I like to craft but have not come across a system that is fun, deep and feels part of the role-playing nature of the characters I created. It always feels like a bolt on, an afterthought. I want something that is as much a part of my character as ability use and spell casting is.
It would be interesting to have characters that are better at some aspects of the system than others. Traditionally, not all crafters are able to create a bed and a feast and make poison vials. By the same token, not all characters should be able to mine and forage and hunt expertly. Maybe even decide which forage skill to specialise in (especially for rare and unusual materials).
I think character skill sets should be used as part of this too. The higher your strength (for instance) the more likely you are to get something unusual from mining nodes. You could do the same with dexterity for skinning, Intelligence for foraging plants. Each node type could be tied to a major character stat. How about also including race lore and traits, dwarves (obviously) good at mining, elves for foraging, etc. Races could have a natural affinity with a type of harvesting node.
I would argue that if you are willing to affect character classes by race and lore, then it makes sense to include other areas of the character too, i.e. harvesting and crafting.
I would like to see harvest nodes placed randomly in large logical areas making farming far from easy and encouraging it as part of your adventures rather than running around in a set patter to farm materials endlessly. I feel rare nodes should spawn in random difficult to reach areas, tops of mountains, bottom of lakes, in dungeons, near main bosses, in extreme environments, but not in the same place on each re-spawn.
The perception system could be enhanced to specifically include a harvesting sub system. The more it us used, the better it becomes: “You notice a silver vein glint in the torch light”. If you harvest this node, the sub system has a greater chance to find a rare node next time.
Raw materials could be processed in specific locations to “change” their basic structure. If you took raw iron to an extreme climate (magic for example) and processed it there, it could become infused with that magic (magic infused iron ore). Again, fuel, skills, factions and races could all play a part in this too.
I want a deep and detailed crafting system that is complimentary to the adventuring aspect. The skills the character has should be utilised in crafting too, and should consider their strength, dexterity, (etc.) and stamina and other relevant skills and enhancements. Learning a trade should give you the basics, but then recipes should be bought and found in the wild as drops, quest rewards and as part of uncovering lore.
Crafting should be able to create an item that is as good as any drop so consideration needs to be made to stop flooding the market with crafted BiS items. So, each crafted item must be as hard to create as it is to farm an equivalent item from a boss.
Each crafted item should have a rarity “level” associated with it (e.g. from Common to Fabled) and each level offers better stats but is more difficult to craft than the previous one. So, you could first craft a Common item, say a dagger. To create an uncommon version of the dagger would require you to take the common version and re-process it, adding a rare component or two, more fuel (maybe specialist fuel). Of course, you need to acquire the knowledge to do this in the first place (maybe with new recipes or tutorage from a master crafter, etc) and have the required crafting skill to achieve it.
To make a “Treasured” item, you could take the "Uncommon" version to an extreme location and reprocess it there. Again providing more rare components, fuel, knowledge and skills. Each rarity level would require reprocessing of the previous version and require more and more rare components, skill, knowledge and equipment and locations to create it.
This naturally makes any good crafted item hard to craft and takes a lot of effort in making. If you also make it "only one of this type carried at a time", then it will be very hard to flood the market.
Nephele said:fancy said:
EDIT: I kinda went on a rant here because I have no idea where you guys intend on taking harvesting/crafting as of right now. I might edit this later to bring it back to point more and clarify on some things. Sorry in advance!
No worries fancy, it was a good rant!
Really great responses so far everyone! Even though it may not seem like it, this sort of information is really helpful to us because it helps show us how everyone thinks about the concept and what your expectations are based on previous games you've played. So bring on the rants and the opinions! They're exactly why I asked the question :)
Well then let me add;
I think it’s important to strive to make Crafters and Gatherer's a sought after commodity. It’s been my experience in too many MMO’s that the crafting and gathering skills are tacked on for everyone to do in their spare time. This leads to an abundances of mats and crafted goods, making players who wish to do trade skills instead of dungeons runs as their primary “class” near impossible. Who wants to buy from anyone when its came be gained easily by oneself.
There are a couple things that I feel affect the necessity of trade skills classes.
1. Making trade skills a character choice at the cost of other options, The Triad I mentioned above. A set number of skills from a shared resource pool (points). Leaving enough points to dabble in another area, probably adventuring for some combat viability, but not enough to prevent the need for aid in dangerous areas or compete with a master in their trade.
2.limiting the available character slots to 1 with exception to pledge rewards. Now some would just make another account, but I suspect not enough to affect anything.
Additionally, I’d like to suggest that not only do we have mastery in one area say, weapon smithing, but also a higher degree of focus for specific things, such as a weapon smith who has fine tuned their skill for blades, and another for hilts ect requiring Crafters to sub contract out for higher quality parts from those who specialize in them, in order to achieve maximum quality.
All that said I do think that the key item in the craft should not be destroyed if the attempt fails, because if you camp to get an item or have to hope for a rare drop then have to hope the attempt doesn't fail that really sucks. The common items should be consumed though that makes sense. Also should be tied to perception skill, high skill to "notice the higher level nodes" That makes sense.
I personally loved the crafting experience in early Everquest 2. There were active skills associated exclusively with their tradeskill system which were used to enhance various boons or counter detrimental effects during the process of crafting. The reward for achieving a top-tier quality craft resulted in a superior item, while simple negligence or failing important checks could result in an inferior item. The interactive crafting skill system could be used to create a sense of accomplishment upon success and introduce risk with the potential for failure.
I also absolutely loved the background music in the tradeskill areas, but I suppose that is for another thread.
Lockless said:I personally loved the crafting experience in early Everquest 2. There were active skills associated exclusively with their tradeskill system which were used to enhance various boons or counter detrimental effects during the process of crafting. The reward for achieving a top-tier quality craft resulted in a superior item, while simple negligence or failing important checks could result in an inferior item. The interactive crafting skill system could be used to create a sense of accomplishment upon success and introduce risk with the potential for failure.
I also absolutely loved the background music in the tradeskill areas, but I suppose that is for another thread.
I agree with the EQ2 thing, the only issue I have is EVERY tradeskill class felt like the same class and as you leveled the class, asside from making different items you still fell into a pattern that was nearly unchanging with no real evolution. I would love to see the tradeskill system of EQ2 improved upon.
Though the ability for an item you make to be poor quality or great quality depending on how well you do would be great to see. A risk to have an item come out botched or under performing that matches the reward of it becoming a truly great item would be great to see. Though maybe tinker with it so you cannot pretty much garantee perfect "drops" every time would be a good thing.
When gathering I think that the risk should come in the form of the world around the materials that are being gathered. Higher-level areas should reward higher quality materials and possibly higher quantities depending on what the crafting requirements are. When it comes to gathering the risk should be trying to safely obtain the materials while not dying, having to run back to their body, or suffering a huge repair bill.
When it comes to crafting I am not for players being able to suffer from a critical failure. I think that if you invest the time, effort, and/or money to get the materials then you have risked enough especilly when talking about rarer materials. I am ok with players having to gain proficiency when crafting an item though. This proficiency in crafting can result in reduced materials needed, increased durability on the item, or a chance at critical success where the item becomes blue/epic depending on recipe quality and has additional stats.
I am also all for crafting professions having at least two or three specializations and a player can choose one of these to progress in at the appropriate level. I think that there is an inherent"risk" by forcing a player to choose one specialization over another. I do think that if a player really wants to they should be able to reverse this decision, but the reversal process should be longish and require a ton of resource sinks and a gold sink. The decision to reverse your specialization should not be an easy one to make to enforce the principle of choice should matter.
I also think that there should be multiple special crafting areas out in the world which are required to craft special resources. I know that one was mentioned in a past stream, but there should be a number of these special areas located on the various continents of Terminus which a player has to travel to in order to craft (maybe some are even protected by hard bosses).
I don't think that drastically limiting the number of characters per account really is a decent solution to making crafting meaningful as someone mentioned above. I think that it just limits replayability in the long run and if it was deemed necessary to do this for the sake of crafting then the crafting system hypothetically in question doesn't sound strong and challenging, to begin with.
I think that gathering/crafting should be tied into the acquisition of class legendary items if they are ever added to the game, and maybe these gathered resources or crafted items are special and require special tools/ recipes which require great risk to obtain.
I think there should also be a lot of crossover in crafting professions in terms of gathering resources which increases the number of players willing to participate in the gathering professions as a whole. and impacting the supply and demand of items in a positive way.
FatedEmperor said:I don't think that drastically limiting the number of characters per account really is a decent solution to making crafting meaningful as someone mentioned above. I think that it just limits replayability in the long run and if it was deemed necessary to do this for the sake of crafting then the crafting system hypothetically in question doesn't sound strong and challenging, to begin with.
I think that gathering/crafting should be tied into the acquisition of class legendary items if they are ever added to the game, and maybe these gathered resources or crafted items are special and require special tools/ recipes which require great risk to obtain.
I would disagree, crafting or harvesting are trivialized when everyone can do them without having to focus on them. What good would any class be if everyone had all abilities?
Limiting the account to one character slot for the majority (pledges excluded) increases the value of the choices being made, and also make your character more important to the world your playing in.
Why bother inviting that cleric ect LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
It is my opinion that it would make crafting and harvesting stronger if people were limited as much as possible from being completely self sufficient.
HemlockReaper said:FatedEmperor said:I don't think that drastically limiting the number of characters per account really is a decent solution to making crafting meaningful as someone mentioned above. I think that it just limits replayability in the long run and if it was deemed necessary to do this for the sake of crafting then the crafting system hypothetically in question doesn't sound strong and challenging, to begin with.
I think that gathering/crafting should be tied into the acquisition of class legendary items if they are ever added to the game, and maybe these gathered resources or crafted items are special and require special tools/ recipes which require great risk to obtain.
I would disagree, crafting or harvesting are trivialized when everyone can do them without having to focus on them. What good would any class be if everyone had all abilities?
Limiting the account to one character slot for the majority (pledges excluded) increases the value of the choices being made, and also make your character more important to the world your playing in.
Why bother inviting that cleric ect LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
It is my opinion that it would make crafting and harvesting stronger if people were limited as much as possible from being completely self sufficient.
Instead of limiting the replayablilty by severely limiting the number of characters why not do something like tie the Tradeskills to the ACCOUNT instead of to the character?
Sagrada said:HemlockReaper said:FatedEmperor said:I don't think that drastically limiting the number of characters per account really is a decent solution to making crafting meaningful as someone mentioned above. I think that it just limits replayability in the long run and if it was deemed necessary to do this for the sake of crafting then the crafting system hypothetically in question doesn't sound strong and challenging, to begin with.
I think that gathering/crafting should be tied into the acquisition of class legendary items if they are ever added to the game, and maybe these gathered resources or crafted items are special and require special tools/ recipes which require great risk to obtain.
I would disagree, crafting or harvesting are trivialized when everyone can do them without having to focus on them. What good would any class be if everyone had all abilities?
Limiting the account to one character slot for the majority (pledges excluded) increases the value of the choices being made, and also make your character more important to the world your playing in.
Why bother inviting that cleric ect LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
It is my opinion that it would make crafting and harvesting stronger if people were limited as much as possible from being completely self sufficient.
Instead of limiting the replayablilty by severely limiting the number of characters why not do something like tie the Tradeskills to the ACCOUNT instead of to the character?
I would think that the progeny system would allow for Replayability.
The way to limit a player's ability to have all of the crafting and gathering skills is not to limit the number of characters that are allowed. That would just severely penalize those of us, and there are many, that like to play multiple classes and races without having to delete one to try another. The way to limit crafting diversity is to make progression as slow and difficult as adventuring progression. If it takes me 6 months to get one character to maximum level crafting I am unlikely to have a dozen maximum level crafters - do the math.
I also think this is moving off-topic. I suspect the number of character slots is well beyond what Nephele was seeking input on and perhaps we should focus on how the crafting system should work.
There is room for debate on whether a player should be able to have all the crafts, for flexibility and self-sufficiency, or should not, to encourage interdependance. This is a valid topic and has been much debated. I am not sure it falls under what Nephele meant by "risk" and so also may be off-topic. When VR asks for comments on a specific point we add maximum value when we stick to the topic and create different threads if we become motivated to discuss other things. Or add to threads in the crafting forums already on these topics.
Back to the topic:
FatedEmperor said "When it comes to crafting I am not for players being able to suffer from a critical failure. I think that if you invest the time, effort, and/or money to get the materials then you have risked enough especilly when talking about rarer materials. I am ok with players having to gain proficiency when crafting an item though. This proficiency in crafting can result in reduced materials needed, increased durability on the item, or a chance at critical success where the item becomes blue/epic depending on recipe quality and has additional stats."
I don't agree. Investing time and effort is one thing - risk is another. If I take a few hours to get materials this in and of itself risks nothing, it merely is time spent on the game. One might as well say that if one spends the time and effort to get to a dungeon boss one should not be allowed to wipe since that would waste all the time and effort spent. Just as I support a "real" death penalty I support crafting having choices and consequences. If I have the choice of an easy build for a decent product or a difficult build for a really good product I don't think that having to try the difficult build 10 times before I succeed is a "risk" in any way. But if I have a 10% chance of failing badly enough to lose my expensive materials each time I try for success - now I have a decision to make. Now there are "risks" to go with the self-evident rewards.
dorotea said: ... I don't agree. Investing time and effort is one thing - risk is another. If I take a few hours to get materials this in and of itself risks nothing, it merely is time spent on the game. One might as well say that if one spends the time and effort to get to a dungeon boss one should not be allowed to wipe since that would waste all the time and effort spent. Just as I support a "real" death penalty I support crafting having choices and consequences. If I have the choice of an easy build for a decent product or a difficult build for a really good product I don't think that having to try the difficult build 10 times before I succeed is a "risk" in any way. But if I have a 10% chance of failing badly enough to lose my expensive materials each time I try for success - now I have a decision to make. Now there are "risks" to go with the self-evident rewards.
Obtaining materials, initially, is risky to the participant if combat is required to obtain them. Otherwise, I agree, dorotea, that there's little risk inherent in walking up to an unguarded node and using it, if that's a design goal. To me, it doesn't sound like that's what Pantheon is going for, but if they do, absolutely true.
There's certainly a potential for distinction between game loops. Crafting could be, if desired, far more risky than the adventure loop. Paper cuts, needle stabs, tool accidents, burns, could all be instantly lethal and very common. It typically isn't that way, but it certainly could be.
Choosing an easy combine or build versus a more difficult one could be similar to choosing to fight an easier target or a more difficult one.
Put in terms most are familiar with, you could attempt a green-con crafting recipe, or attempt to fight a green-con enemy in the world, versus blue, white, yellow or red, in terms of increasing difficulty.
However, it's also true that if you are going to extend that analogy, there are solo green-con enemies and group-required green-con enemies. There's a distinction.
Should solo green con crafting recipes be MORE difficult than solo green-con enemies, if the player is similarly equipped, "skilled", paying attention, and has chosen, ahead of time, the appropriate skills to consume that content? What should the success rate be? Should the crafting loop success rates be the same as the adventure loop success rates? What about time-to-kill (or time-to-combine) ? Should all crafting combines be considered as a solo player attempting to consume group-required content?
It can be problematic if you extend the analogy too far. Should crafters be limited in their responses to events in the same way a player is (using the 8+6 active/non-active hotbars that are currently in the design) fighting an enemy in the adventure loop? What if those events are lethal and the player 'chose wrong' at the start of the combine, being unable to predict future RNG events? Is it fair or reasonable, and does it improve subscriber retention, to punish players for RNG crafting events, despite doing everything right? And most importantly, is it fun, objectively?
If you're willing to admit that the analogy may not be appropriate to apply all the exact same restrictions to both the adventure loop and the non-adventure game loopS , then keeping them separate and their mechanics distinct is likely a better path forward.
Consistently punishing players for playing the game the only way they can will lead to frustrated players. If the player cannot mitigate the risk (regardless of the game loop) in such a way that they will be successful on content designated as 'easy', it creates emergent behavior that isn't healthy or fun.
To address your quoted note about above the risk of repeated attempts, if fuel cost is obtained only via social currency, and tuned appropriately to be 'expensive', then there can be great risk in the loss of just that fuel and similar common subcomponents, rather than the loss of the recipe itself and/or unique recipe components, while not making the mechanic overtly (and overly) punitive.
Gathering can basically just piggyback off the combat risk vs. reward system and be fine. When crafting, risking the raw ingredients and/or the quality of the final product is fine, but the implementation should be better than raw RNG risk. If you fail in combat, the cause is generally lack of skill, knowledge, and preparation. Can crafting be the same way? Can the Pantheon devs create a crafting system where players can learn something new each time they craft, feel like they'll do better next time, and eventually feel like they've gained mastery of something?
Maybe the necessary preceding question to "how to introduce risk" is "how to introduce constructive failure". You can "introduce risk" into combat by adding a percent chance to die on each attack, but if that doesn't lead to meaningful player growth, it is and will be seen as a speedbump rather than a challenge.
I would like to see a crafting system that has enough fuzziness that it doesn't feel like a math problem that you can solve for optimal results (if you put in enough time/money to brute force the RNG aspects). If going through the crafting process feels like a vending machine where all the useful information is listed in your in-game recipebook, then I think an opportunity has been missed. As far as I can figure out, the only way to introduce this fuzziness is to have a wide enough breadth of factors (hidden and/or visible) that players will never exactly crack the crafting code or by adding control inputs during crafting that make it mini-gamey (not twitch). I think the easier and more generally appealing approach is to go the mini-game route.
While this is just one example of what could be, my ideal vision is a crafting mini-game where you have output relevant information (temperature, sight, smell, sound, and feel) and inputs (ingredients, strength/precision/gentleness, speed), all of which are fuzzy and are affected by external variables (known or unknown to the player). I like to imagine the following...
Walking up to and clicking on the forge, selecting a recipe (Opal-Lined Breastplate), then seeing a progress bar come up with the different phases (Smelting, Infusing, Pouring, and Forming) with a button to click to move to the next phase. You have talked to an elven blacksmith who has told you to start the ore cold, then increase heat slowly to "very hot", add the opal and crank up the heat, pouring as soon as the color turns cherry red, and finally form the breastplate quickly before the opal hardens, making sure to be increasingly gentle as it cools. You have to control the addition of fuel (the quality of which impacts how much heat is added, the delay before heat is produced, the duration heat is produced, etc.), watch the temperature so you can time the addition of opal and when to pour it into the mold, watch the color indicator to know when to start forming the breastplate, and then controling down to gentle as you watch the color and temperature indicators show the breastplate is cooling off.
I probably just described a system that is much more difficult to implement than the goal, but the heart of it is in grayscale. Timing (not twitchy), sliders, interpretation of instructions (maybe the elven smith didn't know the best way to make it), external variables (weather, your character's stats and stat ratios, ingredient age, celestial cycle), imperfect senses (your skar has a different idea of hot than the dwarf next to you), and things of that nature can be used to make crafting fuzzy, which I think would go a long way to making crafting feel less transactional and more like an artform that can be practiced and improved upon. You could get to know your character, ingredients, and even recipes better over time and get to consistent results on just making a single item really well.
(not read anything above, yes, shamelessly cut time and not checked given feedback)
What would go wrong when you attack a mob?
Such a thing might happen with gathering and crafting: Die? ("blow up" in your face), wear and tear? of equipment used, the unexpected?
unexpected could be an add in a fight, getting rampage, or even getting unanticipated mob tactics
unexpected in gathering could be attracting unwanted attention, getting stuck in muck, or even getting thwarted by environment
unexpected in crafting could be equipment feedback, getting it allover you, or even getting stuck in equipment
vjek - Ainadek. I think we all agree on the basic approach crafting should take. There should be risks - there should be rewards - there should be enough complexity to make the actual process of crafting interesting not merely click a button to get an item you hope will be useful or will raise your skill.
Nephele said:Hi everyone!
One of the tenets we have for Pantheon is "Greater Risk earns Greater Rewards". As we work on building out the game's gathering and crafting systems, we want to hold true to that tenet - we don't want either system to be viewed as just a time or money sink, and we want the gameplay for both gathering and crafting to really feel meaningful and to give players a sense of accomplishment. When you get that backpack full of ore, or you finish sewing that awesome cloak or brewing that potion, it should ideally feel like a victory, just like it does when you kill a monster and get a really neat loot drop, or when you come to the end of a perception storyline and learn a secret about the world.
With that in mind, I'm very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on what form the risk should take for both crafting and gathering. What do you feel would be appropriate and what types or levels of risk do you think would help make these activities feel more fun overall?
I think one important and often overlooked note when adding meaning through risk is to avoid omitting the mundane. I think I recently heard you fuss at the guy in town being in the same spot all day. I understand that the impulse is to remove that safe semi-afk town crafting completely from the game. I say leave it in the game and use it as a color to paint with. Safe gathering near a town or in an area with low monster population could provide modest skill progress and even profit. You will almost never die and there is very little risk to it. Having that slow and steady safe option, however, will make farming spider silk from a giant spiders nest that much more meaningful. You might have to fight all manner of spiderkin and even other players to make it out alive afterwards, but a significant quality or quantity increase makes it worth trying. Leave the semi afk boring autocraft option in the game but make it a modest fair yield. That makes it all the more rewarding when a hands on crafter learns how to use the opt in craft simulator mini game and increases their quality or yield. Leave the safe town crafting but create a rewarding experience for crafters who try to make their goods in the less than hospitable magical zones and climates of terminus. If you simply move all the end game nodes to dangerous areas and force all the best crafts to need a location in a dungeon all you do is piss off players who do not like mixing crafting with danger or are not ready for that level of danger yet. You also diminish the success and failure of trying the riskier endeavors.
On a seperate note, there has been mention of monsters manipulating node spawns (Ex. blood orcs making blood iron veins). I think this is a wonderful vein to keep exploring. Maybe bigger creatures have nodes with higher yield (hide, meat, Spider silk, ect ect). Maybe nodes that are a food source get linked to monster population ( ex. the more bears alive the less berries and fish appear) then gatherers can enter a symbioting relationship with players grinding.
I also think enticing gathering skills and gear could play a big role in risk vs reward. If you make the gear covetable for gathering but worthless in combat then you create more risk from situational aggro. The more gathering skills you load the less combat skills you can load. Play off of that desire to have the strongest gathering gear load out with all the great gathering skills versus the fear of every monster agro being dangerous. You can also use said gathering skills to solve age old gathering issues and create life in the gathering theory craft.
Examples
Heal the Land
Gathering skill; active; range 5m
Target- all plant based gathering nodes in the area
Cooldown- 5 minutes
Effect- If any creature other than the caster picks the affected nodes, the magic of this skill will regrow the node in 10 seconds.
If cast on an area affected by "Salt the Earth" this skill will instead return the area to normal.
Salt the Earth
Gathering skill; active; range 5m
Target- all plant based gathering nodes in the area
Cooldown- 5 minutes
Effect- Destroy all plant based gathering nodes in the area and prevent their respawn for 30 min.
Now neither of these skills are balanced since i just made them up but they show 2 ways that a player might choose to deal with node sniping. Maybe now there is a risk to slinking in to steal a node while someone fights the monster guarding it. That person might just destroy that node, or use a skill to let them have the node again shortly after the thief leaves.
P.S. There are three things i have heard in dev videos about gathering that made me really happy and i hope they don't change. First, nodes being a part of the mesh so the map isnt littered with little pimples and eyesores. I know this could potentially make some nodes very hard to spot and I look forward to see the creative solutions you guys come up with. Second, the idea that it doesn't take 500 nodes to craft a thing, maybe it only takes 1-5 or a combination of a few things. I like this because it lets you make nodes more rare or harder to find and still keep it from being to harsh on the gatherer. Third, the previously mentioned monsters having an affect on nodes. I would like to see special nodes like bloodiron veins have more to do with the crafting process and less to do with specific more powerful item creation. An example would be, adding blood iron to a recipe raises the hq chance by 5% and lowers the number of iron ores needed to craft by 1. As opposed to, 7 blood iron make a blood iron super mega sword and its the best sword evar. But thats just a minor preference of mine. Fun topic.
-Gottbeard-
Just some ideas, not all are golden eggs. But it's to break out of our comfort zone.
1) You need to earn faction to gain access to an area where you can harvest. (secret temple of monks, etc.) A lot of content can be build leading up to those monks or to that specific faction. (all possible without combat? but economy/cultural content) How much, how often and within what timeframe (if any), is of course up for debate.
2) You need to earn faction to gain items with which you can harvest specific nodes. See 1) for extra comments.
3) You get a faction hit when you harvest within an area. Sacred ground? Local/regional/global cultures or religions?
4) You get a faction hit when you harvest X (sacred cow in India analogy) Again Local/regional/global culture or religion
5) You are flagged as 'negative' (doesn't have to be Kill On Sight alone) when you have harvesting resource X in your inventory.
6) You gain faction when you trade or donate harvestable X to a specific npc or religious establishment within an area.
7) 'Trampling of nodes'. A disappear condition where if there are X players moving about in the area, nodes will not spawn or the abundance would reduce. Only when the trespassing rate has decreased, nodes might (re)appear. So this stimulates harvesters to go out alone or in very small groups, already making things more dangerous but rewarding. This reinforces the active players, running about in the world. It also helps to feel more one with the world. As with fewer eyes to look around, you need to pay more attention to find those harvesting opportunities. (this concept obviously cannot be commonly used)
8) 1 interaction only node : When you commence harvesting a timewindow starts counting down. When you finish the harvestattempt within X time you gain # resources, if it takes you longer to harvest you gain fewer resources. Did you move, break a tool or otherwise interrupt the process (dangerous mobs,..). You gain nothing and the node ‘decays’. A 'dang-it' feeling within a game is acceptable to my standing. You'll be more attentive next time with focus on situational awareness and there is a form of learning curve. Where you also familiarize yourself with where you are in the world and are able to calculate the risks of harvesting X at that location under these conditions.
9) Node-(in)stability: A very delicate flower could disintegrate if you're not equipped with the correct tools/skill/etc. Many might be able to attempt to harvest, but a smaller amount of characters might be succesful. Various factors could influence the conditions to meet the node-instability. A simple example: an ogres fingers might just be too thick to succesfully grasp the petals of a satinflower. Or a gnome might not be strong enough to compress the clumb of clay while harvesting it. (obviously, these are just simplistic examples to get the idea across)
10) Defensive mechanism/detriments: Risk of gathering is getting detrimental effects if skill doesn’t at least match the challenge rating. Certain resources could always have some risk while harvesting, no matter how skilled you are. In the off chance the detrimental effect triggers, a harvester can remedy it. By various crafts with or without a time-factor weighing down on the negatively influenced character. Examples: a plant could ooze out a toxic liquid or vapor to prevent from being harvested. While mining a splinter of rock could hit you in the face. A slippery fish could bite you trying to get away. Foresting a fallen log could have insects in them, and they attack the harvester by tiny bites. These could all be minor effects and don't need much, if any, visual elements. It's not a combat situation, it's an instant impact. The impact could be very short or could last for quite some time. Things could even heat up if the detriment is not handled quickly enough. (increasing fever?). Like I said earlier, the player could remedy it by using ointments, potions, etc. I wouldn't align it with adventure abilities. Keep it in it's own right, it's own uniqueness within the world. (exploding mushroom anyone?) Players could prepare themselves for their harvestingsession by bringing specific remedies with them depending on their goals.
Some side notes as reply:
I'm not a fan of the tracking skill for harvestables, as we’re stearing towards using ingame systems, rather than your own eyes and thoughts. There is no need for magical pathing. Go out and learn the land by experience. Tracking should be just that, the player looking for actual signs or sights of possible harvesting opportunities with seasonal effects in the back of their head.
Global/regional ranking system and awardingsystem for successful harvesting under challenging conditions. I don't see this as a off-game leaderboard. But rather as a Guild of Harvesters/Foresters society within the world of Terminus. Where you are recognised for your accomplishments. And those don't have to be all about: harvest xxxxxx... amount of roots.
I would aim to match the tools with the challenge conditions. So not use highest tier tool on = and > tiers. This means, every tier still matters and not only the highest. This means that crafters of various levels can still produce meaningful tools and equipment. I don’t need an intergalactic diamonddrill to mine for ‘darkened clay’. Respect each tier for what it is. Used tools have no value but they can be broken up into crafting resources (or otherwise donated-traded back into the economy/game ..offering God of harvest/reaping/…) I think, it's a very important consideration to not fall into the trap of vertical progression, where lower content becomes redundant. Harvesting and crafting for that matter is quite suited to stay away from that. Yes, things are different at different tiers. But no, that doesn't mean you can do with level 50 needle, what is asked for at level 10. And that's ok.
Does that mean, people will hoard all kinds of needles, just to able to make everything? Some people might, some won't (influenced by the storage design of the game). But at least, the newly/progressing players will be relevant throughout the duration of the game's lifespan.
The key word in Risk vs Reward is Risk. You must have something that can be taken away for there to be risk.
Let’s look at what we are risking when we both soft and hard fail at adventuring.
Hard failure (death while adventuring) risks:
1) Loss of experience from death (time)
2) Loss of experience from not killing final target (time and opportunity)
3) Loss of durability (likely resources but may be more complex)
4) Time spent going from dead to back alive and adventuring again (time)
5) Possibility of someone else killing your target (opportunity cost)
6) Possible quest failure (mixture of time, resource and opportunity depending on how the quest was started)
Soft Failure (Sir Robin bravely ran away) risk:
1) Loss of experience from not killing final target (time and opportunity)
2) Time spent running away then running back alive and adventuring again (time)
3) Possibility of someone else killing your target (opportunity cost)
4) Possible quest failure (mixture of time, resource and opportunity depending on how the quest was started)
Now let’s look at possible and traditional risk in crafting.
Traditional losses:
1) Failure to craft destroys a % of resources on failure (resources)
2) Failure to craft does no give crafting experience (time but only as much time as it takes to do a single crafting)
3) A limited resource was consumed with lesser or no return (opportunity and resources)
4) You successfully make something that is less valuable than the raw materials on the player to player market (cost: sanity)
Possible losses:
1) Failing to craft something that should be trivial due to inattention or cutting corners embarrassing the professional crafter (crafting prestige)
2) Consuming resources belonging to another and failing in completing their crafting writ (faction hit, crafting prestige, opportunity)
3) Getting a lower quality result then desired, which could just be an analog failure resulting in an otherwise worthless game object if not salvaged. (resources and time shifted to more time and less resources if you can somehow salvage and start over)
4)Failing could shake your confidence. (Crafter confidence, another currently nonexistent commodity.)
5) Soullessly making the same thing over and over to skill up. (Damage to Artistic Soul, mark that as a third Trasak made up idea)
Harvesting is often somewhere between crafting and adventuring as most of it exists out in the adventuring spheres. The risk there likely needs to be a mix of the two.
Traditional losses:
1) You fail to harvest x (opportunity and resource loss)
2) Someone else gets to your node first (time and opportunity)
3) You fail to find harvestable (time)
Possible losses:
1) Lower quality resources are gathered due to distractions or bad tools (opportunity, resources and maybe gatherer prestige)
2) You fail enough that you do not have enough resources to turn in to the NPC that gave you access to the location (faction hit, gatherer prestige, resources, opportunity, time) - Stealing Barin’s idea and tweaking it.
3) Damage to tools because you used lower tier tools on higher tier resources or overused them without maintenance. (time and resources)
4) You destroyed the only Moonlight Orchid that spawns in that lunar cycle (opportunity, prestige and confidence)
I am sure there are other things that could be added but traditionally the primary acknowledged risk to crafting is just resource loss. There is some time and opportunity cost but only a relatively small percentage. The biggest loss may be to sanity for repeatedly making object whose value is lower than the player-to-player market value of the raw materials.
Crafter Prestige: Your crafter prestige effects how people respond to you and certain crafting writs, quests and resource vendors will only be available to crafters with certain prestige. Prestige is gained by succeeding at nontrivial crafting with the more challenging rewarding more. Completing certain writs will also gain prestige, possibly local or global. Prestige is lost through failing at crafting, the more trivial the combine the more damaging to your prestige. Failing at crafting writs also would lower your prestige.
Special note: This only really works if success rates can be controlled by taking more time and or spending more resources such that mini game RNG goofs can be overcome.
Second Special note: “mini game” is being used to reference a wide array of possibilities but ultimately amounts to a list of Player choices that can affect the probability of success.
Crafter Confidence: SNES NBA Jam on fire bonus. The more you succeed in a row you gain a stacking bonus to your chance at success for challenging crafts but stopping to do trivial crafts will burn down your buff to the point that you might lose it. This will encourage higher level crafters to get their trivial subcomponents from lower-level crafters.
Artistic Soul: Just throwing this out there. No one really enjoys doing the same thing over and over and it leads to mediocrity. This could just be diminishing returns on crafter experience for anything you have already crafted recently. It could also tie into your chance at inventing or finding something new.
Gatherer Prestige: Really just copy past of Crafter prestige. Each crafting/gathering skill could have its own prestige score with mostly the same mechanics.
Gatherer Confidence: See Gatherer Prestige
I'll pick up on the latest reply:
Crafting prestige: Decrease by making a lot of items that are well below your skill level. Making hundreds of horse shoes, will make you very good at just that. But npc’s will start to view you as just that, they might forget about the rare outstanding things you’ve created in the past, based on your abundant delivery of horse shoes. This allows the prestige barometer to go up and down and be an active consideration and remain meaningful for a longer period of time. It also stimulates players to outsource goods to lower level crafters in the community or to just purchase them from those lower level crafters.
Crafter confidence linked to endurance/crafting resource? The lower your confidence, the faster your endurance is consumed? The longer you are successful, the bigger your confidence will get (to a point). Failing would drastically impact it again. This to allow sensation and excitement to be of value for advanced players. (as possibly more endurance is required for certain recipes) Having more confidence, will burn through your endurance less rapidly. As mentioned earlier, you’ll need that all that endurance.
Barin999 said:I'll pick up on the latest reply:
Crafting prestige: Decrease by making a lot of items that are well below your skill level. Making hundreds of horse shoes, will make you very good at just that. But npc’s will start to view you as just that, they might forget about the rare outstanding things you’ve created in the past, based on your abundant delivery of horse shoes. This allows the prestige barometer to go up and down and be an active consideration and remain meaningful for a longer period of time. It also stimulates players to outsource goods to lower level crafters in the community or to just purchase them from those lower level crafters.
Crafter confidence linked to endurance/crafting resource? The lower your confidence, the faster your endurance is consumed? The longer you are successful, the bigger your confidence will get (to a point). Failing would drastically impact it again. This to allow sensation and excitement to be of value for advanced players. (as possibly more endurance is required for certain recipes) Having more confidence, will burn through your endurance less rapidly. As mentioned earlier, you’ll need that all that endurance.
Those are both good possible spins on the general idea. I know there is a wide range of what people want as far as the actual gameplay of crafting (single click, original eq2 progress bar response clicking, third person queing with longer delays, or representative simulation of the actual process). The nature of the gameplay will give us a list of possible tie ins for both risks and rewards.
Upon taking a couple of days to think about this some more I think that in the end, the principle of KISS applies in the long run. You don't have to get extremely complicated in order to remain a risk vs reward within crafting. Below are some fairly simple ways to maintain a fairly decent risk vs reward without having to create a bunch of additional systems.
Depending on if the crafting process is related to a mini-game
Risk and reward are things that have to be felt and experienced first hand and even if something looks good on paper how "fun" it feels to engage with may differ entirely. The only thing that I would caution against is working yourself into a corner where you have to continually create and implement a bunch of additional systems in order to make the core system feel fun engaging (something that I am all too familiar with due to my experience in wow). My advice, not knowing where the crafting system is currently in its development, would be to focus on the core of crafting first and how it can be interworked with the existing systems to facilitate risk and reward. Then if additional systems are needed make sure that they are additive in nature and not support crutches.
These responses are hitting on many solid ideas and concepts. The most important thing though is to understand that in a group oriented adventuring game, crafting and harvesting largely need to be solo driven so that a player can still log in when they aren't feeling social and continue to progress their character. If adventuring is 75% group, 25% solo, I would say the inverse would need to be true for crafting and harvesting. Thus, I would just keep that in mind while designing these systems. That, and I agree that nobody likes any type of RNG and/or click to combine system.
HemlockReaper said:FatedEmperor said:I don't think that drastically limiting the number of characters per account really is a decent solution to making crafting meaningful as someone mentioned above. I think that it just limits replayability in the long run and if it was deemed necessary to do this for the sake of crafting then the crafting system hypothetically in question doesn't sound strong and challenging, to begin with.
I think that gathering/crafting should be tied into the acquisition of class legendary items if they are ever added to the game, and maybe these gathered resources or crafted items are special and require special tools/ recipes which require great risk to obtain.
I would disagree, crafting or harvesting are trivialized when everyone can do them without having to focus on them. What good would any class be if everyone had all abilities?
Limiting the account to one character slot for the majority (pledges excluded) increases the value of the choices being made, and also make your character more important to the world your playing in.
Why bother inviting that cleric ect LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
It is my opinion that it would make crafting and harvesting stronger if people were limited as much as possible from being completely self sufficient.
I've been busy but I thought that before I logged in I would take the time to respond to this.
"I would disagree, crafting or harvesting are trivialized when everyone can do them without having to focus on them. What good would any class be if everyone had all abilities?"
I never advocated for one class/ character to be able to do it all. I think that characters should be limited in how many professions they have access to provided it makes sense in relation to other systems within the game. Now, if you mean what good would any player be if they had access to everything.. well that is a different question. To answer that question If a player undergoes the challenge, time sink, and hurdle of learning everything in a game over time, good for them. I am all for a player being renowned and if they want to be renowned for having every profession available on multiple characters and all professions maxed then I have no issue with that. It is only an issue when this process easily is done on multiple characters to the point that it is trivialized. It should not be an easy feat to max out professions on one character in addition to the leveling require, let alone do it on multiple characters.
Limiting the account to one character slot for the majority (pledges excluded) increases the value of the choices being made, and also makes your character more important to the world your playing in.
While being limited to one character may increase that character's value and the value of their choices in relation to the player, it doesn't necessarily make that character more important to the world your playing in and can even have a negative impact in this sense. For example, I'm playing DPS which are a dime in a dozen and all the available groups who are looking are in need of healers, or tanks because those classes are statistically played less. Well now we have an issue under this one character per server rule and we have effectively limited the number of grouping opportunities. If grouping is required to access more dangerous areas for a gathering we have effectively limited the number of items that can be gathered on the server and who can gather these items. While this does impact the principle of supply and demand this is probably not the best way to do so.
Why bother inviting that cleric ect LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
Now there is so much I want to say about this but I don't even know where to start.
It is my opinion that it would make crafting and harvesting stronger if people were limited as much as possible from being completely self sufficient.
Should they decide to limit anything then I would hope they go the route and just limit the number of professions per account, as someone else mentioned in response to this. Limiting characters not only hurts the replayability of the game but it also hurts crafting and gathering in the long run. Without alts to use up and consume resources eventually there would be a point where the market became oversaturated. I'm also not against a player being self-sufficient when it comes to crafting because even then they should need groups to go out and get specific no-drop items and would have to get the resources or have someone else supply them. The only type of self-sufficiency that I am against is a player being able to go out into the world and doing everything on their own. So if a player could go out gather everything they needed, easily obtain all the recipes, and then just craft the item this type of self-sufficiency I am aginst.
Mathir: If adventuring is 75% group, 25% solo, I would say the inverse would need to be true for crafting and harvesting.
I would largely agree with this, however I would advocate that crafting should be able to create items that are equal to any drops. Given that, I would say that the items needed for the best equipment should come from group play or convoluted and difficult solo play to stop markets being flooded with high end equipment.
HemlockReaper: Why bother inviting that cleric etc LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
I don’t follow this logic to be honest. To log in an alt cleric, you need two accounts and either two boxes or good co-ordination. Why bother with inviting a cleric? Because it is easier and/or less costly.
Why bother buying a sword...? Because you don’t have all the ingredients/skills/time/etc. needed to make the one you want, yourself. I have multiple crafters on EQ2 and I often buy from other crafters because of the time it takes to create. Yes, I tend to make an item whenever practicable, but I dont always want to. I have never experienced any problem when playing with a game that allows alts to have their own craft skills.
Multiple characters each with their own craft skill is fine with me. One per character. Specialisations are fine too. Tied in with adventuring would be great for my preferred game style too (I like to adventure and forage and keep both aspects roughly equal in level).
HemlockReaper: It is my opinion that it would make crafting and harvesting stronger if people were limited as much as possible from being completely self-sufficient.
I would agree that no craft skill should be self-sufficient, and I would like it each craft skill to rely on other crafts too. However, I do not think limiting skills necessarily equates to stronger crafting/foraging game. It could easily lead to severely limited stocks that would adversely affect the economy. Basic skills should be easily learned, as the skill level gets higher, it should become more difficult to learn new skills and/or require specialisation. It should also include hard to find tutors, adventure elements, lore tie-ins, factions and the rest of the adventuring mechanics. Limiting skills by itself does not make for a robust and enjoyable trade skilling process.
chenzeme said:HemlockReaper: Why bother inviting that cleric etc LFG when you can just login into your Alt characters to fill spots as needed. or why bother buying a sword from a weapon smith when you can just login to your crafter and make it.
I don’t follow this logic to be honest. To log in an alt cleric, you need two accounts and either two boxes or good co-ordination. Why bother with inviting a cleric? Because it is easier and/or less costly.
Why bother buying a sword...? Because you don’t have all the ingredients/skills/time/etc. needed to make the one you want, yourself. I have multiple crafters on EQ2 and I often buy from other crafters because of the time it takes to create. Yes, I tend to make an item whenever practicable, but I dont always want to. I have never experienced any problem when playing with a game that allows alts to have their own craft skills.
Multiple characters each with their own craft skill is fine with me. One per character. Specialisations are fine too. Tied in with adventuring would be great for my preferred game style too (I like to adventure and forage and keep both aspects roughly equal in level).
I'm referring to switching to an alt on the same account.