Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Discussion: How do you feel about bulk production in crafting?

    • 72 posts
    January 23, 2022 4:09 PM PST

    I think minigames can be good depending on what it's associated with.

    If you do the mini-game to catch a fish, or to influence the stats on a piece of wearable gear that can be kind of fun.
    If I have to replay that same mini-game over and over and over for every chunk of iron smelted and every hide tanned, then I'd much rather not.


    This post was edited by Turnip at January 23, 2022 4:18 PM PST
    • 13 posts
    January 24, 2022 4:26 AM PST
    Shirt and sweet, bulk processing is only necessary if smaller combines are made necessary by the system to make components the something bigger in a system that has no skill check or mini game. Crafting should be difficult as well so the people who do it are appreciated. Otherwise everyone will do trade skills to avoid paying higher costs that allow for time making something. I'd like to see a game where starter stuff is difficult enough that higher end crafters source out time from lower end crafters to make simple components for use in the higher level gear.
    • 2 posts
    January 24, 2022 4:38 AM PST

    I'd rather have a crafting sysytem where bulk production is not needed to level crafting. Bulk production is mostly a tool to produce large amounts of items to get a chunk of xp. 

    I'd rather have a crafting system where the total number of crafts to level is much lower than in the past, more of a horizontal crafting system than a vertical one. 

    • 258 posts
    January 24, 2022 6:09 AM PST

    I'm not 100% against crafting in a tradeskill, but when it comes to having bags and bags full of stacks of crafted items that I need to make another crafting type of items to make a final combine, then it becomes "not fun".


    This post was edited by BigBadAzz1 at January 24, 2022 6:09 AM PST
    • 3237 posts
    January 24, 2022 8:01 AM PST

    My initial thought is that I'm not a fan of bulk production because of what its existence usually entails.  Players generally 'need' a lot of subcomponents (such as ingots) over time because the progression system is built in such a way that players are required to produce lots and lots of 'finished items' in order to advance.  I think it's imperative that we steer clear from a crafting environment that sees players mass-producing finished-items that have very little value/demand in order to level up.  The common theme that I have experienced in that environment is that the ingots/rivets/bars/rings end up having significantly more value/demand than the items that can ultimately be forged with them.  There is no demand for the 50 cobalt breastplates on the market but there is huge demand and competition for the materials that can make those breastplates.  How could that make any sense?  Well ... it's because the 'value' of those subcomponents is heavily weighted toward the XP that they can yield rather than the item that can be created with them.  Players will mass-produce items and sell them to a vendor for a big loss if that is the fastest way to level up.

    That said ... I already know that the dreadful environment that I typically associate with bulk production won't be a thing in Pantheon.  (Concept, meet implementation.)  We have the best person in the world (IMO) for the job and there is just no way that we're going to see yet-another-implementation of the same old thing.  When I think of bulk production in Pantheon I'm thinking about an advanced combine where you can create a stack of arrows.  Maybe we see the same thing with rivets or screws or (X) where it makes thematic sense that a single combine would consistently yield a bigger return since that is how those items would realistically be produced while using advanced methods.  So maybe you have a situation where players can and do create arrows/rivets/ingots one at a time, which can be graduated to 5 at a time, 10 at a time, a stack at a time.  The ability to produce more with a single combine would likely be gated behind a higher skill proficiency within the craft, an advanced recipe that could be learned, the quality of the tools/crafting-gear being worn, the crafting station being used or perhaps a combination of one or more of these things.

    Maybe there are 4 slot / 8 slot / 16 slot muffin pans in the world that you may need to collect if you want to be able to create more muffins with a single use of the oven.  Maybe larger muffin pans are the kinds of things that might become available when you acquire enough faction to buy one from a specific NPC.  Maybe they could be a quest reward.  Either way you slice it, I'm confident that if bulk-production ends up being a thing in Pantheon ... it will emerge as something that enhances the sphere in a meaningful way rather than be something that simply makes you hate it a little less.  It's nice being able to say that and believe it.  Cheers to Neph!


    This post was edited by oneADseven at January 24, 2022 9:35 AM PST
    • 134 posts
    January 24, 2022 9:39 AM PST

    oneADseven said:

    My initial thought is that I'm not a fan of bulk production because of what its existence usually entails.  Players generally 'need' a lot of subcomponents (such as ingots) over time because the progression system is built in such a way that players are required to produce lots and lots of 'finished items' in order to advance.  I think it's imperative that we steer clear from a crafting environment that sees players mass-producing finished-items that have very little value/demand in order to level up.  The common theme that I have experienced in that environment is that the ingots/rivets/bars/rings end up having significantly more value/demand than the items that can ultimately be forged with them.  There is no demand for the 50 cobalt breastplates on the market but there is huge demand and competition for the materials that can make those breastplates.  How could that make any sense?  Well ... it's because the 'value' of those subcomponents is heavily weighted toward the XP that they can yield rather than the item that can be created with them.  Players will mass-produce items and sell them to a vendor for a big loss if that is the fastest way to level up.

    That said ... I already know that the dreadful environment that I typically associate with bulk production won't be a thing in Pantheon.  (Concept, meet implementation.)  We have the best person in the world (IMO) on the job and there is just no way that we're going to see yet-another-implementation of the same old thing.  When I think of bulk production in Pantheon I'm thinking about an advanced combine where you can create a stack of arrows.  Maybe we see the same thing with rivets or screws or (X) where it makes thematic sense that a single combine would consistently yield a bigger return since that is how those items would realistically be produced while using advanced methods.  So maybe you have a situation where players can and do create arrows/rivets/ingots one at a time, which can be graduated to 5 at a time, 10 at a time, a stack at a time.  The ability to produce more with a single combine would likely be gated behind a higher skill proficiency within the craft, an advanced recipe that could be learned, the quality of the tools/crafting-gear being worn, the crafting station being used or perhaps a combination of one or more of these things.

    Maybe there are 4 slot / 8 slot / 16 slot muffin pans in the world that you may need to collect if you want to be able to create more muffins with a single use of the oven.  Maybe larger muffin pans are the kinds of things that might become available when you acquire enough faction to buy one from a specific NPC.  Maybe they could be a quest reward.  Either way you slice it, I'm confident that if bulk-production ends up being a thing in Pantheon ... it will emerge as something that enhances the sphere in a meaningful way rather than be something that simply makes you hate it a little less.  It's nice being able to say that and believe it.  Cheers to Neph!

     

    I was about to write out an almost identical treatise on why we should instead address the environment that creates the need for bulk production. but I'll just second what 187 has said here instead.

     

    If the crafting system requires that we create a hundred iron ingots so that we can create a hundred iron daggers in order to level up to so that we can then create a hundred and ten steel ingots to create a hundred and ten steel daggers, then it's a bad crafting system. Yes, EQ's crafting system was bad. I said it. There were certain aspects of it that were great, but overall it was bad.

    Do you know what people call it when you stand in the same spot all day making the same item over and over again? A job.

    The only time we should be crafting a hundred of anything is when we have a hundred people lined up to buy those items.

    • 2 posts
    January 24, 2022 1:22 PM PST

    I am a huge crafter in games. For me, bulk production is necessary because I don't want to watch myself do something over and over. NOR do I want to overload myself, everything crafting should be attached to a "crafting bag" or something similar that is in my bank.

    The issue I have is that bulk production is also a bot's best friend and I don't want to compete with faux people when I am trying to produce crafted items that I can sell or use. There needs to be some control so that the bots don't take over.

    As for systems, I prefer slower processing options for bulk items that require 5 minutes or more (but not on shorter time items). So, lets say it was an item that took 10 seconds to make and would take 100 seconds to produce 10 normally (anything under 5 minutes gets produced at bulk, but in normal time). For items that take 5 minutes or longer, a run of 10 would normally take 50 minutes, but if you run it in a bulk queue it would take 75 minutes (1.5 times). But, for that to work well and not be frustrating on the longer timed items, we should be able to set up a queue and run quantity while we are doing other things or offline.

    The queue should be based on how much time, (not quantity) the items will take to produce (queues should be set up with 1 hour increments, so 1 hour, 2 hour...through 24 hours etc). This way if I want to do something over night, I would select an 9 hour queue. Then I can select the items based on that time. So if I am making an item that takes 30 minutes to produce normally (18 items crafted in 9 hours), at bulk 1.5 production time it would take 45 minutes, so 9 hours would be the most efficient and I would craft 12 items.

    I hope that made sense. Very hard to describe exactly what I mean.


    This post was edited by Thimble at January 24, 2022 1:25 PM PST
    • 810 posts
    January 24, 2022 2:36 PM PST

    I have never played a game with a stable economy, without having limited harvesting, a large quantity of items used during crafting, and consumable items.  Every game that breaks one of those three ends up with a horrible market.  Resources in from harvesting and resources out from consumables needs to potentially balance out.  At no point does bulk crafting basic items like ingots break anything on the economy.

    1AD7 mentioned the problem of completed items being worth less than the metals in many games and that is true because those games have no consumable items.  If there is no need for the metal other than one time purchases players will quickly ruin the value of all of said items.  Its not a bulk crafting problem but a value problem.  There are no consumable items to create a demand other than leveling up crafting items no one wants.

    It is a horrible design to introduce a repetitive time sink to make fewer people not want to craft so the prices are inflated.  Crafting the ingots to craft this breastplate took 30 minutes!  I of course didn't craft the ingots myself because my time is valuable... Enough people will set up auto clickers, hold their mouse while they watch a movie, or set up a macro if it is more complicated.  The economy will still be ruined if you ignore the basic economic rules and scare off crafters.  Bulk crafting helps you increase the amount of ore needed for items without causing player insanity from doing the same thing hundreds if not thousands of times over.  Bulk crafting of the basic components should only be limited by how much a PC can carry. 

    I will gladly be proven wrong by a fun time sink that has never been created on any MMO I have played.  I only ask you honestly say it is fun after doing it a thousand times.  If the entire MMO was built around crafting items then just maybe it could be pulled off in a fun way.  Even when a game's crafting more or less resembles the real processes and real skills required it bulk processing of base materials becomes a given.  When some future MMO has people making items similar to vrkshop I would gladly plane my own wood to make sure it goes perfectly for my flawless expensive items, but I still wouldn't want to do it for all the basics. 

    • 49 posts
    January 24, 2022 4:12 PM PST

    Basic items I can go for if you have to earn the recipe. Such as bulk planks reicpe that come out of some dungeon in vanguard.  Finshed product no way.  I never could stand that kind of crafting.

    • 1921 posts
    January 24, 2022 5:47 PM PST

     

    Nephele said: ... 

    If you think about all the games you've crafted in, whether they're single-player games or MMOs - how do you feel about bulk production?  What aspects have felt good or felt bad during gameplay? What limitations do you think are appropriate for something like this?

    ... 

    IMO:

    The context of the answer depends on some larger design goals.

    Is it the intent that players create everything?  All the consumables?  All the Armor?  All the weapons?  All the enchantments and/or enhancement, enchantment, or similar modification widgets?

    Is it also the intent that players using one of each consumable in each category, in the adventure loop, are the baseline, or the exception?  In other words, is content difficulty tuned such that you dominate content if you use consumables (it's a huge bonus), or that you should/must use consumables to make content reasonably fun, instead of punitively challenging?

    Do all equippable loop items, including crafting, adventuring, harvesting, diplomacy, and more/others require repair from use?  Repair after death?

    These and other questions & answers determine most of the context of the response.

    It comes down to numbers.  What's the target population cap (soft/hard) for a particular server? 2000? 3000? 5000? 10000?
    Are your cooks expected to provide consumable food & drink for multiple game loops for multiple thousands of players, every hour of every day?
    How long does food and drink last?  Does it vary by quality?  Is there quality of food & drink, potions, scrolls, and similar consumables?
    How long to potions, poisons, and any other loop consumable last? Timed?  Are any of them less than 30 minutes?  Why?  Do they take longer than 30 minutes to gather the mats and make?  Seeing the issue?

    If there is quality within a tier, will everyone want the exceptional?  Is it harder to make the exceptional in bulk?

    From my perspective, the question is too open ended for a game that's been in active development for 8 years.  Yes, I'm aware of the retcon-restarts.  Very much so.  However, all the design effort from all of the employees has been in progress for 8 years.
    If you want to know a specific answer, the question context is going to have to be a lot more specific. :D

    Having said that, I'll make a few statements in general, that will likely be wrong because we don't have enough context.

    Whatever system you implement should be fun, challenging, provide tangible personal daily progress to your paying customers, and encourage subscriber retention.
    Requring your paying customers to spend hours to produce singular quantities of consumables that last for seconds or minutes is a non-starter.  That is a punitive design followed by sadistic implementation.  Don't do it.

    Recently, I had the opportuntiy to play Istaria for several weeks.  Excellent crafting system.  For the most part, allows bulk production.  How?  Consumable combines produce multiple outputs.  It's that easy.
    In some cases, it produces two of something, per combine.  In some cases, 5 of something per combine.

    But, some key points;
    -Bulk production is not temporally restricted, at all, in any way.  If you can get the mats (from your guild) a small number of people can actually feed the entire server.
    -There is no restriction on travel.  There is fast travel.  Everyone can fast travel.
    -Vaults/Banks are centralized.  They are not separate.
    -They tried regional markets.  The players colluded, and now there is one.  Arbitrage is dead.  Leave it be.
    -They tried forced interdependence.  The players ignored it, and everyone does everything.  Learn from history.

    From other games? I despise (with the power of a thousand supernova stars) temporally restricted bulk recipes.  Toss that dung into the sewer where it belongs.
    -Harvested raws should be worth exactly nothing, forever.  No coin value, no matter what.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.
    -NPCs should NOT, ever, provide tradeable currency for crafted, processed, or harvested objects, materials, or similar.  All you do is guaranteed your "economy" is broken from day one.

    Do not intentionall, artificially, or punitively limit the production of anything.  Provided you have appropriate caps, limits, and restrictions in place to prevent egregious exploitation, why stop your customers from participating in these game loops?  If there is demand, allow the players to supply it.

    • 810 posts
    January 24, 2022 5:55 PM PST

    vjek said:

    Is it the intent that players create everything?  All the consumables?  All the Armor?  All the weapons?  All the enchantments and/or enhancement, enchantment, or similar modification widgets?

    The scope was stated in the OP.

    Nephele said:Many games that have crafting systems give players the option to produce basic items (for example, metal ingots) in bulk.

     

    I wouldn't mind it expanded to most consumables, but Neph is only looking at the basic items at this time. 

    How many wood planks do you take pride in minigaming before it is simply tedious?

    • 1921 posts
    January 24, 2022 5:58 PM PST

    IMO:

    Regarding Scope..
    If it applies to metal ingots, it will apply to everything or more things.  Precedence and context matters.  This design decision shouldn't be made in isolation.

    • 3 posts
    January 25, 2022 12:26 AM PST

    Bulk crafting is fine I would recommend if bulk crafting the outcome per item built is success or failure. For quality builds ie above average you would need to manually craft the item.

     

    Just my 2 cents

    Gadareth

    • 2752 posts
    January 25, 2022 11:22 AM PST

    Nephele said:

    Hi awesome Pantheon community!

    I wanted to hear your feedback and thoughts on something.  Many games that have crafting systems give players the option to produce basic items (for example, metal ingots) in bulk.  The reasoning behind this is that players will need a lot of these items over time, so it makes sense to allow them to easily produce larger quantities of those items.

    Of course, every game out there that does this implements it a bit differently.  Sometimes there's a higher skill level that is required to produce items in bulk, or sometimes there's a greater chance for failure, or it's slower than producing items one at a time "by hand".

    If you think about all the games you've crafted in, whether they're single-player games or MMOs - how do you feel about bulk production?  What aspects have felt good or felt bad during gameplay? What limitations do you think are appropriate for something like this?

    Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts!

     

    I like the idea of having bulk crafting be an option based on skill in crafting whatever said item is. Specifically in regards to a "mini-game" or similar involved process of crafting an item (i.e. not just press a button with materials to make a thing), I feel each type of item (and perhaps material) should have associated skills. Once a certain point is reached and it could be said one is no longer a novice to said thing, I think bulk crafting options make sense. 

    If there are chances of high quality outputs then perhaps those don't apply to bulk crafting. Likewise if there is always an unavoidable failure chance, that should still apply to bulk. 

    The time it takes should be higher than a single craft of the item. For example if it took 10 seconds for a single ingot then it could take 10s +~50% of the time for each additional. So crafting 20 ingots would take 105 seconds. 

    • 112 posts
    January 30, 2022 4:32 AM PST

    Nephele said:

    Hi awesome Pantheon community!

    I wanted to hear your feedback and thoughts on something.  Many games that have crafting systems give players the option to produce basic items (for example, metal ingots) in bulk.  The reasoning behind this is that players will need a lot of these items over time, so it makes sense to allow them to easily produce larger quantities of those items.

    Of course, every game out there that does this implements it a bit differently.  Sometimes there's a higher skill level that is required to produce items in bulk, or sometimes there's a greater chance for failure, or it's slower than producing items one at a time "by hand".

    If you think about all the games you've crafted in, whether they're single-player games or MMOs - how do you feel about bulk production?  What aspects have felt good or felt bad during gameplay? What limitations do you think are appropriate for something like this?

    Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts!

     

    I love the idea of Bulk crafting but too also believe its a skill that needs to be learned. These are some restrictions to help balance it out ....

    1.  needs X amount skill in that metal.

    2. Needs a minimium of  X crafting skill in general in their related profession. 

    3. When you first learning the bulk crafting skill it should be slow to start but definitely increase over time with more frequent crafting. Not sure if this is good idea but maybe have to do this process as learn each metal?  My thinking is that as you learn metal upgrades or whatever its a tougher material thus takes longer to manipulate.

     

    • 2419 posts
    January 30, 2022 10:27 AM PST

    What if we could pay an NPC to bulk craft something for those items which would not be gaining us any XP?  We could pay the town blacksmith to craft us X number of something, giving them all the required materials and after some amount of time (longer than it would take for the player to make it themselves) the blacksmith then hand us back the items?  This would only work for components, not 'finished' items.  So if you're making a sword, the metal ingots could be farmed out to the NPC blacksmith and the leather straps for the hilt covering farmed out to the local tannery, etc but the final sword combine could only be done by the player.

    This give us both a time sink (it would take more time than us doing it ourselves) and a money sink (we have to pay the blacksmith for their time) so that we can do something else while those are being produced. 

    • 902 posts
    January 31, 2022 3:35 AM PST

    I think bulk crafting should be in game, but only for a master crafter. I like the idea of having NPCs craft for you too, but how about getting a minion that you have to train up to do that once the discipline is mastered? Become a teacher as it were, with its own skill lines. You would also need to purchase a building and the crafting tools, etc. I could see this as a complete system in its own right.

    In any case, bulk manufacture shouldnt take any less time than it would to craft the individual pieces either and should fail as often depending on skills, etc.

     

    • 2 posts
    February 3, 2022 11:07 AM PST

    I like the idea of some form of bulk production availability, looking forward to watching this unfold further 

    • 4 posts
    February 17, 2022 10:22 PM PST

    My thoughts on the matter:

    I don't think the question is: should you have to click a bunch of times or click once and wait? Instead, how do you design a crafting system that avoids bulk production and makes the crafting leveling experience as engaging as character leveling?

    Bulk crafting makes sense when refining raw mats; I don't want to click 50 times to make metal bars. I can also see the benefit in things like cooking or alchemy. Making a bulk batch of food or brewing a giant vat of a specific potion makes sense. However, outside of that, I ask why we need bulk crafting? If you are saying that players will regularly need to craft 20, 30, 50, or more iron helmets (or insert weapon/armor) simply to level up, thus presenting the need for bulk crafting, then I say you need to return to the drawing board.

    We have all experienced this crafting system in countless MMOs. A market flooded with dozens of the same item for ever-lower prices. Useless items fill up your inventory so that you can ding and then fill it up with the next useless item that is slightly more efficient at leveling you up. While I understand breaking down items to return mats will help a little here, making X of something just to break it down and craft again isn't all that rewarding. I long for a more organic and fluid crafting system that rewards crafting new and varied items. A system that provides more XP for successfully making a high-quality or semi-unique version of something and discourages mass production. There are other ways to get crafting experience, maybe daily quests to fill an order for a settlement or faction, or perhaps you meet an NPC out in the world that needs some woodwork on his farm or you stroll into town to find a blacksmith that needs help making a fancy helmet for a recent order of armor, etc., etc.

    Now I understand that people will always find the most efficient way to level, and inevitably some people will craft X in bulk. But, that doesn't mean we can't have a thoughtful design of the leveling experience.


    This post was edited by FunkyPickles at February 17, 2022 10:23 PM PST
    • 47 posts
    February 22, 2022 9:47 AM PST

    Vandraad said:

    What if we could pay an NPC to bulk craft something for those items which would not be gaining us any XP?  We could pay the town blacksmith to craft us X number of something, giving them all the required materials and after some amount of time (longer than it would take for the player to make it themselves) the blacksmith then hand us back the items?  This would only work for components, not 'finished' items.  So if you're making a sword, the metal ingots could be farmed out to the NPC blacksmith and the leather straps for the hilt covering farmed out to the local tannery, etc but the final sword combine could only be done by the player.

    This give us both a time sink (it would take more time than us doing it ourselves) and a money sink (we have to pay the blacksmith for their time) so that we can do something else while those are being produced. 

    I like this idea.  Throw in a little rep grinds with the blacksmithing guild and maybe that expense goes down, or they will be more willing to process some of the more complex work for you.

    • 6 posts
    February 23, 2022 7:58 PM PST

    I like the idea of bulk crafting.

    I feel like there should be a limit based on the crafting station? A larger forge can accommodate more material to smelt than a smaller forge? 

    Or like in real life bulk production and the success really are based on tools. Maybe there are specific tools to help you scale up your production of smelting raw ore or cutting logs? You could just have them in your inventory to get the benefit?

    • 1273 posts
    February 23, 2022 8:00 PM PST

    Maybe bulk crafting should be based on the number of players working together.

    If you want to craft 2x as fast get a partner, 3x as fast, get two partners.  6x as fast get a full group of crafters!

    Just a thought :)

    • 168 posts
    February 27, 2022 11:08 AM PST

    I think rather than adding the idea of bulk crafting you could have the ability to put crafting writs on the board for players to fulfill similar to other games' crafting quests used to level crafting skills. Take the majority of crafting quests out and make it player driven.  award the fulfiller with the allotted reward and a little bonus crafting exp in the necessary skills.

    SUBMITTING A WRIT:
    *Go see your local crafting writ agency
    *Choose the options of quality (if it exists), quantity, urgency
    *(optional) provide necessary ingredients
    *set reward of either coin or item(s)

    FULFILLING A WRIT:
    *Go see your local crafting writ agency
    *View the writs categorized by their primary skill required and choose the desired writ.
    *Crafting the item(s)
    *Place the finished items in the writ storage container
    *Speak to writ agency to recieve reward

    RULES (cant go trolling or exploiting now):
    *all provided ingredients and reward are stored in a limited-space writ storage container which is managed by the writ agency and those items cannot be altered other than consumption so long as the writ is in session.
    *if a fulfiller wants to use provided ingredients they can check a box while crafting and it will look pull from the storage associated to that writ and place the completed item directly into that storage container and count towards a turnin for that writ
    *fulfiller cannot remove contents of a writ storage container manually
    *if item is submitted as a reward, the agency will require that their fee in coin be deposited (some % of the value of the item)
    *users do not gain crafting exp for fulfilling their own writ requests.
    *if an item is aquired through a writ, it cannot be used to fulfill another writ
    *when a player claims a writ the submitter can see the fulfiller and the progress of the writ.
    *if a player doesn't fulfill the writ in the time limit allotted for the urgency submitted (i.e. no urgency - 24 hours, mild urgency 4 hours, very urgency 1 hour, ultra urgency 30 minutes, etc) then they forfeit the writ.
    *when a writ is forfeited it is automatically resubmitted by the writ agency for the missing item(s) with the remaining reward.
    *when a fulfiller forfeits a writ either forcefully or voluntarily, any items already placed in the writ storage will go towards the completion of the writ.
    *when a fulfiller forfeits a writ they will get a portion of the reward equal to the contribution in the writ storage.  Anything in the player inventory doesn't count toward contribution or reward.
    *in the event only an item is placed up for reward, the fulfiller will get no reward if the writ is forfeited and they did not contibute 100% of the request.
    *a player can only have 1 writ at a time from the writ agency.
    *a writ submitter can only cancel a writ if it is not currently claimed (forfeited writs go back to unclaimed status until claimed again)
    *The urgency of writs changes based on duration since creation (i.e. no urgency (24h) would change to low urgency (12h) if the writ as been alive for 12 hours. if the duration excedes the original urgency the writ is cancelled.

    and im sure there are many other rules that could spice it up and make it more foolproof, but you get the idea :)

    • 256 posts
    February 27, 2022 8:21 PM PST

    I like the ability to bulk craft when it comes to refining basic components like ore, leather, cloth... etc. I also like the ability to bulk craft for consumable professions like alchemy and cooking. I don't really think that bulk crafting is good when it comes to armor and weapons though. I would like the ability to tell my character I need 4 iron daggers and have those 4 placed in a queue, but not have him instantly craft all four. 

    As for what limitations:
    1. I think players should have to unlock the ability to bulk craft. I think bulk crafting should be tied to profession level and should come at a time when it makes sense. For example, I don't think a level 1 smelter should automatically know how to bulk craft iron bars. They should require experience in smelting iron bars first before they are able to learn the ability to bulk craft. I also think it would be ok if some of the higher crafting mats required players to complete quests or find recipes in order to bulk craft. 

    2. I also think that the cast time for bulk crafting should be longer than an individual cast, but shorter than the overall time it would take to refine all materials. I think that somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds would be a good cast timer. 

    3. Should not apply to armor and weapons.

    • 768 posts
    March 9, 2022 10:05 PM PST

    I"ll edit this later on.

    No to bulk crafting.

    Xp for each craft yes. When you outlevel a combine, instead of allowing crafters to bulk craft with no xp. Allow those players to trade in X amount of resources at an npc for a no-trade combine return. This creates a sink of resources only possible to those players that have advanced this far. While still leaving that spot open for combines of lower players to reach the market with some value.

    By allowing bulk craft you undermine the value of starting players and their period of crafting lower combines where they get xp for and possibly get some coin or work orders for it from other players.

    .... inc edit


    This post was edited by Barin999 at March 9, 2022 10:05 PM PST