Forums » Crafting and Gathering

One Tradeskill Per Player?

    • 2419 posts
    August 23, 2019 12:42 PM PDT

    Nephele said:

    Fair enough.  Here's where my "several hundred hours" came from:

    I am hypothesizing that progressing a crafter in Pantheon might require quite a bit more than simply grinding out skillups.  I have a feeling you'll need to track down recipes, many of which may be tough to get, and likewise that you may also have to obtain better tools and equipment to use while crafting, which may also be tough to get.  That doesn't preclude the possibility of eventually having one of everything, but it does make it take longer.

    For those things obtained out in the wild from drops, an adventurer with a lot of time will come across these as a normal part of their gameplay.  That player will not need to devote time specifically to hunting down these items or just waiting for them to appear on the market.  So for those things, it's a 2-for-1 deal. 

    Nephele said:

    It sounds like that wouldn't really stop people from eventually achieving self-sufficiency, based on your responses.  In the short-term, it would encourage guilds to work together to support each other.

    Is that actually a bad thing?  Being dependant on others within your guild is still interdependence, after a fashion.

    It actually doesn't encourage guilds to work together, only encouraging people within a guild to work together.  So while it is interdepencence, it is not a interdependence that has a fluctuating cost due to market changes.  Two guildmates exchanging tradeskill materials has a far lower cost than those same to players having to go outside and deal with the market.

    Nephele said:

    I have more thoughts, but I think it's really important that we define the experience we actually think would be acceptable for Pantheon.  Do we truly want a system where players are forced to buy things from strangers at potentially inflated prices, or do we want a system where players can join communities and make friends and get the items they need more easily, or do we just want to throw all that out and make it really easy for everyone to do everything?

    Do I want a system where I'm forced to buy off strangers?  No.  I do not.  A more laisse faire approach is far better.  Let the players figure out how they, individually and collectively, want to deal with any interdependency issues.  Those that want to be self sufficient can do so through alts, etc. Those that want a more 'trade-guild' approach and do that.  Forcing the playerbase into a sole avenue is terrible design. This is no different than adventuring. Do you want the game set up so you always much have a Warrior and Cleric in every group or you cannot do anything?  No.  You want the flexibility to approach it the way you feel is best for you.

    • 1921 posts
    August 23, 2019 12:48 PM PDT

    I have no particular problem with each player being able to pursue the goal of being a multi-discipline tradeskill master.
    And, evidently, neither does VR, or their restrictions would be per account.
    As such, I don't see the need to restrict each character to a single tradeskill profession/speciazliation. It's a laughably artificial speedbump that is more of an attempt to insult, rather than a mechanic, given vastly superior options.

    I don't think it should be or needs to be easy, though.  You could, for example, straight up require 10% more XP per tradeskill.  By the time you get to the 11th specialization (out of what.. 12? 14? at least?) you're at 200% total XP required.  Sure, it's not innovative or elegant, but it gets the point across and is a valid time sink.

    The harsh reality, Nephele, is VR has already painted themselves into some very dark corners with their current design.  When you have static harvest nodes, there are consequences.  When you have a system that requires harvesting, at all, there are consequences.  When you have a disparity between harvesting and salvaging (or not) there are serious consequences.  When you have harvesting be ~unlimited in this fashion, it creates designer bias.  They (designers) don't treat the obtaining of raws as a particularly challenging or difficult task, and for a few harvesting professions, that's true.  So, everything is treated that way, even though it's grossly inaccurate for certain harvesting, and as a result, tradeskill specializations.

    Another nail in the coffin of design is that they are having mobs drop finished equippable products and currency, directly.  As long as that's true, the economy is snafubar, from day one.  It's logically provable.  Infinite taps, insufficient (obviously, in the face of infinite) sinks. Similar with harvesting based crafting systems, with respect to raw values.  Ultimately, raws become the most valuable part of any grind based system.  Finished products?  Near worthless.
    Similarly, any system that has commons and rares, without a way to transmute commons to rares, suffers from rares become the new common, or rares are the new black, situation, indefinitely.  And this is made worse by common, rare, legendary tier harvests. Yet.. Vanguard.. Pantheon..

    All of these systems have been tried and failed, and yet... VR is going to do it all over again.. and change nothing.  I don't know what they are expecting, but it's not going to be something different than history, when they are specifically.. wait for it.. repeating history. ;)

    • 1785 posts
    August 23, 2019 1:58 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

     

    For those things obtained out in the wild from drops, an adventurer with a lot of time will come across these as a normal part of their gameplay.  That player will not need to devote time specifically to hunting down these items or just waiting for them to appear on the market.  So for those things, it's a 2-for-1 deal.

    Should everything be obtained as simple drops, or should there be more to it than that?  For that matter, should all of it be tradable or should some have to be obtained directly by the crafter, themselves?  If we consider that time requirements for horizontal progression are part of the interdependence equation, then which methods of obtaining abilities/recipes/equipment actually work towards that goal, and which ones don't? 

    Vandraad said:

    Nephele said:

    It sounds like that wouldn't really stop people from eventually achieving self-sufficiency, based on your responses.  In the short-term, it would encourage guilds to work together to support each other.

    Is that actually a bad thing?  Being dependant on others within your guild is still interdependence, after a fashion.

    It actually doesn't encourage guilds to work together, only encouraging people within a guild to work together.  So while it is interdepencence, it is not a interdependence that has a fluctuating cost due to market changes.  Two guildmates exchanging tradeskill materials has a far lower cost than those same to players having to go outside and deal with the market.

    Doh.  My bad grammar totally got me there - sorry about that.  I actually was getting at just what you said - thank you for clarifying it for me :)  My real question is, do we think that's a bad thing?  I tend to view guilds as sub-communities on their servers.  Plus, not every guild is going to have a full stable of crafters, and not all crafters are going to approach crafting as seriously as their peers.  I've been in plenty of guilds where there were only one or two primary crafters, and a bunch of others that just dabbled and were mostly focused on the adventuring sphere.  Anyway my point is, if interdependence functions, even if it's handled within a guild instead of in the broader economy, doesn't that still count?  I feel like it does.

    Vandraad said:

     

    Do I want a system where I'm forced to buy off strangers?  No.  I do not.  A more laisse faire approach is far better.  Let the players figure out how they, individually and collectively, want to deal with any interdependency issues.  Those that want to be self-sufficient can do so through alts, etc. Those that want a more 'trade-guild' approach and do that.  Forcing the playerbase into a sole avenue is terrible design. This is no different than adventuring. Do you want the game set up so you always much have a Warrior and Cleric in every group or you cannot do anything?  No.  You want the flexibility to approach it the way you feel is best for you.

    In this, we're definitely in agreement.  I don't want the pendulum to swing too far to one side or the other.  Philosophically, of course, I'd love a perfectly interdependent system where crafters of all stripes happily made items for each other and traded them for materials in kind or at fair and reasonable prices, and no one ever needed to work up an alt unless they just wanted to try that other profession out.  But people are messy, greedy, emotional, and honestly somewhat silly and thus such a utopia will likely never exist, even if the conditions are there where it *could* exist, not at a large scale anyway.  I would hope however that things could be set up so that the possibility is still there if nothing else.

    vjek said:

    I have no particular problem with each player being able to pursue the goal of being a multi-discipline tradeskill master.
    And, evidently, neither does VR, or their restrictions would be per account.
    As such, I don't see the need to restrict each character to a single tradeskill profession/speciazliation. It's a laughably artificial speedbump that is more of an attempt to insult, rather than a mechanic, given vastly superior options.

    I don't think it should be or needs to be easy, though.  You could, for example, straight up require 10% more XP per tradeskill.  By the time you get to the 11th specialization (out of what.. 12? 14? at least?) you're at 200% total XP required.  Sure, it's not innovative or elegant, but it gets the point across and is a valid time sink.

    Ok, so your main objection here is that you're forced to leverage an alt to do it, which feels somewhat arbitrary and contrived?  I'm not attacking, and I think it's a valid viewpoint - just want to make sure I didn't misunderstand.

    vjek said:

    The harsh reality, Nephele, is VR has already painted themselves into some very dark corners with their current design.  When you have static harvest nodes, there are consequences.  When you have a system that requires harvesting, at all, there are consequences.  When you have a disparity between harvesting and salvaging (or not) there are serious consequences.  When you have harvesting be ~unlimited in this fashion, it creates designer bias.  They (designers) don't treat the obtaining of raws as a particularly challenging or difficult task, and for a few harvesting professions, that's true.  So, everything is treated that way, even though it's grossly inaccurate for certain harvesting, and as a result, tradeskill specializations.

    Another nail in the coffin of design is that they are having mobs drop finished equippable products and currency, directly.  As long as that's true, the economy is snafubar, from day one.  It's logically provable.  Infinite taps, insufficient (obviously, in the face of infinite) sinks. Similar with harvesting based crafting systems, with respect to raw values.  Ultimately, raws become the most valuable part of any grind based system.  Finished products?  Near worthless.
    Similarly, any system that has commons and rares, without a way to transmute commons to rares, suffers from rares become the new common, or rares are the new black, situation, indefinitely.  And this is made worse by common, rare, legendary tier harvests. Yet.. Vanguard.. Pantheon..

    All of these systems have been tried and failed, and yet... VR is going to do it all over again.. and change nothing.  I don't know what they are expecting, but it's not going to be something different than history, when they are specifically.. wait for it.. repeating history. ;)

    Oof, that's a lot to unpack.  I can definitely see where you're coming from - and truthfully I share many of your concerns, although maybe not to the same degree.

    Two thoughts though: 

    First, I don't know that a perfect system will ever exist.  I've had the opportunity to play many of the games that people hold up as having really great crafting spheres and economies and they all had flaws and issues as a result of their design.  So I think we have to accept that all choices have consequences.  If Pantheon went with crafting as the sole source of items, and item decay to pull those items out, and limited characters per account to force interdependency, and a dynamic resource system that insured that gathering would always be a valuable and necessary activity... it would still have economic issues as a result of those choices.  They'd be different ones, or at least have different causes and triggers, but they'd absolutely exist.

    Second, I don't think we should assume that any information we have from over a year ago is necessarily set in stone.  Right now I think the only thing we can take as a given (which is a very big thing, for sure) is that finished items will drop as loot in addition to being crafted.  The team has been pretty clear on that point.  But resource collection and scarcity, whether or not specialization is required, all these smaller choices can still be modified.  For example, they could decide next week that it actually makes more sense to restrict characters to only two gathering professions, instead of letting everyone do everything on the same character.  Or they could decide that salvaging yields little in the way of rare resources but has a higher chance to give special components used in crafting.  They could decide to have rare resources be special nodes that only appear in very specific circumstances, or to have them be a very low percentage drop from a normal harvesting node - or not to come from nodes at all, but some other method.  My point is that big concepts alone don't make or break a system.  A lot of it can come down to smaller details - the things we don't know yet, and that even if we do, can still be changed.

    I know it might seem like I'm "soft arguing" with you guys, but I think this kind of discussion is really good and important - and I hope that Ceythos and Joppa and others on the team are thinking about the questions that we're raising here.  I don't think they want a game with an economy that spirals out of control after a few years, and just like any other aspect of the game, doing it well is going to take more than one pass at all of the design parameters.

    • 2419 posts
    August 23, 2019 2:33 PM PDT

    Nephele said:

    Should everything be obtained as simple drops, or should there be more to it than that?

    You have only 2 fundamental sources for items in the game:  A component drop in the world or a component off an NPC.  The fact that a player may or may not be involved in some assembly of a final product is immaterial.  The player is not a source, it is a pass-through, a value-add step in the chain.  The more steps in the chain, the more expensive the final item becomes due to more items are incorporated and more labor is necessary.  And because you can identify the baseline cost for every world drop component by seeing what an NPC will pay to buy it you can determine the lowest possible cost for the final item.  Nobody would ever sell it for less than that.

    Nephele said:

    For that matter, should all of it be tradable or should some have to be obtained directly by the crafter, themselves? 

      If, at any point in the supply chain, you introduce a no-drop component, you further push the player into choosing the self sufficient route.

    Nephele said:

    If we consider that time requirements for horizontal progression are part of the interdependence equation, then which methods of obtaining abilities/recipes/equipment actually work towards that goal, and which ones don't?

    For those items/components/recipies obtained out in the world, the interdependency portion is that you need a group, though this does assume that the higher tier/rarer items come from locations where a single character, regardless of class, could not go there and obtain them alone.  So once the adventuring interdependency portion is finished, further interdependency then can be fully replaced by the single person with mulitple alts having the appropriate skills.  So long as one character is able to obtain the necessary world drops to feed the tradeskill alt that alt has no need to ever leave town.

     

     

    • 1921 posts
    August 23, 2019 3:49 PM PDT

    " Ok, so your main objection here is that you're forced to leverage an alt to do it, which feels somewhat arbitrary and contrived? "
    Correct.  It's a contrived meaningless restriction.  Either make it have teeth, or remove the illusory barrier.  The restriction mechanic does nothing to address the reason for it's existence, especially in light of the target demographic.

    I hope that Ceythos and Joppa and others on the team are thinking about the questions that we're raising here. "
    Unfortunately, the Pantheon team (yes, I'm aware of the revised timeline) has had 5 years and six months to work on design.  Every single reveal indicates they not only are going to repeat the failed mistakes of the past, but they have intentionally dismissed all the superior systems that solve those problems they are going to repeat.  It's.. intensely frustrating.  Especially watching it happen for the nth time: dev hubris once again blinding the dev team from learning from history.  The solutions are public.  Yet, they refuse to use them.  That's.. well, it's not good.
    My point here is that despite 5+ years of design effort and logical thought and retrospect and learning from history, and industry veterans?  They keep making logical mistakes, and they refuse to change their mind after they make them.  They show a system, and then 3 years later, they show it again, and it's exactly the same.  They test for 3 years, get 3 years of feedback from the community, and then just.. ignore it all and throw logic and history out the window.
    I've seen this before.  Shroud has/had this exact same problem.  The devs refuse to change their minds, admit they made a mistake, and fix it.  They simply leave broken systems in place, and the genre, entire game and all their customers suffer indefinitely.  Same goes for Rift, Niverwinter, GW2, Elite:Dangerous, and many other modern games claiming to be MMO's.
    They haven't taken 1 hour in 5+ years to have one conversation about economic design?  If they have, why are they repeating the same mistakes?  If they haven't, what the heck have they been doing all this time?  It's maddening.

    I don't think they want a game with an economy that spirals out of control after a few years, and just like any other aspect of the game, doing it well is going to take more than one pass at all of the design parameters. "
    If any mob drops currency directly, then the acquisition of wealth is simply a matter of time.  Or a temporal equation, if you prefer.  You kill this many creatures over this much time, you make this much money.  If you have enough characters killing enough creatures, you can mathematically generate arbitrary amounts of currency in any given amount of time.  It's the entire basis of the money laundering RMT economy that exists.  If they were serious about innovative MMO economic design, step 1 would be to remove currency from mob loot tables.
    Your perception of their desires is to not have "an economy that spirals out of control after a few years".  Yet, every design, every outlined system that interacts with the economy guarantees that will happen.

    As far as tone goes, we're not arguing, we're discussing. :) No issue there, I'm happy to participate all the live-long-day in critically assessing MMO mechanics, design, and implementations.

    • 1785 posts
    August 23, 2019 8:16 PM PDT

    vjek said:

    I've seen this before.  Shroud has/had this exact same problem.  The devs refuse to change their minds, admit they made a mistake, and fix it.  They simply leave broken systems in place, and the genre, entire game and all their customers suffer indefinitely.  Same goes for Rift, Niverwinter, GW2, Elite:Dangerous, and many other modern games claiming to be MMO's.

    I agree that it's frustrating.  I hate picking up new games and seeing the same stupid problems over and over again.  But I also think that individuals having a broad enough perspective to see even half of the pitfalls is a very, very rare thing.  I mean think about it, it's the kind of thing you only gain after you've played a lot of games for a lot of years.  This is true whether we're talking about players or developers.  VR is not immune to blind spots or tunnel vision any more than any other studio or team might be.

    I think the cure for this is really that they will need to really listen to their testers during Alpha and Beta.  It's on us (as potential testers) to point out every loophole, every risk, every potential problem we can find, so that they can be addressed or mitigated.  One thing Pantheon has going for it is that they're not beholden to a larger publisher for a release date.  So if they need to extend alpha or beta by 3 months to rework some things, they're able to.  Not many teams can really do that.

    vjek said:

    If any mob drops currency directly, then the acquisition of wealth is simply a matter of time.  Or a temporal equation, if you prefer.  You kill this many creatures over this much time, you make this much money.  If you have enough characters killing enough creatures, you can mathematically generate arbitrary amounts of currency in any given amount of time.  It's the entire basis of the money laundering RMT economy that exists.  If they were serious about innovative MMO economic design, step 1 would be to remove currency from mob loot tables.
    Your perception of their desires is to not have "an economy that spirals out of control after a few years".  Yet, every design, every outlined system that interacts with the economy guarantees that will happen.

    I don't dispute that the infinite money faucet is definitely a risk.  Even if it's handled well it will require *constant* management and tweaking over time.  I think that's true whether we're talking about direct cash drops, performing tasks for NPCs, selling drops, or any other method of essentially generating money for time.  Where I'm stuck is trying to think of something that truly works better while still allowing people equal opportunity to earn currency in some way to use as a medium of exchange.  What would you propose as a better approach?

    • 1921 posts
    August 24, 2019 9:11 AM PDT

    Essentially, change currency into something only used for banking or NPC sold products & services only, rather than daily transactions;  A combination hybrid/barter system, involving faction.

    What that means is: when you're out adventuring, you can obtain consumables and broken gear as drops.  That's it.
    The consumables you can use or sacrifice directly in the field for the benefits they provide with those systems.
    The broken gear can be salvaged in the field for less resources, or, when back in town at an NPC or crafting station, repaired or salvaged for standard resource quantities.
    Repaired gear is desired by NPC factions to outfit their members, and normal NPCs for quest rewards like long duration buffs. (crafting, adventuring, more)
    Repaired gear is also something you can sacrifice to deities for long duration, more powerful buffs. (crafting, adventuring, more)
    Repaired gear can be donated, sacrificed, or salvaged for greater rewards/raws/subcomponents compared to not-repaired gear.
    Donating the repaired gear to NPC factions rewards you with credit, that you can spend at their representative NPC faction vendors.
    All broken gear, harvested raws and crafted subcomponents, finished products, or consumables can be donated to arbitrary NPCs or NPC Faction vendors for varying buffs and/or credit.
    Repairing gear requires you spend that faction credit to buy fuel.  That's the only way to obtain fuel for any crafting or repair actions.
    NPC Faction vendors sell consumables for adventuring, crafting fuel, finished products, and services, in exchange for faction credit ONLY.  Nothing they sell is tradeable.
    They do not "buy" anything, in the sense that they never provide metal currency directly in exchange for harvested raws, NPC drops, broken gear or any other items.
    The services vary greatly from one guild to the next.  As you increase in rank with that faction, what you can buy with faction credit is expanded. 
    Crafted items, including consumables for adventuring, made by players, are always superior to basic NPC items within a tier or rank.

    So where does metal currency come into play?  Two possible answers. 
    The first is, NPC factions will permit you to exchange their credit for metal currency, at whatever dynamic/tune-able exchange rate.
    Then, you can spend that metal currency with other NPCs only, but the prices are much worse using metal currency instead of faction. (this is to provide for cross-faction transactions, at a loss)
    Players may only spend metal currency at NPCs, and the only way to produce it is via faction credit exchange. Nothing they offer, sell, or provide is tradeable.
    Similarly, some faction-neutral NPCs only accept metal currency, and to spend with them, you'll need to perform this exchange to purchase their services, or products, none of which are tradeable.
    Second possible answer involves regional currencies, and you use the metal currency to move from one region to another, again, as an exchange medium for one kingdom to another. (and one banking region to another).  A combination of the two answers is also viable.

    I'm more a fan of the first answer, but the design goal is clear:  Currency is rare, and only used when an NPC is involved. 
    Players can't trade metal currency to other players, and there's no in-game mechanic or need to do so.
    The economy of players then becomes everything that is not currency and not provided by NPCs, and is barter/trade, exclusively.
    Doesn't mean you can't have a commodity trading house, or a marketplace.   Or work orders.   All of that is still possible.
    It's just that what you get for finishing them is not currency, it's other finished goods, consumables or commodities.
    You place a trade on the commodities market.  I have/offer 100 raw jute.  I want 100 raw leather.
    You place a work order on the bulletin board: I have/offer 10 raw tin ore.  I want 1 tin helmet.
    All offers are placed in escrow and time limited.

    If you design the marketplace so that currency is not involved?  Then trades don't have to be temporally delayed to prevent HFT.  Why not? Because there's no economic damage from moving commodities around, especially when NPCs don't buy those commodities.  They have value, but their value is in donation and sacrifice and salvage.  All of which are almost pure sinks.
    Same goes for punitive mechanics like percentage-based listing fees.  Once metal currency is no longer involved, it's not strictly speaking necessary.  However, metal currency could be required to list items for sale, as a non-refundable means of removing currency as well, if desired.

    Optionally:
    PC guilds can perform much/some/all of the same role as NPC guilds, by having a faction vendor NPC.  However, they must stock the consumables, and outfit the NPCs that are providing the services via adventuring, harvesting, and crafting, while gaining the convenience of a faction fuel vendor at their open-world guild outpost.  The PC faction vendor NPC will not provide fuel without being first and continually stocked with consumables and/or harvested raws and/or finished products.  The PC faction vendor NPC is always publicly accessible.

    Optionally:
    Exchange rates are set via the diplomacy, faction, renown, prestige, or influence systems whereby the actions of players, NPC guilds, and/or PC guilds affect exchange rates per faction and/or kingdom to kingdom.

    Optionally:
    Metal currency may be sacrificed to deities for powerful, long term buffs.

    tl;dr - You adventure as normal, you just don't get currency from mobs, ever.  Currency is only used when NPCs are involved.  Nothing provided by NPCs is tradeable.  The player economy is 100% barter / trade.

    • 768 posts
    August 24, 2019 2:08 PM PDT

    vjek said:

    Essentially, change currency into something only used for banking or NPC sold products & services only, rather than daily transactions;  A combination hybrid/barter system, involving faction.

    tl;dr - You adventure as normal, you just don't get currency from mobs, ever.  Currency is only used when NPCs are involved.  Nothing provided by NPCs is tradeable.  The player economy is 100% barter / trade.

    Interesting suggestion there. How this relates to one tradeskill per player, I don't know. But it's too interesting not to go into it.

    So how I'm reading this; you loot gear/tradeables and stock up. You 'cash' in and gain faction. You interact with an npc and 'buy' things with your earned faction. At high end, some currency can be ...earned? If you have enough faction, you can interact with an npc and flip this currency into better rewards. (dieity sacrifices are well within the expectations of the current game, so I won't go into that any further)

    When looking at this aspect of your reply only...it does sound a lot like what one would do with coin. It has a different "coating" now. The mechanic behind it, remains the same. More coin, better things, more faction, better things.

    The trade only strategy is very interesting. Personally I'd go for the other way around. No cash is dropped from mobs at all. But only player made items can be put on community-trade facilities. So the looted drops need to be transferred first to NPC's only. One can not simply trade looted items to other PC/players directly.

    Perhaps the npc's could give certain return for your looted drops, such as transformable goods. Different npc might be interested in different loot and/or different transformable goods can be returned to the player depending on the npc or other circumstances. These goods can be altered into something that players can actually sell. The goods can only be transformed by crafters/players (I use this broad description deliberatly). So now you have turned your attention away from npc's and towards yourself or other players. This would bring me back on topic. As a playerdriven economy is what the game is aiming for. The npc's are a medium to take out looted items and bring in useable items for players. No cash so far, unless one is planning to trade these useable items with other players, seeing that npc's have no interest in it. So here you are, as a player with these goods but no cash. You either do it yourself, sell out to players or purchase the services of other players. IF you were to be able to have one craft/class only, and the items you've looted can not be consumed by you, you'd have to turn yourself towards the community.

    Crafters or other skills become really key in the economy there. Otherwise the adventuring player will only end up with looted drops that have no value to players. The cash would be spent on player items and could come from player to player transactions.

    In case you were to allow all trades for all players, this scenario would ofc fail to deliver. And solo playing game instead of an mmo would be the rule in this fail scenario.


    This post was edited by Barin999 at August 24, 2019 2:12 PM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    August 24, 2019 3:09 PM PDT

    You could certainly make NPC's a requirement for whatever action you want to impose.  I have suggested such a thing in the past and it wasn't well received, so now when I present the idea I have it be a no-fail personal action instead.  Restricting trade is also similarly unpopular, so I've only included it where it must be to complete the system.

    The whole value of what I've outlined is that players don't need or get metal currency very often.  If you break that, work around it, bypass it, or remove it, there's no value in the system, because then you can assign metal currency value directly to items, which is what you have to avoid to eliminate the RMT/money laundering/currency devaluation/inflation/etc problems.  Players should -never- be able to sell items directly to NPCs for metal currency that is tradeable.  If you have that, it's no different than having currency drop from mobs, and leads to all the same historical problems.  Player to player trading cannot involve cash, either, or the same problems will result, again.

    The adventuring player, (or non-crafter) can still get everything they need from NPCs, via NPCs and no-fail actions.  Everything they get always has value, forever, to them and faction NPC vendors, who sell consumables for all classes, just the very basic ones, per tier.  They only need to participate in the player trading economy if they have interest in selling to or trading with other players, in which case, they would take up a tradeskill, hence this being relevant to the thread topic.  Currently, everyone can harvest, as well.  This means harvesting adventurers will always have raws to trade.

    -- here are some follow-up notes.
    Optionally:
    XP may be distilled and donated to NPCs, NPC guilds, PC guilds, or sacrificed to deities for powerful, long term buffs.  It may be desirable to have some of these buffs persist through death.

    How do players become 'wealthy' ? In their reputation, via faction, renown, prestige, diplomacy, influence or whatever other system.
    The combination of the top 24-48 guild members with the highest reputation, dynamically, is the rank or tier or privilege of any guild, at the moment.
    If the guild loses those high reputation members?  They lose their privileges, tier, rank or level granted by those members, instantly.
    Thus, your character value is the sum of your actions. A reputation system with consequences, teeth, power, value, risk and reward.

    Repair is always a no-fail operation.  However, higher quality fuel results in better items during repair.  Higher quality fuel require spending more faction.
    Everyone can only and must repair their own broken drops to make them equippable, useable, or increase their value, tier, quality or to make them enchant-able. [You could add tradeable to this list]

    Elegant methods of defeating a foe, or simply doing it faster, or with synergy, or utilizing weakness or status exploitation, may affect the quantity of broken items that drop from enemies.
    Class specific skills or status effect exploitation could also result in personal loot generation of broken items, in addition to static loot tables.
     An example would be:  If a Warrior uses a knockback or trip an piece of broken armor may be on the corpse, for him only, in addition to shared objects.  
     If a Rogue places a bleed status effect on an enemy, a blood soaked cloth or vial of blood of that creature may be on the corpse for them only.
     If a Wizard burns a target, there may be charred spell components on the corpse, for them only.
     If a Druid uses thorny vines on a target to root them, perhaps a torn, damaged, scratched or pierced patch of it's skin or fur is on the corpse, for them, in addition to shared objects.
     Optionally, you could only permit this if group-required status effects were exploited, and both parties benefit, if in a group larger than two.
     Every one of these personal items would require repair and/or processing to be useful, but could still be class specific and personal loot, without affecting the economy.
    The economic effect of this generation would still require the expenditure of faction->fuel->repair before the items could be used.  In some cases, if desired, you could make the repair process a net negative, or consume an inordinate amount of fuel or faction in order to be utilized.  This would strongly encourage players to donate or sacrifice more to gain what would essentially be a luxury item, or extra advantage or bonus loot.

    --
    I only included this because it shows how you can be creative with other systems, if desired, once you remove currency from mob loot tables.

    • 768 posts
    August 25, 2019 4:00 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    The whole value of what I've outlined is that players don't need or get metal currency very often.  If you break that, work around it, bypass it, or remove it, there's no value in the system, because then you can assign metal currency value directly to items, which is what you have to avoid to eliminate the RMT/money laundering/currency devaluation/inflation/etc problems.  Players should -never- be able to sell items directly to NPCs for metal currency that is tradeable. 

    Class specific skills or status effect exploitation could also result in personal loot generation of broken items, in addition to static loot tables.
     An example would be:  If a Warrior uses a knockback or trip an piece of broken armor may be on the corpse, for him only, in addition to shared objects.  
     If a Rogue places a bleed status effect on an enemy, a blood soaked cloth or vial of blood of that creature may be on the corpse for them only.
     If a Wizard burns a target, there may be charred spell components on the corpse, for them only.

    I only included this because it shows how you can be creative with other systems, if desired, once you remove currency from mob loot tables.

    That does make sense indeed. To create a world without coin valuta is something worth thinking about. It does require a complete change of how one looks towards an economy ingame. Several questions do pop up; Could you simplify it enough so that it's accesable for all players? And would be it received as fun or more of a drag and needless complicating things? (experienced by the players, not the devs in this scenario)

    I especially like your personal loot generation suggestion. That does sound interesting. What mechanics would be behind all this and how heavy would it for the game, to implement this in a world with hundreds maybe 1000's of players? Perhaps the simpler loot table generator is less demanding behind the scenes?

    If you'd have this personal loot generation, one tradeskill per player could work, but if you are able to do all, your personal generation mechanic would serve little function, since you'd be demanding a wide arrary of loot from each mob, since you're doing all trades in one character. An upside would be that components might become really rare this way, due to the utter randomness of the vast loottable in each mob.

    Anyway food for thought for sure, enjoyable brainfood. Beyond the skope of Pantheon I reckon. But never say never.  Interesting topic, it should deserve it's own thread.

    • 1921 posts
    August 25, 2019 7:44 AM PDT

    " Could you simplify it enough so that it's accesable for all players? And would be it received as fun or more of a drag and needless complicating things? (experienced by the players, not the devs in this scenario)
    ... What mechanics would be behind all this and how heavy would it for the game, to implement this in a world with hundreds maybe 1000's of players? Perhaps the simpler loot table generator is less demanding behind the scenes? "

    I think it's pretty simple already, but  my view is biased.  You adventure, you come back to town, interact with NPCs, go back and adventure.  That's not much different than what most people do today.
    I try to be careful with my designs regarding considering what behavior it encourages or discourages in players, as well as what would happen if someone tried to abuse it.
    With what I outline above, at worst?  You are playing the game more, by doing this more.  There's no advantage (that I can see) that you could gain by doing this too much or too little, other than affecting your personal reputation via faction, which is.. playing the game. :)

    As far as implementation goes, you get back to town with say 5 broken items and 8 consumables.  Donate some of the consumables for a bit of faction credit, then use that credit to buy faction fuel, convert the broken items to fixed/real/normal items (3 UI clicks per item, worst case) and now you're faced with the exact same choices as any other MMO.  I have some looted items, what do I do with them?
    The available choices are, at least: donate for more faction or buffs, use faction credit to buy adventuring consumables, salvage for crafting components, sacrifice for deity blessings/buffs, or trade with another player.
    The trade part would simply be placing the items in escrow as a trade offer with an NPC, and then heading back into the field for more adventure. 
    A quick and easy implementation that doesn't place too much burden on the player.

    Personal loot generation is trivial, with respect to server side load.  Doesn't matter how many players, it's the normal method of loot generation since 2004 in most MMO's, it works perfectly fine.  It's also totally optional.
    If a player doesn't want to play their character in that style, they still get the normal EQ1 shared, competitive on-the-corpse loot options, with all those social problems. 
    Given whatever bonus loot is generated by what I outlined above has no metal currency value, it will have value to other players or other tradeskills. 
    It may be desirable that some of the blessings or buffs from NPCs , NPC guilds, or deities, via donation or sacrifice, could influence or outright specify what type of bonus loot is generated.  That way, you could have some or total control over your personal reward. 
    Or not, and then players end up trading more or using the marketplace more.  Either way works, just depends on what behavior you want to see in the players.

    • 1315 posts
    August 26, 2019 4:45 AM PDT

    Vjek and I are on largely the same page of concerns.  I still really do not see how long term item economy can function without some form of unavoidable decay but . . . I'm going to assume for now they figured that out.

    The optimum crafting/trading/item drop system in my opinion includes the following.

    1)      Leveling crafting takes 10 to 1 ratio of time crafting to time harvesting. With the crafting process always being a value added process over the raw materials both to vendors and to players i.e. if the raw materials cost 10x as much on the player market as the final product then the balance is wrong.

    2)      You do not need to make “magical” items to get better at your skills.

    3)      Player valued items will take magical components combined with master crafted mundane bases.  Those magical components can be drops, rare harvests, rare salvages.

    4)      Mobs do not drop cash, only vendor sellable items.

    5)      Vendor prices for buy/sell and services are tied to net server cash inventories.

    6)      Most items are dropped in a “used/worn” condition and require an appropriate crafter to clean them up. This can take time, resources and specialized skills.

    7)      Some form of binding a new condition item to a player, while in their possession it remains in that condition but trading it away drops it back to “used” and must be reconditioned. (Maybe there is a limit to the number of times it can be reconditioned? That could be the forced item decay for the system without impacting the user)

    I would prefer some form of simultaneous group crafting mini-game that requires enough attention to not be able to multi box to achieve a top result.  This would be exclusive to very high quality and complicated items.  I would also think there could be some form of Master/Apprentice of the same crafting class group crafting that could be cool.


    This post was edited by Trasak at August 26, 2019 5:09 AM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    August 26, 2019 8:32 AM PDT

    On the decay front, that's what I'm hoping salvage and sacrifice (and hopefully something like donation) encourages. 
    It could, if the buffs and non-currency rewards are sufficiently awesome, replace decay.  You could literally have people wanting to sacrifice or donate their gear.
    Otherwise, there are no item sinks, and the inflation problem, while delayed and not metal currency, is just as inevitable.

    Regarding used/worn or broken/repaired, I don't see any logical problem with varying levels of those conditions. 
    Some might require just fuel, some might require fuel + raws, some might require fuel + raws + subcomponents.
    If the original degree of broken-ness or amount of worn-ness was in some way deterministic based on how the combat encounter was resolved, or even for just the bonus personal loot items?  That would make me smile.

    While you can limit global/server cash, it's unpopular with this demographic.  That's why I've gone with the "You can convert as much of this as you want, but you can't trade it" approach.  It gives players more personal choice, rather than a global restriction, yet accomplishes the same goal.  Personally, I'm fine with an alternate approach of "you can't trade a common currency, but you can get as much as you want", but again, up to this point, it's quite unpopular with most target players. 
    The difference between untradeable common currency and item-trade-only systems may be philosophical/marketing, but people definitely resist one more than the other, in my experience. 
    I think (maybe?) its because common-currency grants persistent limitless buying power as a factor of time, which is why I went with faction credit instead.  It seems like the perception is, you're only benefiting from the actions you've performed, just like everyone else, rather than just flexing your wallet, if you see what I mean.

    • 1315 posts
    August 27, 2019 5:13 AM PDT

    @vjek

    I was toying with the idea a while back of an NPC vendor that accepted trade good raw materials in return for crafting credits and sold crafted goods to players with those credits.  Crafters then with adiquate skill and crafting guild rank could turn in requested crafted items to the NPC in return for raw material credits.  All the items passing through the vendor would be player deposited and possibly bid on to help stabilize relative value.  Non crafter players could then take crafted items to what ever item sacrifice altar that gets set up for buffs in return for providing the materials needed to make them.

    It takes cash out of the equation and makes crafting hubs but it doesn't have much "soul" to it.  Maybe this would only be for non magical items and non magical materials.  Anyway its an idea down the path of no tradeable cash, or at least a system that doesn't generate additional cash.

    • 1921 posts
    August 27, 2019 9:06 AM PDT

    That's a logical idea, Trasak.  Definitely in the right direction of a no-tradeable-cash design.

    • 126 posts
    August 31, 2019 7:26 PM PDT

    Personally, I think one "main" traderskill and one "secondary" would be a good way to do it. Wouldn't make sense economy-wise to have someone who could armorcraft AND enchant their own armor. They wouldn't need to interact with other players. 

    • 81 posts
    November 9, 2019 3:18 PM PST

    The idea is ludicrous.  The intent behind the idea might be valid but, as always, things that look good on paper rarely translate into actual gameplay.  Those that truely want to be crafters will not be content with only one tradeskill.  They will create additional characters for each tradeskill they want to do,  even to having multiple accounts.  So all you have done is make it more tedious by making people log in and out,  level several chars,  bank between using whatever means necessary.

     

    If you truely want people to specialize then make them.  Offer many many many crafting skills.  Make crafting involved and not just buy 10,000 logs,  click on craft 1,000 bows and go to bed to wake up a master crafter.  Make it involved,  time consuming and require actual work.


    This post was edited by KatoKhan at November 9, 2019 3:21 PM PST
    • 14 posts
    November 12, 2019 2:12 PM PST

    personaly I have always enjoyed a limit of one tradeskill per Toon which leads to more guild involvment to help eachother out.  I but I would add maybe something cool to add to the proginy system would be that you inherit the first toons trade and the ability to add a second. In games that i have played that one toon can craft everything there is little to no teamwork that goes along. In games that have a limit a lot more team work an the those that love to craft have multiple toons to be able to craft mroe than one. 

    • 81 posts
    November 13, 2019 5:05 AM PST

    Nephele said:

    In case it's not clear, I absolutely believe that crafting interdependence is a necessary component of maintaining a healthy economy and community long term.  As many have pointed out, people will create alts to try and bypass interdependence, so I think the only way to make interdependence really work is to insure that the act of crafting items is involved and time-consuming enough that people simply don't have time to do everything themselves.  So yes, one profession per character.  And make it something that takes time to do.

    Options should be the key here.  Some people do not like being forced into a certain playstyle.  While you personally might enjoy spending time on the auction house, going from vendor to vendor,  running around West Commons shouting you need certain items,  others may not.  So why not be flexible enough to allow all playstyles.  Those that want to do it all themselves should be allowed to,  but at a cost.  If you want to do one trade to max level then you should be prepared to spend X hours getting it there.  And if you want to get two trades to max you should be willing to put in the time.

    Trasak said:

     Crafting need not require a group all the time and certainly not when you are just practicing but when crafters are setting out to make highly desired player equip able items group crafting should be the norm just like it takes a group to farm a dropped item.

    This is a very interesting concept that I would love to hear more about and think it could work, if done right, as an addition to other styles of crafting.  Perhaps item based to make certain uber items or perhaps an entire tradeskill could be group based (maybe one that makes group oriented items,).  As always,  options are key

    Vandraad said:

    Not a single idea given so far about this need/desire to force tradeskill interdependency cannot be worked around by a single person running multiple accounts.  Now VR might try to say that crafting, like they have said about adventuring, is going to be so complex that it is very difficult (but not impossible) to multi-box but some portion of the player population will still do it.  I will.  I will multi-box adventuring and will multi-box tradeskilling.  I'd highly doubt VR could introduce anything that would outright stop it.

    Exactly my point,  so why try?  Would it not be much better to focus on a system that works extremely well rather than trying to force players down a single path because we all know that ALWAYS fails. I like the idea of options, if that was not previously clear.  Make the crafting good enough that the rest works itself out.

     

    vjek said:

    And it's made worse when people who make components (like the hilt in your example) that others need will inflate their product by 10-20 or even 100 times the actual value in mats, fuel, and/or time. (and in really bad implementations, also manipulate/corner the market on anyone trying to sell cheaper)
    In some games, It's actually faster and cheaper to take a few hours and a few gold, or even (in EQ1's case) the entire cost of buying ONE of those "hilts" to completely level up, in crafting, another alt of that tradeskill.
    And then, voila!, you don't have to ever pay those extortion level prices again. :)
    Finally, by the current public info, VR has no problem with 1 player doing it all, they just don't want one character doing it all.  It's unfortunate they've chosen yet another design that is historically proven to fail.

    I agree 100%.  Forcing people to work around is not the best answer.  OPTIONS imo is always better.  Let people play their playstyle and make choices viable.

    Nephele said:

    Do you think fewer people will create a stable of crafting alts in lieu of relying on other players, if it takes several hundred hours invested on each alt in order to be able to supply yourself with everything you might need?  Or not really?  Basically, is the amount of time you have to spend, per-character, a variable in the equation, or is the calculus simply that it's always easier to spend time than it is to purchase things from strangers?

     And this is accomplished by giving options.  say, for example, there are 10 tradeskills to begin with.  And say, for this example, it takes roughly 50 hours of gathering and 50 hours of crafting to achieve max level.  What difference does it make to the community at large if I spend 50 hours in week 1 and another 50 hours in week 2 to max out tradeskill 1 or I spend 50 hours crafting and say 2 hours obtaining the ingredients by auction house or from guildmates  or whatever ?  Same goes for tradeskill 2.  Does it matter if I do it on my same character or if I switch characters to do it ?  Or even accounts ?  Why force people to do something they are just going to find a way around anyways ?  Make options viable but make choices count as well.  Having a large guild support you in your crafting should work faster than doing it all solo.  The key should be to make crafting intersting, fun, tedious, and involved.  Each adjective you have for a crafting skill will be viewed differently from every player anyways.  Give Options because players all want the same thing in the end, but view the road to getting there differently.

    • 196 posts
    March 7, 2020 11:25 PM PST

    I think crafting should be limited to one or two classes but the second class is limited in what they can learn related to there main crafting class (learning certain class related reciepts). Your forgetting what the core tenents of the game is based apon: community and teamwork.... You forget that crafting something does require a certain amount of working with others to make something (heard of the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" ?) and if you take away that restriction everyone will be the same and no one will interact with anyone..Please stop trying to make the crafting game a solo biz when the game is built on teamwork and community. Make your crafting class unquie to you and you alone and if you need mats from other crafting classes so be it. but then you have to look for other players (gasp the concept of community) who you can deal with and who not to deal with and if they are from different guilds so be it. Look, this is not hard to understand, In real life there is no one person that can do it all and I am happy with that.I do not want a cookie cutter omni crafting system. It would take away from what the core of the what game is about. Options? should be simple if you need a pummel for a weapon to finish it well there are a few wood workers players in the town your in, go ask them if they are able to make the pummel for you and find out how much each person is selling it for and if you have to travel a town or two to get what you need then so be it, make an adventure out of it so your not sitting in one place (next to the market board) all day long. We all know some players are going to buy multiple accounts to go do an end around on crafting. but then you don't deal with those players as they are not willing to work with the community. Your "options" will also have a ripple effect onto gathering and combat classes as well. what if they limit gathering to one per person as well? like I said before "In real life there is no one person that can do it all" Everyone should have a place in the community that makes then a part of it and not just a cookie cutter player. Please do not over think this and try to wordsmith what I say to fit your narrative please. 


    This post was edited by Oldwargoat39 at March 8, 2020 12:23 AM PST
    • 91 posts
    May 1, 2020 10:09 AM PDT

    Oldwargoat39 said:

    I think crafting should be limited to one or two classes but the second class is limited in what they can learn related to there main crafting class (learning certain class related reciepts). Your forgetting what the core tenents of the game is based apon: community and teamwork.... 

    I like this idea.  I would go one step further and limit things by having adventure class restrictions.  
    As far as the economy is concerned, VR admin crew holds all the keys to handle the crafting like a sandbox....It just has to be actively managed...case in point the ultimate crafting sandbox economy https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ibtimes.co.uk/eve-online-meet-man-controlling-18-million-space-economy-1447437

    Fantasy RPG handles consumption differently by making higher level items no-trade no-sell...but this reduces the consumption when the gear can't be destroyed in pvp...maybe crafted gear should age and require recrafting for occasional upkeep..

    If the economy won't be professionally managed, I'm a fan of removing the supplies from trade entirely and only selling the end items on the market...that way the drop rates can provide a simple tweak to production volume..

    then use quest lines which consume the end products to progress with mastery points at low/mid levels

    to keep adventurer with too much money from buying their way upward...make the progression quests consume some items stamped with the craftsmans mark

    In ten years, when admin feels they have a good handle on the economy, add forgers to the rogue class options for craftsmen...then you can actually have fakes of items on the market to encourage people to make their own or, in turn, pay another forger to determine the validity of the item as part of a contract sale...more teamwork could be invited from any number of services (not products) that can be provided


    This post was edited by Baerr at May 1, 2020 10:49 AM PDT