDT

    Nephele said: ... So for example, vendor prices:  We'll have the ability to easily adjust vendor prices for items either globally, regionally, per vendor, or per item.  By having all these different tuning knobs available to us, we can adjust more quickly to make sure that we don't run into big problems with money supply over the life of the game. ... 

    When you say vendor prices, do you mean adjusting what vendors buy items for, from characters/players, or what vendors sell items for, to characters/players?

    And what's the context when you're using the term 'money supply' ?  A fixed global value, or something else/dynamic/fluctuating?

    • 1785 posts
    October 28, 2021 5:16 PM PDT

    vjek said:

    Nephele said: ... So for example, vendor prices:  We'll have the ability to easily adjust vendor prices for items either globally, regionally, per vendor, or per item.  By having all these different tuning knobs available to us, we can adjust more quickly to make sure that we don't run into big problems with money supply over the life of the game. ... 

    When you say vendor prices, do you mean adjusting what vendors buy items for, from characters/players, or what vendors sell items for, to characters/players?

    And what's the context when you're using the term 'money supply' ?  A fixed global value, or something else/dynamic/fluctuating?

    When it comes to vendor prices, both buy prices and sell prices are important to help regulate the flow of currency into/out of the game :)

    Money supply will always be dynamic to a degree - or maybe a better word would be elastic.  From a gameplay perspective, players need to feel like they can go out and earn money at a reasonable rate to spend.  From an economic perspective, you don't want too much money coming in too fast, or you end up with rampant inflation.  By the same token, you don't want currency to be so valuable that players resort to straight barter either (see New World's market woes).  But there's never going to be a single magic number that's the "right" amount of money to have circulating in the game at any given time because that will depend entirely on the number of players and their gameplay habits including spending.  For example, if we introduce a new thing to spend money on, then that might pull money out of the economy.  If it pulls too much out too quickly to the point where no one can really enjoy it, we might have to bump up the inflow of money in certain areas to compensate, or reduce the cost.

    So, what we have to do instead is watch the flow of money as well as the mean and median supply by players, as well as look at things like the rate of acquisition or spending and distribution curves based on class/level/playstyle/etc.  That will then further have to be analyzed by the age of the account/character as well as the stage of play.  For example, I'd expect a player who has been playing for a year and starts a new alt to be "better" at earning money than someone who just started a week ago.  However, I'd also want for both of those players to not feel like things that they need are trivially inexpensive or completely out of reach, either.  There's no one-size-fits-all solution, so instead, we have to look holistically at how things are behaving, define what a "healthy" pattern looks like, and then try to address scenarios that fall outside of it.

    Hope that helps explain some of the complexity.  Managing Pantheons' economy is going to involve a lot of data and analysis as well as the ability to make changes when and where needed.  But, these are things we have the technology and tools to be able to do, so I'm very confident that we can make it work out really well for players, especially long-term, and avoid many of the problems that have plagued other MMOs (especially the ones that thought they could just set it up and forget about it).

     

    • 26 posts
    October 28, 2021 6:38 PM PDT

    Thanks for the answers Neph!  I don't envy whoever has to analyze and construct solutions to all of that data.  I got stressed just thinking about it!


    This post was edited by Dougbug at October 28, 2021 6:39 PM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    October 29, 2021 7:01 AM PDT

    Nephele said: ... When it comes to vendor prices, both buy prices and sell prices are important to help regulate the flow of currency into/out of the game :)

    ...

    By the same token, you don't want currency to be so valuable that players resort to straight barter either (see New World's market woes). 

    ... 

    The implication from your statement regarding vendor prices would seem to indicate that the current public design goal for Pantheon is to have NPC vendors that purchase items from players (providing trade-able coin currency to players), and NPC vendors that sell items to players (taking trade-able coin currency from players). 
    Is that accurate?

    Also, what are the down sides, in your opinion, to your second statement, regarding currency being so valuable that players optionally resort to straight barter?

    Following up on adjustment of prices, is it currently a public design goal that the adjustment of NPC buy prices and sell prices would occur live, dynamically while a zone is online, or is the intent to have those prices only be adjusted while a zone is offline/reset, a server is offline/reset, or a world is offline/reset (however temporarily) ?

    • 1785 posts
    October 29, 2021 7:32 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    Nephele said: ... When it comes to vendor prices, both buy prices and sell prices are important to help regulate the flow of currency into/out of the game :)

    ...

    By the same token, you don't want currency to be so valuable that players resort to straight barter either (see New World's market woes). 

    ... 

    The implication from your statement regarding vendor prices would seem to indicate that the current public design goal for Pantheon is to have NPC vendors that purchase items from players (providing trade-able coin currency to players), and NPC vendors that sell items to players (taking trade-able coin currency from players). 
    Is that accurate?

    Also, what are the down sides, in your opinion, to your second statement, regarding currency being so valuable that players optionally resort to straight barter?

    Following up on adjustment of prices, is it currently a public design goal that the adjustment of NPC buy prices and sell prices would occur live, dynamically while a zone is online, or is the intent to have those prices only be adjusted while a zone is offline/reset, a server is offline/reset, or a world is offline/reset (however temporarily) ?

    In order :)

    Yes.

    Mostly that it's very limiting in terms of player engagement in the economy.  Currency makes it easier for transactions to occur because buyers won't need to have the exact thing that the seller wants, and sellers won't have to try to navigate the different relative values of things buyers might be willing to trade.  That's not to say that barter can't or won't occur, but currency gives a mechanism for many more players to engage in transactions in a meaningful way than would otherwise occur.

    Ideally, we'd like to be able to make small, server-side game data changes without having to interrupt gameplay to do it.  There will obviously be some technical limitations for larger changes, as well as QA gates and a process we need to follow, so that doesn't mean that we would be in there tweaking things every hour or anything like that.  But it does mean that we should be able to respond quickly when we do need to make changes. 

    • 246 posts
    November 3, 2021 8:29 PM PDT

    Econ  was big in the 1st couple years in EQ it was more stable and the value beat some RL countys funds. if done right i can see this being the same case. the goal i thank would be to not having to spend more at vendors thin you can make and it will depend really on how well items are put in game to. rare items keeping the worth and stuff and bartering in  that part is fine to a point also players will set value on some stuff do to hardness of getting it and it's use. but this is also not bad a hard to get gem  that is worth more in the player econ thin to a vendor will happen and you would not want to change that to much. i mean there could be some codeing that lets venders ajust to player ave price on x item keeping it with in x% of what that is to buy and sell ..  and inflation will happen as people level and some funds come easier.. but that also means that the higher items will cost more.

    the hard part is keeping the value of the lower items as people level. keeping the need for those items but keeping the supply in line with need to keep new and low people able to make funds to get what they need. so vendor control is not the best control but hopfully there will be a slow progressive  funds from mobs, quest, crafts as u level.

     

    Ialso hope Nephele makes the value of crafting worth it i hated making some item and the cost of the good use was more thin the item was worth.. i mean if i spent time to make this that should count. same as if i was out killing mobs to get funds. now i dont care if the raitio is not big but if i bought xx from vendors all over and made x i should be able to sell it to  an npc for a little more thin the cost of corse  if the vendor has a ton of them he should pay me less thin the cost ect.. 

    • 26 posts
    December 30, 2021 4:07 AM PST
    Hey Neph, someone posted this in the unofficial Pantheon discord and since this is the “official ask Neph thread” I thought I’d let you answer when you have time. Here goes:

    “Do we know if professions/crafting will have something like transmutes on cool down so an auction house could be used for items, but you could still trade things like transmutes in-person? Little bit of both worlds maybe?“

    Can’t wait to hear more about crafting in 2022. Have a happy New Year!
    • 1785 posts
    December 30, 2021 7:29 AM PST

    Simms59 said: Hey Neph, someone posted this in the unofficial Pantheon discord and since this is the “official ask Neph thread” I thought I’d let you answer when you have time. Here goes: “Do we know if professions/crafting will have something like transmutes on cool down so an auction house could be used for items, but you could still trade things like transmutes in-person? Little bit of both worlds maybe?“ Can’t wait to hear more about crafting in 2022. Have a happy New Year!

    My preference right now would be not to restrict the methods players can use to trade items artificially.  However, for any method of buying/selling we add to the game beyond direct trades, there will be some cost involved, and that cost will scale based on the value of the item.

    So imagine that you're selling something, and you have options:  You can either talk to a player directly and trade them the item for coin, or you can use a game system to handle the transaction for you.  If you use the game system, there's a fee that's part of that.  The advantage though is that you don't have to be online at the same time as whoever buys the item.  It's up to you whether that fee is worth it, or whether it's going to cut into your profits too much.

    If you're selling something extremely rare or valuable, that fee might be really big.  And thus you will want to choose how you want to sell the item.  However, it should always be your choice.

    Please note:  I'm speaking in general terms, not specifics, because we're not quite ready to talk about the specifics of our economic systems yet - although we get closer every day :)

    • 119 posts
    January 8, 2022 3:44 PM PST

    Nephele said:

    Please note:  I'm speaking in general terms, not specifics, because we're not quite ready to talk about the specifics of our economic systems yet - although we get closer every day :)

     

    Hoping that there is more to the system than a menu. The original EQ bazaar was kinda cool in a way as you got to know certian sellers and guilds by look / position. Remaining logged on of course was something not to repeat!

     

    What might be nice is to have a similar system with graded fees for placing an NPC in a bazaar. e.g.

    5% commision - your item is added to one random generic NPC based on item type.

    10% commision - your item appears on a NPC you can design and name , showwing your guild name (also a weekly charge)

    +20% commision - as per above, but your item also shows on a bulitin board players can follow to the NPC

     

    From the above, you can see unless the player pays quite a lot in commision that the item will not be visible in a search - but they can pay a middling fee to place it on a specific personal / guild NPC , which is more thematic and fun. Players would get to know sellers and generate repeat business (just like a real shop). Also there would be a new metagame where due to lower commision, resellers would be buying from generic NPC and reselling on thier specialist vendor.

    Finally if different cities had different bazaars some could charge commision based on item type. Maybe the dwarf city has a tax on magic spells ,but less commision on axes. This would create trade routes and specialisms and encourage wandering traders ' Fresh from Dwarfberg - Magic rune Axes , 20% cheaper than the bazaar!'


    This post was edited by Galden at January 8, 2022 3:51 PM PST
    • 1992 posts
    January 22, 2022 9:53 PM PST

    I believe that on some thread you referred to encouraging Crafters (like a Blacksmith, for example) to seek new possible creations by experimenting with using bars of different kind of metal together. If this is still the plan, then after our recent glimpse of metal colors in the Jan Devstream, I want to ask:

    Will mixing bars of different kinds of metals - both ordinary primary metals and the special precious metals for affects - give us a 'blended' color?

    If so, will the resulting color be something that would plausibly be the color expected by an artist who was mixing those colors of paint? (as opposed to an unrelated color that has just been assigned arbitrarily)?

     

     While we're on the subject :) will a Blacksmith be able to mix raw chunks of different metals together in the initial smelting of bars? And of course, will the color of the bars have the same results as when mixing bars?

     

    Thanks for all the feedback on this thread. And GOOD JOB on all the metals we saw on the Devstream!


    This post was edited by Jothany at January 22, 2022 9:58 PM PST
    • 1785 posts
    January 31, 2022 5:35 PM PST

    Jothany said:

    I believe that on some thread you referred to encouraging Crafters (like a Blacksmith, for example) to seek new possible creations by experimenting with using bars of different kind of metal together. If this is still the plan, then after our recent glimpse of metal colors in the Jan Devstream, I want to ask:

    Will mixing bars of different kinds of metals - both ordinary primary metals and the special precious metals for affects - give us a 'blended' color?

    If so, will the resulting color be something that would plausibly be the color expected by an artist who was mixing those colors of paint? (as opposed to an unrelated color that has just been assigned arbitrarily)?

     

     While we're on the subject :) will a Blacksmith be able to mix raw chunks of different metals together in the initial smelting of bars? And of course, will the color of the bars have the same results as when mixing bars?

     

    Thanks for all the feedback on this thread. And GOOD JOB on all the metals we saw on the Devstream!

    Refining metal will indeed feature the concept of alloys, where you use different types of ore together to create different types of metal with different properties.  In this way you may find that many more common ore types are still needed when working with more exotic materials.

    This won't be entirely free-form, and you'll get a little bit of guidance from the UI to help you know what to put in while refining.  But there will be some experimentation and discovery to it.

    As for the visuals, honestly I can't promise anything when it comes to art, but we'll do as much as we're able of course.

    Also:  Just because metals can be alloyed doesn't mean it will work the same way for other types of refining.  Each type of refining will have its own special tricks.


    This post was edited by Nephele at January 31, 2022 5:36 PM PST
    • 1992 posts
    February 1, 2022 8:09 AM PST

    Thanks for the info. Even when the plan isn't 'everything I've hoped for', it's good to have an idea what to expect.

    Nephele said:

    Just because metals can be alloyed doesn't mean it will work the same way for other types of refining.  Each type of refining will have its own special tricks.

    Oh boy, now you've got me imagining the 'special tricks' my Leatherworker will have when making armor!