The running plan as I understand it is to have PCs harvest everything, but to have a specialty skill to harvest more of resources. Rather than a single skill you are locked into why not allow stats to buff harvesting. If you want to go chop down trees you may want to build up your CON the most so you have the stamina to saw smoothly. Dex could help you adeptly skin animals. Every stat could boost harvesting in various ways. I think leaving the harvesting bonuses to stats would make more since than selecting a harvesting skill to simply pair with your crafting.
This would make some side grade items more important.
This would make stereotypical harvesting and crafting combos be a reasonable choice for ease of resources. If STR is used to mine ore most high str PCs may choose blacksmithing or simply also trade ores for the materials needed.
This would let you focus on different things from time to time far more efficiently.
I prefer allowing characters to be able to harvest without significant limitations tied to their adventure class.
As someone that focuses on harvesting to a significant extent I like the idea of separate harvesting and/or crafting skills that, ideally, can be improved by ...harvesting and crafting.
I very much liked the Vanguard theory of separating adventuring abilities and crafting and harvesting abilities to the greatest extent possible.
I like the idea.
I know what Dorotea means about separating crafting/adventuring - I'm not sure level should effect harvesting, for example. Not directly anyway - but I like the idea of having harvesting/crafting gear and consumables.
If I were off for a day mining, I would like to take my potions of geological sensing, wear my gloves of rock piercing and girdle of strength and swing my pick of the dwarves to fill my bags of ore swallowing.
Do I rightly remember Nephele has talked about varying grades of resource? And of varying quality of crafted goods? It would be nice to be able to give myself a better chance of those things with gear and consumables.
I haven't really seen this work out favorably. It usually ends up reinforcing an already stringent meta. A popular grind for a popular level is in an area with slightly more Str based nodes than Int based nodes and even though the Int focused DPS is well balanced with the Str focused DPS the extra monetary draw starts to skew player population and character power through wealth acclimation. That blip plays out several camps later when suddenly there is a generic understanding that Int is inferior in power to Str but no one really knows why they feel that way "it has just been their experience".
I also just don't really like it. I prefer crafting and gathering progression to come from something a little less passive for one. For two, I don't want my build choices or the build choices of the people I play with to be influenced by their career in tablemaking. It negatively impacts motivation for stat hybridization.
This topic has been promoted for my CM content, please continue the discussion and have fun! :)
"Hot Topic - Should Stats Impact Harvesting? Let us know your thoughts on this community-created thread! https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/13140/should-stats-impact-harvesting#MMORPG#CommunityMatters"
I prefer the Vanguard approach where sphere specific stats are derived by equipped harvesting tools and/or worn non-adventure clothing. The only adventure stats that I believe should affect harvesting would be strength as it relates to how much you can carry. If 'pack mules' are allowed to increase this amount it should come at a decreased travel speed.
Not "adventuring" or combat stats, no.
However, the idea that there is crafting specific gear, with crafting specific stats, is appealing - especially given how much crafting/gathering is supposedly supposed to be somewhat of its own gameplay loop.
The downside would be that this would potentially "require" players to just have to carry one more set of gear, in addition to all the other situational gear, if they want to be "optimal" for the activity. I can see this quickly getting out of hand if every activity has a specific gear pool for it.
IMO:
The following design principle applies to any game loop, including harvesting.
If it's a public design goal that the game loop stands alone or on its own merits, and has it's own progression, paths, goals, fun, achievements, rewards, and risks, then it should have it's own stats, skills, gear, and events.
Applies to combat, diplomacy, faction, harvesting, crafting, exploration, and more.
Conversely, if it's NOT a public design goal that the game loop stands alone or on its own merits, then none of the above is required. But don't be surprised when your paying customers notice an incomplete or illogical or thematically incomplete implementation. :)
I'm not too crazy about the idea personally. I can't imagine it would add much to core gameplay besides shoehorning certain classes into specific professions, and being incentivized to build even more gear sets, and having to either maintain a gear swap macro or repeatedly open your inventory to swap gear out while adventuring around.
I wouldn't be opposed to having a specific few pieces of gear that directly influence your gathering/crafting skills, but the idea of maintaining some big gear swap macro and filling half my inventory with gathering/crafting gear sets is very unappealing to me.
It's one of the reasons I dislike FF14 crafting and gathering.
Although I like the busy-ness solution of stat related gear to improve harvesting/crafting. I agree with the consensus so far that a seperate gear set might be cumbersome- the only allowable impact would be..encumberment, heh. Love me some highly sought after and hard won weight reduction bags.
How to improve the process of Harvesting / Crafting using whats available in Pantheon and throwing in a bit of "situational"?
Maybe somethings are only harvestable/craftable in places where you need to be acclimated to the environment where they can be harvested/crafted? So you have to make a choice to use up some acclimation for the sake of obtaining a craft item. Like using up some poison acclimation to harvest crystals, and then using up some fire acclimation to forge those crystals at the lava forge.
How do you increase in crafting skill using whats available in Pantheon, without it becoming a laundry list of combines from a third party site? I dunno. Linked to a non-combat skill perhaps? recipies? that becomes a laundry list. or maybe you dont have a marker that tells you how good you are, maybe the gateway is the hard/level place where the mats are obtained from, No Drop/ lore/no trade to prevent shortcuts. I dont have any other ideas,
Seems like a cool idea but these types of things usually pull out the worse type of min/max players.
It also cuts down seeing odd Race/TS combos, who wants to see an Ogre jewler one day.
I do like bringing back armor that give you a bonus to the skills though.
dorotea said:I prefer allowing characters to be able to harvest without significant limitations tied to their adventure class.
As someone that focuses on harvesting to a significant extent I like the idea of separate harvesting and/or crafting skills that, ideally, can be improved by ...harvesting and crafting.
I very much liked the Vanguard theory of separating adventuring abilities and crafting and harvesting abilities to the greatest extent possible.
Yes this is how I feel about it. Keep the two separate in this area, different stats for harvesting/crafting if anything.
disposalist said:Do I rightly remember Nephele has talked about varying grades of resource? And of varying quality of crafted goods? It would be nice to be able to give myself a better chance of those things with gear and consumables.
The current plan (which I reserve the right to alter in the future!) is that specific resources will not have different quality grades - with one exception. So there will not be high-quality ore, or premium-grade wood, or anything like that - at least, not right now.
The exception to that is hides/pelts from skinning. We *are* planning to have some quality grades when it comes to skinning. Specifically, these quality grades will be there to help support specific types of crafted items. So, if you're an outfitter, by default, any kind of hide may be useful to you. But if you happen to get that "pristine" hide, you will likely save it for a very specific, and unique thing that you want to make.
When it comes to crafting, we are not currently planning to have different quality grades of the same crafted item. That would actually be a step backward for our system. Remember that in Pantheon's crafting, you'll be able to vary which materials you use to get different stats. This means that instead of having different recipes for a bronze sword or an iron sword or a coldark steel sword, you'll have a single schematic for a Kingsreach Broadsword, and the stats you get will be determined by what kind of sword blade you decide to use with it. Maybe that sword blade is made of common iron, or maybe you've used a more exotic metal choice for your sword blade - the stats will change depending on which you use. That stat progression won't be perfectly linear either - so while a more exotic material will probably make a stronger sword, there may still be tradeoffs involved that you'll have to think about. This also gives us room to introduce different and unique variations of craftable swords at all level ranges - for example, instead of that Kingsreach Broadsword, maybe you have a schematic for a Reignfall Scimitar. Or maybe you've got a rare schematic for an Ember Feyblade.
As far as the original topic of stats and harvesting - all I'll say for now is that I'm enjoying reading the discussion and hearing everyone's thoughts :)
I once mentioned an idea, years ago, of having dedicated harvesting classes/professions. They would have skills that would enable them to harvest above and beyond the typical adventurer. They would forgo adventuring skills in the name of harvesting. Their skills would be along the lines of stealth, speed, misdirection, all to better gather materials in dangerous situations. A specialized harvester could be a "gatherer", he wouldn't burden himself with armor or weapons, they would only weigh him down. Instead he would maximize capacity, value furtive movements to access dangerously located items, hone his perception to such a level he could perceive nodes that others passed by. A "gleaner" would specialize in maximizing recovering valuable assets. Where others would crudely move off with a normal skin from an animal the gleaners skills would allow them to recover an organ valued by chefs the world over. This idea never really got any traction. Therefore I'm a fan, at this point, of tools, clothing and such with improved stats increasing the ability to gather materials. Skill should increase as you continue gathering resources, you become better at skinning, you damage plants less as you gather, you recover more ore... Also perception should be huge in finding resources.
Vandraad said:Our stats should have some effect, yes, but not an overwhelmingly positive or negative one. This way the different flavor of the classes comes through a bit more.
It is more of a choice on should there be a one time choice to select to be a master wood chopper or should players be able to put on a set of armor to raise their STR and CON (or however the devs decide stats should impact the harvesting) The base harvesting skills and hopefully harvesting specific items such as an exceptional mininig pick play a large role. Gear would replace the difference between master harvesting specialist and normal harvesting.
Manouk said:Although I like the busy-ness solution of stat related gear to improve harvesting/crafting. I agree with the consensus so far that a seperate gear set might be cumbersome- the only allowable impact would be..encumberment, heh. Love me some highly sought after and hard won weight reduction bags.
This would not eliminate harvesting while not in the perfect gear set. It would be the default minimal skill based harvesting. Building your stats for harvesting would simply make it better. IE if you wanted to do an hour of mining you would gear up for it.
Gintoki88 said:Seems like a cool idea but these types of things usually pull out the worse type of min/max players.
Having a choice to select a master skill would turn everyone into the same min/max type of player. Every black smith would select mining, every staff/wand crafter would select the wood harvesting, etc. By letting stats play a role a black smith PC could also go harvest the leather, wood, etc another PC may require to build sub components.
Gottbeard said:I haven't really seen this work out favorably.
The new MMO called New World does this but with a stat milestone system that makes me sad. 49 STR gives you nothing, 50 STR gives you a bonus to harvesting. The main harvesting skill is needed to harvest all materials and plays a big role. You need to level up the skill as normal. The harvesting tools play their own part as well impacting harvesting. Every PC can harvest everything if they level up the skill, just how Pantheon will have it. The base line harvesting vs the min maxed stats for harvesting is not drastic, similar to how the master harvester skill likely won't be drastic in Pantheon.
I cant imagine feeling the need to change your gear set unless you are doing a big harvesting grind.
Yes and no.
I think a general stat-like perception could affect harvesting yields and possibly luck when finding rare materials out of nodes. Everyone could build this stat and receive benefits to their harvesting potential.
I don't think it is wise to tie them to a singular regular stat. For example, tieing strength into mining. Only classes who naturally focus on building up their strength stat would gain the benefit. This would put all other classes at a disadvantage. It might be ok if major stats had equal weight. However, I feel like multiple stats could be messy to tune v.s. just tieing it all to one stat.
Raidil said: The simple answer is no and I say this because there is already a plan to have harvest/crafting skill up so there is no need for stats to on this.. plus there is already one stat that will effect all harvest and that's str to help you Carry what u get.
VR plans to have both a skill and a specialty skill (as I understand it) Stats would only be the alternative to the specialty skill, not the base skill. This would mean your standard gear would likely give you the equivilant of the specialty skill for some type of harvesting, but side grade armor choices would give you the specialty skill for whatever you are wanting to gear up to harvest.
Each player would still need to skill up the base skill. Each player would still need proper/high quality crafting tools if they exist in Pantheon.