Forums » Crafting and Gathering

One Tradeskill Per Player?

    • 1584 posts
    March 30, 2017 8:10 AM PDT

    Bazgrim said:

    Krissvalnor said:

    I, for one, even as an avid crafter, would prefer that we are restricted to 1 (or 2 depending on the total amount of tradeskills in game) tradeskill max but not being limited in my secondary skills.

    Definitely agreed. It's just too early to know what it'll be like in game. I would be surprised and disappointed if we can only have one. I see some reasons to limit to amount of tradeskills you can have, but only one is far too restrictive IMO.

    I could see it as in we could dabble in maybe all tradeskills like in EQ but in the early stages we could only master 1 of them(skill 300).  now i could be wrong but i think it would be a good idea, i rem doing the 10 War ring in Velious and you were required to know a lot of tradeskills to a certain degree and the items you made were no drop so you were require to know how to make these items, which i hope they bring aronnd again just for reasons liek this.

    • 201 posts
    April 1, 2017 6:03 PM PDT

    I do not want anyone mastering all the crafts on one character.  Just not realistic.  How many MASTER artisans exist that are the greatest in their field, with a lifetime body of work and practice and achievement to get to the pinnacle of their craft in....weapon smithing, armor smithing, alchemy, cooking, enchantment, etc etc.  Seems absurd.  I could see allowing limited basic skill in other fields, but not anything near mastery.  A master has one craft.

    If people want to make alts, then that's fine in my opinion.  However, I am hoping crafting will be a serious endeavor in time, effort and cost, so that becoming a grandmaster of a second craft should be a very difficult endeavor.  I was a grandmaster of armor on both VG and EQ2 where I needed stuff from other crafts...and I always bought from other crafters, and forged relationships where people made stuff for me and i for them for combines.  I never seriously thought about making a leathermaker etc to make my own secondary mats for my items.  The system should be complex and rigorous enough that someone should make an alt to GM another craft only if they are seriously interested in it.  If it takes, for example, 6 months to master a craft, then making your own pocket secondary crafter should keep you behind the curve for 6 more months while other crafters are producing at the top level by buying from others.  I don't mind a system where making a top tier piece of armor needs top tier cloth and top tier gems or whatever.  Making a large boat in VG was a ton of fun personally, and I had to get mats from a ton of people.  I never got gouged on anything in VG because I made relationships with several other crafters of the classes I needed, and when I had to seek out new people, I always found them reasonable to make stuff for me, and I did the same.  Pretty sure that is the idea we want after all.


    This post was edited by antonius at April 1, 2017 6:11 PM PDT
    • 2886 posts
    April 1, 2017 6:46 PM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    Bazgrim said:

    Krissvalnor said:

    I, for one, even as an avid crafter, would prefer that we are restricted to 1 (or 2 depending on the total amount of tradeskills in game) tradeskill max but not being limited in my secondary skills.

    Definitely agreed. It's just too early to know what it'll be like in game. I would be surprised and disappointed if we can only have one. I see some reasons to limit to amount of tradeskills you can have, but only one is far too restrictive IMO.

    I could see it as in we could dabble in maybe all tradeskills like in EQ but in the early stages we could only master 1 of them(skill 300).  now i could be wrong but i think it would be a good idea, i rem doing the 10 War ring in Velious and you were required to know a lot of tradeskills to a certain degree and the items you made were no drop so you were require to know how to make these items, which i hope they bring aronnd again just for reasons liek this.

    Yeah I think something like that would be the best solution. You can dabble in whatever you want, but realistically speaking, you're only gonna have time to master one.

    And they have already said that there will some quests that require crafting. Crafting and adventuring will be heavily intertwined.

    • 57 posts
    April 2, 2017 7:25 AM PDT

    In EverQuest I worked on every crafting profession on one character. I preferred this method as I mainly wanted to stay on my main (Shaman) and get known on my main. This didn't stop me from making alternates to learn how other adventure classes played so that I knew how to play my main better. When I left for EverQuest ][, my main (Shaman) was limited to one tradeskill (Carpenter) and in the beginning people charged outrageous prices for components needed to max out your profession. This in turn didnt foster bringing people together but forcing people to make crafting alternates to reign in on the prices people charged. Eventually they changed crafting slightly so that one profession could craft some of the components needed from other professions, or eliminated needing other componets. However I liked EQ ][ version of crafting because you actually made the item and could die from the item if you failed to counter things as it was a mini-game in itself verse current games you put items into something click combine and done.

    When I then got talked into playing World of Warcraft from a co-worker it again was one main tradeskill (I think) per character. Potion making for raids was the main thing people really seemed to want and other tradeskills just didn't feel like they mattered as much. When I finally left that game for Star Wars: The Old Republic, again it was one main crafting skill per character. This as in ever game other then the original EQ just forced me to continue to make alternate characters just to craft. While I also had adventure classes to go with that crafting profession so I could learn how each class played to know how better to play my main it just kept me not on my main character which I preferred.

    I'm for having multiple professions on one character and having the ability to get them up to the skill cap for that tradeskill. This would be a time investment commitment and allow that person to focus on something in the game that they love. This doesn't mean that person wouldn't become completely self sufficient as it was said earlier some crafters still buy from other crafters. It also doesn't mean a person would stop playing alternates because they where limited to just one profession. Bag space and time will be the major limiting factor for someone wanting to multi-craft on one character.


    This post was edited by Zohkar at April 2, 2017 7:25 AM PDT
    • 1584 posts
    April 2, 2017 9:40 AM PDT

    I'm sorry Zohkar but i just can't agree with this, this is the definition of being self-sufficient, and if you are allowed to do this than a lot of your hardcore tradeskillers will achieve this and depend on no one but themselves, i would also say to make tradeskillin even a little bit harder is to make some of the top-teir armor is to make some of components for said items to not be tradeable so they also can't just send it to their alts to make said items but have to lvl them up as well and have to farm them with those alts if they decide too, but this si just me.  I want People to depend on people and to know what they went trough to make these said items, and not just be like oh thanks for your 100 leather padding that you probably made with only 15 minutes of farming.

    • 57 posts
    April 2, 2017 7:39 PM PDT

    When I played EverQuest, I had 1 crafter / gatherer. All my alternates didn't craft and I still used other crafters materials to help advance my own. When I went to EverQuest ][, I had 9 crafter's / gather's. My alternate characters where adventure and crafter's because of one tradeskill per character and I still used other crafter's materials to help advance my own. My main character in this game was a carpenter and it was a profession that didn't get alot of business and my alternates only made stuff at cost for guildies. When I went to World of Warcraft, I had 8 crafter's / gatherers. These alternate's where both adventure's and crafters and they crafted stuff at cost for the guild only. When I went to my final game Star Wars: The Old Republic, I had 22 crafters / gather's. While the game only had 6 tradeskills, I made multiple of the same crafters just because I was bored. Every game I play I always max out the adventure and the crafting levels of my characters. So if its one tradeskill per character / alternate or as many as we can on one character, I will be there doing what I can to advance my knowledge of classes and advancing my skills in crafting to help anyone who asks. I don't craft for profit, never have and never will.


    This post was edited by Zohkar at April 2, 2017 7:42 PM PDT
    • 115 posts
    April 14, 2017 11:49 AM PDT

    I know that the argument of character interdependence is the primary "reason" for the decision to only have one tradeskill per character, but there are flaws with that reasoning.

    People like me that love to craft (and there are alot of us) will just create a ton of alts to do the other professions. It will just be a minor inconvenience to trade materials across characters, but the end result is the same as if all the trade-skills were on one character. Really dedicated crafters will even have multiple accounts to do just that.

    - There is no good reason not to let characters have all the tradeskills if the servers allow multiple alts per account. It is just artifically limiting what a player can do.

    - I can agree with the whole "forced character interdependence" argument if you were only allowed one (and one only) character per server. One tradeskill per person would indeed "force" player interaction.

    Claiming this will promote character interdependance is artifical at best. The simplest solution is the more tradeskills a character has, the longer it takes to leveled them up.

     

    TLDR: Boo on the decision to only have one tradeskill per toon. Restricting players to one is just an artifical way to forcing character interdependence.

     


    This post was edited by Bonechip at April 14, 2017 11:53 AM PDT
    • 44 posts
    April 14, 2017 12:47 PM PDT

    Totally agree with you Bonechip and Zohkar.

    To be clear:  I WANT tradeskills to be difficult.  Perhaps even unconscionably so.  I WANT them to take hours and hours to master.  To take massive amounts of commitment, effort, and time. 

    BUT... DON'T tell me once I do indeed master one, I can't pick up or start on another one because I'm at some arbitrary limit.  Like my brain is too full or something.

    • 363 posts
    April 14, 2017 1:02 PM PDT

    I am of the mindset that players should absolutely be limited to one profession per character, because it creates interdependability amongst players and keeps the community strong.

    • 115 posts
    April 14, 2017 1:46 PM PDT

    NEXTLEVL said:

    I am of the mindset that players should absolutely be limited to one profession per character, because it creates interdependability amongst players and keeps the community strong.

    How does it create interdependability amongst players if you can simply have a different profession on each of your alts? Doing it that way is just an illusion of interdependcy.

    I could agree with you if you were only allowed one character per server.

    • 483 posts
    April 14, 2017 5:54 PM PDT

    Bonechip said:

    NEXTLEVL said:

    I am of the mindset that players should absolutely be limited to one profession per character, because it creates interdependability amongst players and keeps the community strong.

    How does it create interdependability amongst players if you can simply have a different profession on each of your alts? Doing it that way is just an illusion of interdependcy.

    I could agree with you if you were only allowed one character per server.

    Very few people will have maxed alts with all the proffesion, so the majority of the player base will have to interact with each other. Also you're assuming that getting a proffesion to high level will be easy, I don't thinks that's the case, I think it will take a lot of time and dedication, and only a handfull of players will be the master crafters with all the best recipes.

    • 28 posts
    April 14, 2017 8:14 PM PDT

    Not a huge fan of the 1 TS profession per toon personally but that's the decision so I'll live with it.

    As for the interdependcy it'll really depend on how that all works.  In the early days of EQ2 the Alchemist made the resin/temper/oil that EVERYONE needed to craft basically anything, then the Alchemists all went and started charging more for a single resin/temper/oil than the finished products sold for and it suddenly became very hard to level anything because it was just to expensive to get the stuff you needed.  Trying to trade with Alchies was impossible because they didn't need anything from anyone so you were stuck either making an alt to make the stuff you needed or paying 3x what you could sell the final product for per resin/temper/oil and you'd need 3-5 of them depending on the item you were making.

    I have no problem with interdependcy between skills but it has to be done in a way where you don't have 1 TS class that can charge what ever they want for a subcomponent that everyone else needs.

    For now I'll just have to wait and hope that the TS system takes this kind of thing into account and ensures that it won't happen, but then that's what Alpha and Beta are for, get to test out the system and make sure it doesn't have issues like this.

    • 57 posts
    April 14, 2017 8:33 PM PDT

    Arweena said:

    Not a huge fan of the 1 TS profession per toon personally but that's the decision so I'll live with it.

    As for the interdependcy it'll really depend on how that all works.  In the early days of EQ2 the Alchemist made the resin/temper/oil that EVERYONE needed to craft basically anything, then the Alchemists all went and started charging more for a single resin/temper/oil than the finished products sold for and it suddenly became very hard to level anything because it was just to expensive to get the stuff you needed.  Trying to trade with Alchies was impossible because they didn't need anything from anyone so you were stuck either making an alt to make the stuff you needed or paying 3x what you could sell the final product for per resin/temper/oil and you'd need 3-5 of them depending on the item you were making.

    I have no problem with interdependcy between skills but it has to be done in a way where you don't have 1 TS class that can charge what ever they want for a subcomponent that everyone else needs.

    For now I'll just have to wait and hope that the TS system takes this kind of thing into account and ensures that it won't happen, but then that's what Alpha and Beta are for, get to test out the system and make sure it doesn't have issues like this.

     

    Exactly, what happened in EverQuest ][ in the beginning before they dumbed down crafting. You couldn't afford the items you needed from Alchemist because they charged outrageous prices or didn't have what you needed or where not on enough to negotiate. So most people started a alternate to craft their own until EverQuest ][ developers decided to take those items out of the combine or allow people to purchase them on the vendor (If memory serves me - been 8 years). 

    • 28 posts
    April 15, 2017 8:33 AM PDT

    Zohkar said:

    Exactly, what happened in EverQuest ][ in the beginning before they dumbed down crafting. You couldn't afford the items you needed from Alchemist because they charged outrageous prices or didn't have what you needed or where not on enough to negotiate. So most people started a alternate to craft their own until EverQuest ][ developers decided to take those items out of the combine or allow people to purchase them on the vendor (If memory serves me - been 8 years). 

     

    Right, initially they gave everyone access to "secondary" tradeskills so we could make our own but it took longer and we had a much higher failure rate.  Eventually they just took out all the subcombines and dumbed down the TSing but by then the damage had been done.

    • 1921 posts
    April 15, 2017 8:39 AM PDT

    Bonechip said: How does it create interdependability amongst players if you can simply have a different profession on each of your alts? Doing it that way is just an illusion of interdependcy.

    I could agree with you if you were only allowed one character per server.

    ( this entire thread is now a bit of a necro, only the last few posts have been since they mentioned you have to specialize tradeskills , and can only have one)

    http://pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/crafting_and_harvesting/

    "

    As far as what professions are concerned, we're considering the following as our professions: Alchemist, Blacksmith, Woodworker, Outfitter, Provisioner, Stonemason, and Scribe.
    Each profession will have a specialization.
    Players will be limited to one profession, and one associated specialization.

    "

    Correct, it is an illusion.  Even if they (which is extremely unlikely) did go with one char per account, it just means 14 accounts instead of 14 alts, presuming two specs per profession.  I know they said each profession will have a specialization, but that makes no sense if there's only one. Further, there would be no need to separate out the concept of profession from specialization if there was only one specialization.  It would just be a high skill in that profession, not a choice.  A so-called "choice" to specialize in your profession would simply be the EQ1 system of "once you go above 200 in a skill, everything else is capped at 200".  If that's really what this is, then they've done a poor job at saying that, so far. ;)

    So, presuming something like less than 10 chars per account, then it's really likely someone will just need max two accounts to have all the crafting alts they need.  If specialization is just one crafting profession being higher than the others, and the rest capped below that, then only one account is necessary if there are 7 chars per account.  7 professions, 7 chars.

    I understand the intent behind crafting interdependence, but in practice, in my experience, alts/multiple accounts nullify the intent.  EQ2 proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, to me. Even there, people just used alts, no matter how many were required.

    No-one I know, myself included, would ever pay the inevitable extortion level prices for interdependent goods outside my own guild.  Inside my own guild, everything is free between players.  Yet, sometimes, someone isn't online, or they go on vacation, or they are busy.  I'm not going to wait hours, days or weeks for another real human to login when I can just relog to an alt and get what I need.  Time is too valuable.

    I've done this "illusion of interdependence" mechanic before.  I see no reason to do it again.  Why not?  Because I rolled a natural 20 on the Search/Spot check and see the illusion, now. :)
    Unless it's a design goal that crafted gear is better than dropped gear at max level?  I'll ideally never craft a single item in Pantheon.

    If they change their mind and say the design goal is crafted gear is supposed to be better than dropped gear at max level?  Then maybe I'll have 7 chars, one for each crafting profession, so I can't be extorted.  But I doubt it.

    • 1618 posts
    April 15, 2017 2:08 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    Lokispawn said:

    My question is how crafting levels and advancement will work after someone decides to make a progeny. Crafting skill levels go poof? or perhaps gain a bonus to the tradeskill your progenitor leveled up?

    This is where we can play around with genes, traits and pass down family knowledge like master blacksmith blueprints, perma bonus exp gain, access to previous recipes and crafting schematics etc. most of this stuff has no affect on adventuring and combat but we will have to be careful to watch the economy, but yeah, essentially if you Progeny as a Master Crafter you could start fresh as a level 1 with a lot fo that experience and knowledge ready to go right away to then maybe help you improve even more and give access to even better things within that crafting profession but more on Progeny later, it is a big, in-depth system that needs a lot of explaining and tied in with many other systems, features and mechanics. :)

    This almost made me pee a little. 

    Not to derail this topic with discussion of progeny,  but damn, this would be a great use of it. And maybe allow the mixing of tradeskills.

    • 264 posts
    April 16, 2017 10:10 AM PDT

     I just wanted to chime in about profitability in crafting. Usually the profits are made off the super rare top end recipes, while everything else is not worth doing. This was especially true with crafting weapons and armor because most MMOs make it so drops are better than crafted gear! The best compromise is to have items that drop off mobs that are used in crafting the superior weapons/armor. Another thing...crafting tends to thrive in games with player housing. Since I don't think Pantheon is going the player housing route it is very important to make the crafted armor/weapon/consumables relevant. The one tradeskill per player thing seems extreme to me unless there are only going to be 5 tradeskills or something.

    • 26 posts
    April 16, 2017 10:20 AM PDT

    New and jumping in.  Here is a thought and someone may have already something similar.... Perhaps they could 'group' the crafting skills.  For instance; tailor/carpenter, or miner/metalsmith.  Or even tailor/carpenter/gatherer (giving the ability to gather mats needed for craft skills)  

    On craft skill per toon seems a bit senseless any more.  I believe a toon should be able to build crafting skills in a minimum of two areas.  Three would be nice, one giving toon ability to gather mats for needed skills.

     

    Stargem, the original since 1999

    • 17 posts
    April 16, 2017 10:42 AM PDT

    Have they said if crafting (or any non-combat trade) is dependent on adventure/melee level?

    • 1618 posts
    April 16, 2017 2:27 PM PDT

    stargem said:

    New and jumping in.  Here is a thought and someone may have already something similar.... Perhaps they could 'group' the crafting skills.  For instance; tailor/carpenter, or miner/metalsmith.  Or even tailor/carpenter/gatherer (giving the ability to gather mats needed for craft skills)  

    On craft skill per toon seems a bit senseless any more.  I believe a toon should be able to build crafting skills in a minimum of two areas.  Three would be nice, one giving toon ability to gather mats for needed skills.

     

    Stargem, the original since 1999

    Everyone can do all the gathering skills. You are only limited to one crafting skill.

    • 57 posts
    April 16, 2017 3:25 PM PDT

    Beefcake said:

    Everyone can do all the gathering skills. You are only limited to one crafting skill.

     

    Is that one crafting profession and one specialization per player, meaning I can create alternates and take something else on them or just one period. If the later then I'll simple not be a crafter this game and just gather materials while on my main. Two professions will be the most wanted from the list I can see, Alchemist and Provisioner for groups and raids. As in most games Blacksmith, Woodworker and Outfitter tend to not be in big demand in end game because drops usually are superior. My main in my last game Star Wars: The Old Republic was a gather and provided all the materials I needed for my other 21 crafters.

    • 2886 posts
    April 16, 2017 3:54 PM PDT

    Zohkar said:

    Beefcake said:

    Everyone can do all the gathering skills. You are only limited to one crafting skill.

     

    Is that one crafting profession and one specialization per player, meaning I can create alternates and take something else on them or just one period. If the later then I'll simple not be a crafter this game and just gather materials while on my main. Two professions will be the most wanted from the list I can see, Alchemist and Provisioner for groups and raids. As in most games Blacksmith, Woodworker and Outfitter tend to not be in big demand in end game because drops usually are superior. My main in my last game Star Wars: The Old Republic was a gather and provided all the materials I needed for my other 21 crafters.

    "Players will be limited to one profession, and one associated specialization." (Source: http://pantheonmmo.com/newsletter/crafting_and_harvesting/)

    If you want to do additional tradeskills, you will have to do them on an alt. 

    I wouldn't assume that Blacksmiths and Outfitters will be made obsolete by regular drops. They made it pretty clear in the article from the above link that all tradeskills will be useful. They simply give the player more choices, but one choice is not necessarily better than the other.

    • 3852 posts
    April 17, 2017 7:49 AM PDT

    As usual that link is very helpful, Bazgrim.

    But things stated by VR in this and other links apply to the current pre-alpha build and are subject to changes during testing.

    So I see nothing wrong with people suggesting different approaches and discussing how they should work - I don't think you do either. Threads suggesting other approaches may persuade VR to consider different approaches during testing. Or they may not but test results may persuade VR to sonsider other approaches and they will have these discussions as a resource.

    For the record I am happy with what VR is currently planning but do not necessarily consider each and every currently planned feature absolutely perfect and incapable of improvement. Nor, with a high level of probability, do they.

     

    • 2886 posts
    April 17, 2017 7:59 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    As usual that link is very helpful, Bazgrim.

    But things stated by VR in this and other links apply to the current pre-alpha build and are subject to changes during testing.

    So I see nothing wrong with people suggesting different approaches and discussing how they should work - I don't think you do either. Threads suggesting other approaches may persuade VR to consider different approaches during testing. Or they may not but test results may persuade VR to sonsider other approaches and they will have these discussions as a resource.

    For the record I am happy with what VR is currently planning but do not necessarily consider each and every currently planned feature absolutely perfect and incapable of improvement. Nor, with a high level of probability, do they.

     

    Of course everything is subject to change. Discussion is always encouraged. But I think it's important to use what VR is currently planning as the foundation for the discussion and then work from there.

    • 3852 posts
    April 17, 2017 8:13 AM PDT

    >Of course everything is subject to change. Discussion is always encouraged. But I think it's important to use what VR is currently planning as the foundation for the discussion and then work from there.<

    I entirely agree. Most of what they are planning probably will be in the final build.

    Plus, anyone that wants something different is well advised not to simply say "having 200 craft skills per character is good". They will be more persuasive, and contribute more to educated decisionmaking, if they say "VR is currently planning to allow one profession. While there are advantages to this approach, I think allowing 200 craft skills is even better and here is why ....".

    To do this one needs to know the current plan so links such as the ones you are famous for are enormously useful.


    This post was edited by dorotea at April 17, 2017 8:14 AM PDT