Honestly for the crafting system I am not to familiar with all the other systems but I would love to see something where as it has been mentioned before in the post it is a balance between adventuring and crafting because what is the point in crafting if all the best items are from drops. On the other side of this it can be discouraging to adventure and know it will have a low payoff for your time because I know we all love the loots. With this being said I would love to see something original (well in my mind anyway).
I would like to see a system where we could pick all the crafting skills if we would like as Pantheon is being designed to be a horizontal game vice a liner game which would allow someone to be a “crafter” vice an “adventurer”. From watching the streams I would have to say yes the “best” or maybe “key” components mite come from raids or rare drops or combinations of this.
For the actual crafting I agree with the mini games to assist in the crafting of this with an impact from the level of skill in the given craft against the skill level required of the material and the level of the item being made.
I also have a few ideas similar to what has been brought up earlier in the forum and would like to see something along the lines of each component being best at something so maybe copper is a simple metal to work with but weapons side it is hardly worth much but maybe enchantment side such as for a wizard’s wand it maybe be a highly valued item with key components needs to help focus the energy it is used for and such.
I would also like to see something that is much more complex but could lead to the community wanting to craft and also wanting to craft as a group such as maybe each material as well as being a best to worst choice for each type of craft item also has a passive value which was seen on completion of working that material and then the item is awarded slots for “improvement/enchantment”
For example, a crafter is making an “iron bastard sword” so the “Iron” would give it an average value for usage say 10 in this case.
Iron = 10 Improvement/enchantment slots
Further this is being worked by a crafter that is a “master smith” so this would add a variable that uses the mini game to determine or maybe prior preparation such as going to a special forge or anvil or refinement of the materials prior to the process beginning that could grant another 1 through 10 possible slots
10+(1 thru 10) = (11 thru 20)
After this it would come down to the wanted improvements/enchants some I would like to see come from the class so a warrior would know how to sharpen a weapon so a certain number of slots can be given up for this bonus. So, a +1 would cost 5 of the improvements slots.
10+(1 thru 10) = (11 thru 20) - 5 (+1 Damage)
But say after this the crafter wanted to make something really special so he has a wizard friend also help in the creation which would only be addable during the creation of the item for a set amount of time they could then “target” and cast the spell at the item that they wanted to add to it in this case ice bolt. I’m just staying with generic spells for this example. So, this would then take up another amount to slots at a penalty since this isn’t from the actual crafter but they would be the ones responsible for make sure the energy from the spell is “funneled” into the new item.
10+(1 thru 10)=(11 thru 20) -5 (+1 Damage) – 10 (ice bolt)
At this point the spell could be translated in the system to something that would more relate such as slow or chance to freeze with a random chance since the crafter is only focusing the energy and not directly placing the energy. Where as if they wanted to add +2 Damage maybe for a warrior this would be an additional 3 slots that have to be given up where a wizard would have to give another 5 slots. If we would look at this from the other side if this was a wizard that decided to be the smith and they were the ones to cast the ice bolt they would get the initial 5 cost to place the enchant then only 3 to increase the chance to the weapon proced its enchanted skills
This could be used for slots for things such as improvments, enchanting, or whatever you could want to do to improve an item. And below is a list for a rough draft as to what each class could look at as a bonus to being a crafter with a reduced cost to what they would like to add to they item on their own but also always being able to use from another source and then also maybe adding a crafters specific way such as maybe rune smithing so you would have to travel the world and learn from different sources the runes that they use or have created and the crafter could then experiment with combinations of the runes that they have learned over time and travels
Weapons
Cleric = Enchant (cleric spells)
Warrior = Improve damage
Shaman = Enchant (shaman spells)
Monk = Improve speed
Rogue = Improve armor piercing / breaking
Wizard = Enchant (wizard spells)
Armor
Cleric = Enchant (cleric spells)
Warrior = Improve durability
Shaman = Enchant (shaman spells)
Monk = Improve parry
Rogue = Improve evade
Wizard = Enchant (wizard spells)
I put this together as more of a wish list also writing it, it scares me as to how hard something like this would be to input into a system but for those of us that would be more then happy to craft our day away it opens a large variation and it also gives a feel for a group to want to assist a crafter because it would widen what could be created by allowing “non-crafters” to assist with the process and would reduce crafters making a few thousand short swords of rat slaying to raise their skill so they can only make the next cookie cutter item. Like I said this is more of a wish list not sure how others would feel about a system like this, but I would be more then happy to have someone elses thoughts about my ideas
Great write up on SWG, that sounds really complex and interesting. I have to agree with Akahai, being a shipwright in Vanguard was awesome. It took a lot or resources and dedication, but it was amazing being one of the first few people on my server to have their own boat, and then to be able to ferry around guildmates to go adventuring. It would be very interesting if we could have something as complex and interesting as either SWG or Vanguard.
I'd like to see a variation of the Vanguard system. I liked the way that it was a process and mini game in itself that took time to build up. The work orders were a nice touch as you could take them on to level up and get the materials for that order from an NPC and be rewarded based on your success. Likewise, crafting items could yield different results based on that success ranging from a total disaster of misshapen metal to a high quality item. Meshing that system in some way wth some other systems to increase the process could make it more fun and deeper, and I do hope the crafting is very deep.
I know there has been some discussion of gear loss but I had another idea on that involving crafters. Instead of loss or repairable for coin damage, perhaps there could instead be a system where at death there is a slight chance based on the power of the enemy perhaps that a random item could take damage that reduces its stats. That damage can only be repaired by a trained crafter with certain materials. The higher level and more epic the item, the more skilled a crafter and material you will need. And, of course, it could be repaired better than ever on a success (maybe even with a slight stat increase chance), but there's always the chance that it might get botched in the repair crafting process and come out worse than it was or if it's imbued by magic perhaps even result in an arcane explosion. Just an idea. :) Certainly would add to the value of a skilled crafter.
One other caveat for such a system as to not directly interfere with a dungeon crawl or raid, the damage would act as a kind of delayed debuff (Something like Cracks in the Armor) that would slowly wear down the armor, weapon, ect. over time (say an hour or two), allowing players to finish up there group and then seek out a crafter after. If they don't find them by that time the crack manifests into the damage, which could be something as simple as -1 AC or serious like a removed proc from a weapon. Seeking out a crafter during debuff phase could allow the crafter to inspect the item to determine the damage and then try to enact repairs.
I realize that's not a perffect system and that I went off on a bit of a tangent here, but that's just the idea that popped in while writing this.
Personally I am a fan of item degradation and eventual destruction. Having a good item enter the economy and stay there forever floods the market. If the market is flooded with good items then there is no need to craft new good items as crafting takes more resources than just having an item drop. One of the solutions to this is having items that are either untradeable or become untradeable after becoming attuned.
VR has stated that they really want all items to be tradable that are not class specific quest items and I support this design decision but it does present a problem for game wide item inventory. If items were to take damage through use and death with higher amounts of damage on challenging content and fully become scrap if the durability reaches 0 then we have an in-game mechanism to remove items from the economy.
Repairing items back to their current maximum durability could be done by either NPC crafters or PC crafters. The chance of degrading the current maximum durability is a function of the smiths skill and the items level, NPC smiths will almost always lower the items current maximum durability. An item will degrade in effect when it crosses certain thresholds of its original maximum durability i.e a sword with a max durability of 100 will lose 10% of its dps if it drops below 75 durability and will drop 50% if it drops below 25% of its durability. Over time the maximum durability of the sword will drop to say 85 but the thresholds are still based on the original 100 durability.
A PC with the required skills and enough raw materials can reforge the sword back to full original durability, and even may be able to go over the original value. The raw materials to repair the sword will likely come from salvaging a similar sword that has either been scraped or lesser versions of the same sword. This will drive a real reason for adventurers and crafters to interact on a daily basis as well as control the overload of dropped items. Additionally loss of items will give players a reason to return to old content to replace damaged equipment.
Trasak said:Personally I am a fan of item degradation and eventual destruction. Having a good item enter the economy and stay there forever floods the market. If the market is flooded with good items then there is no need to craft new good items as crafting takes more resources than just having an item drop. One of the solutions to this is having items that are either untradeable or become untradeable after becoming attuned.
Two things that I've heard them mention to help remove some items is possible crafting breakdowns and sacrificing items at altars for some kind of buff. Not sure if that's still the plan, but it was at one point.
Trasak said:Personally I am a fan of item degradation and eventual destruction. Having a good item enter the economy and stay there forever floods the market. If the market is flooded with good items then there is no need to craft new good items as crafting takes more resources than just having an item drop. One of the solutions to this is having items that are either untradeable or become untradeable after becoming attuned.
VR has stated that they really want all items to be tradable that are not class specific quest items and I support this design decision but it does present a problem for game wide item inventory. If items were to take damage through use and death with higher amounts of damage on challenging content and fully become scrap if the durability reaches 0 then we have an in-game mechanism to remove items from the economy.
Repairing items back to their current maximum durability could be done by either NPC crafters or PC crafters. The chance of degrading the current maximum durability is a function of the smiths skill and the items level, NPC smiths will almost always lower the items current maximum durability. An item will degrade in effect when it crosses certain thresholds of its original maximum durability i.e a sword with a max durability of 100 will lose 10% of its dps if it drops below 75 durability and will drop 50% if it drops below 25% of its durability. Over time the maximum durability of the sword will drop to say 85 but the thresholds are still based on the original 100 durability.
A PC with the required skills and enough raw materials can reforge the sword back to full original durability, and even may be able to go over the original value. The raw materials to repair the sword will likely come from salvaging a similar sword that has either been scraped or lesser versions of the same sword. This will drive a real reason for adventurers and crafters to interact on a daily basis as well as control the overload of dropped items. Additionally loss of items will give players a reason to return to old content to replace damaged equipment.
I think there are some real interesting ideas here. I would like to see a system where items degrade but can be brought to max condition and over time lose durability as well but can be rebuilt to max durability by consuming other items and acquiring materials that can be used to rebuild them.
Say you have super sword X and over time it has lost 20% condition and needs repair (say you suffer increasing penalties past a certain point of condition). Repairing it takes a skilled smith and say 3 bars of reclaimed material. Over time it loses max durability and has to be rebuilt. This takes say, 20 bars of reclaimed material and a skilled smith. Materials can be reclaimed from breaking down items crafted or dropped by either giving them to an NPC crafter or PC crafter and better pieces yield more material. For example, your level 1 sword yields 1 shard of material, your level 10 sword 3 shards, your level 40 rare 5 bars and your level 50 epic 50 bars. 20 shards makes 1 bar or something.
This would lead to drops and crafted gear leaving the economy regularly, and would also allow you to never have to scrap that super sword X if you do not want to, which is a big issue people have with durability i think. This way you do not have 100000 swords of Y entering the economy and never leaving, but they are getting broken down to maintain existing good gear you want to keep, and when you move past that gear, you can break it down. This also keeps demand for the best crafters to repair, although you would also have NPC crafters who would repair your gear or rebuild it, but for a little more material and some cash than a skill PC could do it for. This would lead there to be a market for PC rebuilding and repairing and make it a profitable enterprise for crafters, but also would allow people to not have to craft to do it themselves if they did not want to have someone else fix their stuff as they would have a reasonable NPC alternative.
Thawol said:Please oh please be like vanguard, I never enjoyed a grind more. The work order system and item rewards were great.
Couldn't agree more. Vanguard had hands down THE best crafting of any game I've ever played. Even when the game was busted at release it's crafting was amazing. But once everything was fixed it was so in depth and so much fun. I had about 3 or 4 characters all leveled up and every one of them was a crafter of pretty high level, two were maxed. It was nice when you had a few minutes but didn't want to get a group together only to have to leave shortly after it formed. But yet it was designed so that you could grind on it as well.
The complications arising, the work orders being fulfilled for experience, the rewards were useful and most of all crafting itself was useful. Mid game and end game. Best gear in the game was the pantheon gear and you had to have crafting make half of it. Kept crafters in desire and in business. Was what I would call a perfect marriage between crafting/adventuring.
As a matter of fact between harvesting, crafting, diplomacy, and adventuring Vanguard was amazing in just about every aspect. I miss it more than I do early EQ days and that's saying something.
I've played EQ, Eq2, VG, SWG and a few others, and I was a crafter in each. There were things I liked about all these systems and some things I disliked.
Ideally, I'd like to see PRF's system incorporate as many of these points as could be fitted into it as possilbe, because I liked them :), why else? All of this is imo.
1. The small portable sewing kits and archery kits from EQ1. Neither were exactly easy to come buy and cost a huge 2 plats. They allowed players to gather supplies in the field and make basic clothes and weapons without a treak back to the nearest faction favorable city. (off topic, I liked the faction factor). For the more advanced crafting, you had to find the craft stations needed, but the small ones were very useful. You could gather experience crafting as you explored too.
2. I liked the quests to find special items for rare gear. And special crafting stations. I did note on a video that a large anvil in a very unfriendly mountainous area was pointed out. May very well have that feature now in PRF from the looks of that.
3. I loved making boats/ships in VG. Losing the first one from lack of skill on the final craft station, after having to hunt down other crafters to buy or trade parts to build the ship: was a huge pita. While it was amazing when the boat was finished: I felt then, and now, that if this type of failure is allowed, where you end up losing several combinations of expensive parts as you build, it may be put up with becasue it is learning experience. But I do not think it should be allowed on the final step of a long difficult build.
4. I liked the killing crafting stations (EQ2 I think), it made paying attention rather important. Also very embarrashing when announcement went out "Graysilk has been killed by the loom". Not to say I want them now, just amused me back 13-14 years ago. And the crafting 'guild' houses were really nice looking.
5. I do not like having to trade with other crafters for items that I have to have, in order to finish my final piece. I feel that crafting, if done right, is a valuable way to earn money and reknown as a master craftersman. As mentioned in this tread: SW allowed us to have our crafted items identified with our name. And having to depend on others for the parts needed, takes away from that, imo. I want to be responsible for my entire own handiwork, without having to rely on another crafter, who may or may not be on hand when needed. Being able to buy supplies from others if I chose to do it is a good option, but I think it should not be a required option.
6. I liked the later day EQ ability to be able to learn multiple crafts on my main. It was a way around having to get needed pieces of crafting items from crafters. And It was not an easy way, I had to work for it.
7. I liked that fishing (which was really useful in EQ) tied into recipies in Cooking crafting. Different fish from different regions gave food with different specs.
8. Final. I want crafting to mean something, to be something that must be worked at to learn. Hopefully, it will be useful to the crafter to gain skill, and to sell to players. As skill increases, the difficulty should also. While this is a social game, and good to group to achieve goals, I hope that we will be allowed crafting as a solo achievement. I also think that nothing on any in game store should sell anything better than what we players can craft. Why spend 6 months learning to make a specific item and then selling it in game, only to have a similar item put on the company store that is cheaper and less expensive?
EQ2 was my main crafting experience.
Four stages have killed crafting for me throughout the years crafting in that game. 1) The simplifcation of crafting progression 2) The required fuels in the recipes 3) Crafting stations 4) The mass production
At least one change was an improvement for my crafting experience. Experimentations.
1) During the first year(s) of the game you were required to make nails, boards, twine, ink. I loved the fact you needed to make or trade/buy those things in order to get to the end product. It's logic, it makes sense. It does take time, but the amount of time required to get to the finished product was acceptable to my findings. Very soon in the game, they simplified and removed all these in-between steps. You just needed to chop down a tree, buy sandpaper and you had yourself table. For me that sucked all the fun out of creating and thus crafting.
2) Still I remained crafting and after a more levels and expantions the recipes started to look the same. How is it that crafting a level 1 plain shelf would render the same crafting experience as a level 80 apothecary bookcase. It just didn't make sense to me. The amount of time required for either item was also the same. I can read through a childrensbook much quicker than a paper about the Tang Dynasty paintings. If you catch my drift here.
3) A craftingstation should be something one could have in their guild, in a shop or in their homes. If allowing for portable craftingkits, than make sure they don't look like a fully installed kitchen in the open fields... And you can makeshift items on the go, yes. But I don't get why I'm allowed to make a table or bookshelf on a hillside or cook a casserole dish on a snowcovered hill. That's just too thinking long enough there. Make sure that crafting stations keep their value as stations and places to get together and craft/trade. On a sidenote: if there is a merchant next to the crafting station, make sure he sells items that are linked to the area they are in, and not just all fuels for every recipe. I'm not going to my local butcher to get half a pound of swordfish or camel. Please keep your senses. :)
4) The final straw was mass production. For one, it ruins the ingame playbased economy if there is one. It devalues the product and the value of the crafter/player themselves ingame. And thereby it also lowers the esteem of the achievement of that player reaching that certain skill or level. The amount of time required to make 1 item or 200 was the same, only the fuel requirement scaled up. As someone who loves craftings ingame, it feels very hollow when you can craft 1000's of items in matter of a few minutes. And something that no longer grabs my focus or gives me that sense of creative experience, I will not invest time into making billions of items. It's just not fun anymore. I'ld say to the dev's; Invent a factory and give the players back their challenge and sense of creation/achievement.
The plus side and perhaps potential in this game: experimentation. You have a made a sword, but somehow you are able to experiment on. You can choose between four option in what direction you want to experiment and in the end boost your sword with. When I was experimenting in eq2 the progression bar was much longer (which was a big contrast to the other crafting experience) and if you fail to counter an event you'ld loose your entire sword. Which makes sense to me as well. So yeah, I like it. You had different levels you could continue the experimentation on the same sword untill you reached a toplevel. It took me around 20 min's or more to get that for one sword. But the stats were much better than the sword at first creation. Seeing what Pantheon is proposing on classdependence and interaction between players, I see a lot of options there. Even for brewmeisters and posion/potion makers. How cool would it be to say as a wizard; My fireball does 5 basedamage more than yours. Because I got my scroll from "playername scribe" who has experimented on the scroll of a fireball before I scribed it. Crafters would look a lot more interesting and worthwhile, wouldn't it?
Shortversion: Yes, make the gathering of resources time consuming. Yes, make the creationprocess time consuming. Yes. Go for differentation and complexity as levels grow. Yes Give crafters the option to put more time into an item to make it stand out more and allow it to become risky and allow for things to fail when the player is not concentrating or using none pristine fuels.
SWG was the most unique crafting i have ever found. It was enjoyable and complex enough that it could be an aspect of the game you could do and not have to worry about getting board. I personally like most of all aspects of a game, pvp, pve, and crafting. I like being able to switch it up a bit when i get board of just grinding or raiding instead of looking for a new game to play I would delv into crafting. I have many friends that all they like dong is crafting and decorating there houses and when a game can keep even those types buisy i believe it builds a stronger community.
I agree that Crafting should be hard. Recipes should be hard to find (if the item is special!). I hope Pantheon gear is rare enough that crafted gear is relevant and sought after.
I enjoyed the EQ1 method of collecting materials, but the EQ2 execution of actually CRAFTING. I could spend entire days in the EQ2 crafting area and have a load of fun.
I'd love to see communal areas for crafting, so crafters can work together on certain items, chat and build relations, etc.
I am normally not a "crafter" and usually only do it when games gate content by requiring crafting for keys or quests or something similar. With that said I've tried it in every MMO I've played and have even maxed some crafting skills for passive bonuses they may have added to my characters. I never played SWG but heard great things about its crafting. Games (not just RPG) that I have crafted in include EQ1, EQ2, WoW, ESO, Mortal, Archage, Warframe, ToR, and probably a few others; but EQ2 was by far the funnest and therefore most memorable of the one's I've experienced.
Edit: Here is a URL for a clip of the EQ2 crafting mini-game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MlO0MkT6AY
A tale in the desert.
I would like to see crafting be skill based. The glass blowing and blacksmithing are amazing in this game and I think all games should incorporate this style crafting.
I also like the use of secondary items required from other skills to promote player interaction and economy. Like orginal EQ2 that got nerfed to be WOWish.
For leveling purpose of craft and adventure, I have always thought that you should have to earn this raise in level, not just boom, your are level x.......You aquire the skill then have to find another player that is above you and earned the job of being a "teacher" to level you. Either by giving you a quest, accepting coin, or exploring a exluded location....something, A full player driven system for leveling that you have to seek out your elders, if for some reason they are missing or do not play often there maybe secluded npc to do this job.... I recall an old D&D game on old NES that you had to go back to town to the inn and pay for your level.
EQ2 had an absolutely amazing crafting system (in the early days, they made it braindead simple later on). Crafting required sub-combines from other crafters, but not to an extreme extent. The crafting mini-game was a lot of fun and could be challenging, and provided opportunities for crafter-specific gear (e.g. an artisan tunic might give +10 progress gain on every "tick" of the mini-game). It really fostered an extensive crafting community, those people were some of the first I came across in the game when I started playing and I remember them still. They didn't really like adventuring but chose to craft as their main profession. Plus, carpentry to make housing items... can't beat that.
So, an EQ2 heavily influenced system with some flavor from SWG/Vanguard would probably be one of the better crafting systems to implement.
I loved the first year of EQ2 crafting, was a very good crafting model. Two things killed it tho,
1) People were charging WAY too much for subcombines, as an Armorer it was near impossible for me to find any one to make patterns or find any on broker at a reasonable price( T2 armor resold at vend for 8sp, people selling patterns for 25sp per).
2) People were whining about how hard it was, all the resource gathering, the subcombines, the crafting, etc etc etc.
And with the success of WoW, The Destroyer of Games, Smedly, pretty much started simplifying the game and dumbing it down hoping to get the WoW crowd.
Always considered VG crafting much like EQ2's , but more tool oriantated.
I've not seen a crafting system that truly 'got it right' for me. Usually crafting is just a means to fill out equipment slots with completely generic items when you haven't found anything better for that slot, or it's used to create consumables that grant temporary buffs that end up being either an absolute must to beat difficult PvE content, or pointless.
However, there have been some designs that I've found interesting.
I liked the experimentation that was allowed in EQ and some other games like NWN and Elder Scrolls (alchemy), by just combining items and seeing what came out. In hindsight, limiting everything to recipes can be too restricting. At the very least there needs to be a way for players to pass down their knowledge to others, by letting them copy a recipe or something.
Contention of resources is done right in some PvP centric MMO's, where your ability to produce items hinges on access to resource nodes you can either gain or lose. This might be difficult to replicate in a PvE centric MMO like Pantheon however. Perhaps if there was a way to earn (or lose) the rights to use resource nodes owned by an NPC faction.
The most impressed I'd be if Pantheon finds a way to make the produced items feel less generic. Some systems have tried this by applying random stats, but in truth they're still just generic random items. It's fine if the bulk of items produced are nothing out of the ordinary, but there should be times where a crafter feels they've created something special the likes of which they probably won't make again. Perhaps the perception system could play a part in this, as it's a triggering system that's unique to this game.