Forums » Crafting and Gathering

A detailed, balanced and powerful crafting system (long post)

    • 10 posts
    March 5, 2017 7:55 AM PST

    Hi fellow crafting lovers.
    I’m a new member, but long time follower of the game and recent lurker in the forums. I’ve been missing a good crafting system from all recent RPGs, and seeing the good discussions in Renathras’, Prosradamus’ and bluefoxcode’s threads inspired me to sit down and put my thoughts to paper.
    The result is the following monster of a post, but I really could not find a shorter way to describe a whole crafting system.

    Hopefully some of you will spend the time to read it. I’d love to hear your thoughts.


    Intro
    Being a master crafter should mean something. Just the same as being a maxed-out raider does.
    A crafter should be able to create a legendary raid-quality item, but it should be possible after mastering their craft, being skilled (and lucky) at the mini-games and should need help from raiders.
    Raiders should be able to get legendary item drops if they are skilled (and lucky) at what they do, but to get their full effects (or even to be able to use the item) they should need help from Master crafters.

    Having the 2 dependent on each other is the only way to give both sides what they want and keep both relevant and desirable.
    To get there crafting should be difficult to master and crafting the best items should involve a measure of luck and require player skill, not grinding. It should be as chancy as winning a raid encounter and getting the drop you want.

    Banging out 1000 Iron daggers should not increase your blacksmithing to where you all of a sudden you know how to make Steel swords, and making 1000 Steel swords should not make you able to create perfect Mithril shields.
    Creating that legendary item should be very rare, very difficult, require effort, dedication, and help from others. Master crafters should be rare themselves. Being a Master crafter should mean something and making/having a legendary item should be the exception and not the rule.

    The difficulty of crafting should not come from tedious activities or artificial limits, it should be because it requires skill, perseverance and spending time on discovering recipes, doing craft-related quest chains, seeking out that one NPC master who can teach you something, developing your character a certain way AND having help from your guild, friends, other crafters and investing a good amount of in-game gold for those rare reagents and services. One should plan ahead when the goal is to craft a top quality item and should never be 100% certain that the attempt will be successful.

    Might sound like a lot to ask, but I believe I have a solution on how it can be achieved.

    To start it all, crafting should not be a mindless grind, it should be a mini game which requires thinking, decision making and planning. A game where the character’s crafting skill helps, but does not guarantee a success.
    It should not rely on quantity but quality.


    After this long intro let’s get to the mechanics.

    The bullet points below feed into each other, so I combined the details into 3 main sections.

    P.S.
    When reading the examples below, please keep in mind that the numbers are used just to serve the example, everything can be tweaked so gameplay makes sense. Also I use Blacksmithing since it is pretty straightforward to describe, similar system should be applied to all crafts.

    P.P.S.
    Couldn’t find a better place for it so I’ll put it here - from what I remember, leveling in Pantheon will be slower than what we have in recent MMOs, which is good - max level should mean something.
    Ideally I would like for craft leveling to take a similar amount of time. If reaching max Adventurer level takes 6 months, I’d like reaching Master crafter to be the same. Dedicated people should be Masters, not bots or players who just dabble in it for an hour here and there.


    The basic ideas:
    Crafter levels are be based on material tiers, and not just random numbers.

    1. Items have quality levels. High quality levels are be harder to achieve and never guaranteed.

    2. Crafting is an interactive mini game with multiple stages from ore to finished item, and it will take some time. Maybe 15-20 mins per base (non-magical) item (creating something should feel like an accomplishment, not a yawn-event). Turning the base item into a magical one will depend on what you want and where you need to go. I’d say another 5 mins per item for the magical mini game. A Master crafter watching TV will fail even at smelting ore.

    3. Experience gained is dependent on the item quality and creating the same quality item over and over will stop awarding experience since once you learn it making more of the same doesn’t teach you anything.

    4. Imbuing abilities/buffs/powers into items will require the use of specialized forges (already planned for the game), specific affinities, specialized skills on the crafter’s part, specialized ingredients, and sometimes help from others.

     


    Let’s start with the Crafter tiers:
    Having 20-50-100 crafting levels seems nonsensical to me. It feels much more natural to graduate from one type of material to another. Master Iron, start Steel. Master Steel, move on to Mithril.
    Crafting levels = material tiers, extra levels only if the system has specializations or Grand Master mechanics. Levels have to mean something, not just be a higher number.

    P.S.
    By Grand Master I mean the person is a Master in multiple areas. For example Grand Master weapon maker - a person who mastered all types of weapon making.


    How do we achieve those Masteries? Here come item Quality Levels:

    Each RPG has different material levels. For simplicity, I’ll use a system of just 3 - Iron, Steel and Mithril.
    Then the items made from each material type have quality levels. Since different games use different colors I’ll call them quality levels D, C, B, A, and AAA.
    D is the lowest common item, AAA is legendary raid-worthy item.
     
    To gain a crafting level you have to Master your current material. You do this by gaining 100 000 XP and making at least 1 AAA item from the current material tier. The 100 000 XP will be split equally between every type of item in your crafting tier. If a Blacksmith can make 5 armor pieces and 5 weapons per metal tier, then he will be required to make 10 000 XP crafting each of the 10 item types available to him for a total of 100 000 XP. Can’t learn how to make a breastplate by crafting daggers all day.
    The AAA item doesn’t need to be enchanted/buffed/magical. Making an item magical is a non-required specialization… one can make a good living crafting AAA “base” (non-magical) items and selling them to others who can take care of taking them that one step further.

    As you will see later, making AAA items is hard - it takes skill and luck. The higher ones goes, the fewer people will make it. Similar to raiding, it’s possible for anyone, but it requires time and effort and most will probably give up on crafting before they get to the very top. The ones that make it will still need to work with others if they want to craft the best items.

    But let’s get back to the numbers. To make the 100 000 XP one has to craft.
    The higher quality items award more XP.
    Only a limited number of items in each quality level grant XP. You cannot craft Iron daggers to the top.

    The player’s success in the mini game will determine the quality of the item. If you fail to make an item you wasted most of your materials, but still learn something so you will get a modicum of XP for the first few attempts, the gained XP will help nudge the crafters “luck” a bit to get them started. That said, you really have to screw up to actually fail. Most people should always succeed in making at least some item even if lowest quality.

    I imagine XP per quality as something like this:
    Failed attempt - first 10 tries/item type/tier award 10 XP each (10 item types x 10 tries x 10 XP = 1000 XP total/tier for our blacksmith)

    Smelting  ore - first 20 ingots award 50 XP each (1 000 total)
    D quality - first 20 items/tier award 100 XP each (2 000 total)
    C quality - first 40 items/tier award 200 XP each (8 000 total)
    B quality - first 60 items/tier award 500 XP each (30 000 total)
    A quality - first 100 items/tier award 1000 XP each (100 000 total)
    AAA quality - first 100 items/tier award 2500 XP each (250 000 total)
    Once you reach 100 000 XP, this material tier reaches its maximum and you receive no more XP. To progress in the next tier, you have to “graduate” and start crafting items in that next tier.

    You can see that if you craft only D-B quality items you will only get 42 000 XP (if you include failures and smelting) and will never graduate to the next blacksmithing levels. You REALLY have to Master Iron Blacksmithing if you want to be called an Iron Master and be able to learn how to use Steel. That means being able to reliably make A quality Iron items (make at least 58 to hit 100 000 XP) and of course make at least one item to show you can create a Master quality item - 1 AAA quality item.

    The drastic increase in XP per quality level is intentional. You are encouraged to pay attention to the mini game, and do well. Making misshapen, breakable daggers all day doesn’t create Masters.
    The XP a crafter has in crafting will play a role in how hard the minigame is, but being a Master Iron worker does not mean every Iron item you make is AAA, it just gives you better chances in succeeding in the different mini game challenges (more on that later).
    This will make it so crafting newbies will have a harder time but once they Master the material tier they will be able to feel their progress as the mini game will be somewhat more forgiving.
     
    Also notice that even if you make 100 A items off the bat, to get the 100 000 XP, that still means you have to create 100 items which take 15-20 mins each. That is 1500 mins or 25 hrs if we go with 15 mins/item. A full 25 hrs of in-game crafting just to move from tier 1 metal to tier 2. Probably longer since not every item you create will be A quality.
    That doesn’t even take into account how many tries you will need to get the AAA item required to graduate from that tier, or how long you will need to unlock recipes, do crafting quests, etc.
    Before you say this will be a grind, tedious and boring - this will not be time spent clicking a button a million times while watching TV, it will be time spent watching your forging progress, taking active role in what is happening, healing, downing pots, adding and removing things… fighting the several mini games one has to complete before finishing an item. All that with a slightly different experience each time you craft that Iron dagger.


    Here is the fun part - the minigames!

    A lot goes into making a dagger - from smelting the ore, to hammering the metal into shape, reheating, hammering some more, tempering it, and maybe even giving it magical properties. All this requires skill and should be reflected in the mini game. It should require skill, it should require adjusting when things go wrong and it should require familiarity with the system and planning on what you will need which comes with practice and paying attention.
    It should NOT be a twitch system.

    The mini game is broken into several steps which reflect the major processes in real smithing. Each step will have a somewhat random start (within set limits) and have things happen (or not happen) at random times which will require player action. Each step will result in a standalone product where the crafter can stop and continue later.
    It will not be a system that relies on twitch reflexes, but there will be a certain period in which you have to take action or risk failure. Each step will have some sort of a gauge with a target (Green) zone and timers for certain actions. The higher level material a crafter uses, the smaller the Green zone and the shorter the timers. Higher skilled crafters will receive a certain bonus to Green zone size and timer durations, but higher metals will always be harder to work with.

    The starting point, the number of things that “go wrong”, the timers will all be affected by the skill the crafter has. Masters will have an easier time of it, beginners will have to sweat a bit, but even Masters can fail if they don’t pay attention and even Masters will be lucky to get an AAA item out of it.
    And that’s before we even take into account using special ingredients and processes to enchant that AAA item.


    Here is what I imagine for steps in Blacksmithing:

    1)  (optional) Smelt the ore

    This one is Optional because one can buy metal ingots.


    Minigame: 3 steps

    You have to add a certain amount of ore (min-max dependent on what the player wants and what the smelter can hold), then:

    - Keep the ore temperature at a certain level (dependent on metal used),
    - Add any special ingredients, and
    - Pour the melted metal into forms quickly and accurately.


    More ore = more fuel, longer minigame. Less ore - the opposite, but 3 batches of 10 ore will use 2ble the fuel of 1 batch of 30 ore. Decisions, decisions...
     
    The interface will have a gauge that shows the ore temps with Red/Yellow/Green areas where you are required to stay (size of Green color area depends on metal used). The Green zone for smelting will be the largest of all Green zones involved in Blacksmithing. After all melting ore is the least skill-intensive part of making a sword. It will also be the least time consuming maybe 20% of the whole. If we go with 15 mins for the whole process that is 3 mins.
     
    Still one has to pay attention. Over-heating isn’t good. Under-heating isn’t good. Gotta do it just right.
     
    The ore has to stay at the required temperature a certain amount of time (dependent on how much ore you added and the metal used).
    The more time the heat stays in the middle of the Green, the purer your resulting ingot will be = higher quality ingot. Lots of temp variations will result in reduced ingot quality. Reduced ingot quality will result in more random events during the next stage of smithing. Dropping into the red will result in a failed job - throw away 75% of the ore.

    Based on where your smelter temperature started (somewhat random, but chance for it to start in the Green will quickly increase the more skill you have) there are 2 ways to keep the temp in the Green zone - add more fuel or use the bellows.

    - More fuel will mean you raise the temp slower but it will stay higher for longer. It is hard to bring the temp down if you overdo it though, and taking coals out means you take health damage, might need healing pots or spells if you have to remove a lot of coals quickly.
    - Using the bellows means you get a temp spike, but it drops back down pretty fast too. It also uses fuel quicker.


    Using the bellows uses your stamina, if you wanna keep pumping, you better not run out of stamina. Might need stam potions ready. Maybe should have had a good meal to boost your max stamina before you started, or a drink to keep stam regen higher.

    Here is where your char stats actually make a difference. A char with lower stam might have a harder time keeping their stamina up. There is a reason why dwarves are good at smithing after all, eh?

    If you want to make an ingot for a magical item, special ingredients are required and they will need to be added to the melted metal at specific times - interface will notify when the window opens. A new progress bar will appear to count time and amount of material added. Have to add the right quantity within the allowed time limit. Agility helps. Under-adding will make the effect weaker. Over-adding will make the ore unstable and unusable. Adding special materials will affect the ore temperature - depending on ingredient it can raise or lower the temperature. Fix it before you ruin our ingots.

    Finally you have to pour the melted metal into your forms to make the ingots - you have a limited time to pour, each form can hold so much, so if you over-pour you lose whatever spills over, you also risk a splash which can hurt you pretty badly. If you under-pour, the ingot will be smaller, the form will cool it faster and it will drop 1 quality level.
    The character has to be agile to start and stop pouring quickly. The character has to be strong to pour many forms at a time without stopping. Run out of time, you have to reheat what’s left. Reheating the molten metal drops ingot quality 1 level.

    This might find this sounds scary, but remember it is not a twitch game - you will see the temp arrow moving, you will see the form levels raising and will have time to react accordingly, just pay attention. Get the health and stamina pots ready just in case, plan your ore batch appropriately for your skill, strength, stamina, health and agility.

    The better you get at crafting the less you will have to do and the more time you will have to do it, but there will always need to be some adjustment, so don’t AFK on smelting.

    AAA ingots are required for AAA items. AAA ingots have the lowest chance of causing “bad things” to happen during the next stage. AAA ingots with perfectly added ingredients are required for raid-worthy legendary items.


    2) Bang those ingots into shape

    Amount of ingots will vary depending on the size of the item you need to make.

    Minigame: 3 steps

    - Add as many ingots as necessary and heat the metal
    - Hammer the metal
    - Temper the metal
    - Repeat as needed

     
    Heat up the ingot(s) - similar to ore smelting. Have to keep metal at required temperature for a certain period of time. Same minigame as for the ore, just shorter time at the needed temperature since there is no need to heat the metal to melting temps.  Will need to heat the metal multiple times.
    Higher metals are tougher to get into shape, require higher temps and more hammering = higher min required reheat/hammer cycles.
    Can reheat a certain max number of times (dependent on metal) before the item drops a quality level. Have to finish the work within the min/max reheat/hammer period. Closer to min is better.

    The closer to perfect temp you get, the more effective hammering is when shaping the metal resulting in fewer reheats needed.

    Once done with heating, take out the heated metal and start hammering.
    Interface will show a bar that shows creation progress - have to keep in the green. As metal temperature lowers, the bar drops out of the green. Faster hammering will pull towards the green, and will use agility and stamina, Stronger hammering will pull towards the green in larger amounts, but will require strength and stamina.
    Again - over-hammering is not good, under-hammering is not good. Have to aim to stay as much as possible in the middle of the green. Don’t let your metal cool too much. Keep stamina up, accidents when hammering can hurt you, so keep health pots ready.

    If any special ingredients are required, they will be added similarly to the ingredients added when smelting the ore. Adding special materials will affect the metal temperature - depending on ingredient it can raise or lower the temperature.

    When the required shape is reached (progress bar stayed in the Green for X amount of time) you have to temper it.

    Depending on material, tempering will require water, oil, or special oil. Depending on Metal and item quality one has to temper different number of times during hammering (more tempering cycles for higher level metals). Have to keep the item in the water/oil a certain amount of time - agility helps to take it out on time without exceeding the timer.

    Perfectly smelted, heated, hammered and tempered item = base AAA quality.
    Perfectly smelted, heated, hammered, and tempered item with perfectly added special ingredients at smelting and at hammering = AAA quality item ready to be enchanted


    (continued in the next post)
    edit: tried to get rid of double spacing and fix weird formatting.


    This post was edited by Locuus at March 5, 2017 8:27 AM PST
    • 10 posts
    March 5, 2017 7:58 AM PST

    (The character limit got me, so this post has the conclusion)

     

    3) Enchant the item

    Last comes enchanting/imbuing the item with powers. Can’t have a real Legendary item if it has no powers, right? Might as well plow the field with that base AAA axe.


    This is where my lack of knowledge of the game leaves things a bit too vague. The process will still involve mini game, but since I don’t know all ways items are given powers, I will have to keep it more general.

    Giving powers to an item will depend on how exactly you want to buff it. Want to give it cold damage - the smith needs to have cold affinity and in order to get max result craft it at a forge in a freezing environment.

    To make it more interesting there should be different ways to get the different types of buffs. Since I don’t know what types of buffs items will have in Pantheon it is hard to give concrete examples.

    Some bonuses can be dependent on what the smith knows - Runecrafting comes to mind. Have the crafter specialize in runecrafting and chisel out certain bonuses themselves using the runes they know. Be able to combine different runes that work with each other.

    To learn runes the crafter will have to find a teacher, do quest chains, or get a special blueprint drop from a raid, maybe study and break up a certain item. Different power and type of runes will be obtained in different ways. The more runes one knows, the better enchantments they might be able to do by combining runes. Soul gems can be used to power the runes or feed mana to the forge.

    Mages may be another way to get a certain type of effects.  In the final stages of the item creation they can cast a spell on the item in a specific time window. Or feed mana to the item or forge.

    Depending on what ways are available minigames can be created around them - make sure to cut the rune accurately, keep within size limits while making it as large as possible to get more power out of it, use high quality soul gems and don’t over/under-feed mana to the item. Get it done in time.

    Even though everything going perfectly from start to finish should be rare, abilities/ingredients which are used to apply buffs to items should be on a timer. Maybe the special forges can be used only every so often by the same crafter.

    Each step should have a chance of “failure”, which will reduce the product quality with overall chance of getting AAA maximum buffed/enchanted item equal to the chance of getting such an item during a raid.

    Let’s not forget that to get the maximum enchantment and all necessary rare ingredient(s)/recipe(s) one should also need rare drop items obtained during raids.


    Thank you for reading.
    *Cheers*

     


    This post was edited by Locuus at March 5, 2017 8:10 AM PST
    • 780 posts
    March 5, 2017 10:42 AM PST

    Hey man.  Welcome to the boards.  Quality posts to start your posting career.  I definitely appreciate the time and effort you put into organizing your thoughts and posting them here for us.  I'm also hoping for a great crafting system in this game (though that's mostly for other people I know who won't play without it).  I think your system has a lot of cool ideas.  I love the idea of having different qualities of materials that can be obtained or created.  I love the idea of having to travel to different places to learn to make different items.  I love the idea of having to make every type of item to become a master, rather than just skilling on whatever has the least expensive materials or is most profitable to sell.  I love the idea of having crafting take just as much time as adventuring to level.  I don't really like the idea of having to use potions during crafting, though.  I'd actually prefer not to have health potions in PRF anyway.  Still, the idea of being able to be hurt or killed during crafting is intriguing.  Maybe you could keep that aspect, but the player would have to decide whether to abort the project or risk the chance of death in the event of a critical issue.  In conclusion, I'll say that I'd love to see something like this in PRF, but I don't think we will.  I think this is better suited for a game with crafting classes, or at least a game where becoming the best crafter means you have to give up some of your adventuring potential.  I'm hoping we'll get a great crafting system, but I don't think we'll get anything this involved, unfortunately.

    • 77 posts
    March 5, 2017 11:00 AM PST

    I like the involvement in this process. We need to find a new word instead of Mini Game, people will read that and automatically not read the rest of the posting.

    • 191 posts
    March 5, 2017 11:10 AM PST

    Locuus, do you think rhythm-game elements would be fun in your system?  Maybe as a part of the hammering minigame?

    • 10 posts
    March 5, 2017 1:09 PM PST

    Thanks for the replies.

    I've been tryign to come up with something that would justify crafters being one way of obtaining the best gear in a game while trying to fit it to the little that is known about crafting in Pantheon. If we aren't able to be part fo the best items, then craftign will be relegated a back seat and be worth for pretty much low and mid-level gameplay. I really hope we don't end up there.

    In my eyes having a difficult but interactive process is the best. It all can be based on combining target zone and having things add and substract from it. Not sure how much coding it will take, but may not be too hard.  Or to use Shai's idea - have the crafter react from cues provided by the game. There just has to be a way to do in a practical yet fun way.

    If not interactive, the only other way to do it would be a horrendous grind that will make peope give up just because it is so mind-numbing. Same as with boss fights where adding more armor and more HP makes for a boring fight. I guess we'll see.

     

    Shucklighter, the idea with health pots was that it might be required in certain cases only. Definitely don't want it to be a must all or even most fo the time. More of an emergency situation when you screw up badly enough, things go wrong and you don't want to stop crafting. Maybe if you can last just a bit longer you expect to get a perfect product but got hurt and there is no other way to heal yourself. Hopefully with proper planning and high enough skill and char health, using pots will not be required even if you take some damage. Maybe crafters can create protective gear that will reduce the HP damage even further. Epic Blacksmithing tools and aprons anyone? Why not?

     

    Nolvu, I know right? Mini game can mean a very different thing. I just had no idea what else to call it... Interactive experience? Too vague.. hmm.. yeah still no idea. LOL

     

    Shai, that's a great idea. I never thought of that, but a rhythm game would be pretty fun and quite a bit different from the smelting experience. I'm all for it.

    • 184 posts
    March 6, 2017 7:26 AM PST

    Some great thoughts here. Long post as you know, so I'll have to sit down to flesh out a real response. For now, however, really love the mini-game idea and can't believe so few have incorporated this mechanic. This is the only way for people to say "no, go to that Zuljan dude, he's really good with _____." What would be cool is if each mini-game or elements of the mini games played entirely different (some aspects could be reaction based while some require foresight/strategy and I could think of many more).

    We've been missing that authentic feel of a true, rare grandmaster. I've mentioned in a different thread I think they should also limit people to 1 grandmaster profession per character, and make this ability to become grandmaster an epic questline or something close to it. Really hate seeing people "GM Fletcher, armorer, smith, alchemist, etc charging X for combines. When in the world has anyone ever mastered two musical instruments, or be a successful pro athlete in two sports; it does not happen because it cannot happen. At that level of skill, the line separating people from good and great is so small you have to dedicate your life to the idosyncrasies and details of the relative activity.

    • 422 posts
    March 6, 2017 1:07 PM PST

    Locuus said:

    The basic ideas:
    Crafter levels are be based on material tiers, and not just random numbers.

    1. Items have quality levels. High quality levels are be harder to achieve and never guaranteed.

    2. Crafting is an interactive mini game with multiple stages from ore to finished item, and it will take some time. Maybe 15-20 mins per base (non-magical) item (creating something should feel like an accomplishment, not a yawn-event). Turning the base item into a magical one will depend on what you want and where you need to go. I’d say another 5 mins per item for the magical mini game. A Master crafter watching TV will fail even at smelting ore.

    3. Experience gained is dependent on the item quality and creating the same quality item over and over will stop awarding experience since once you learn it making more of the same doesn’t teach you anything.

    4. Imbuing abilities/buffs/powers into items will require the use of specialized forges (already planned for the game), specific affinities, specialized skills on the crafter’s part, specialized ingredients, and sometimes help from others.

    You lost me at the bolded text. I would absolutely never craft. That is an insane amout of time invested in something just to skill up and make something better. Unless all crafting recepies create some amazing super useful items throughout the entire range of quality, no.

    Now, I could see a mini game like this be required to get you from one tier to the next, but every single attempt for any item?

    Sorry to say, but crafting seems to be a secondary system in Pantheon (thank god). I would not like to see a system such as this added to the game and made a requirement to get the most out of the game. 

    With a system like this there would be two classes of players. Those who want the most out of the game (min/maxers) and would just raise their own crafting skills to make their own items via alts, and those who don't have the time to waste spending a 40 hour work week raising crafting and either have to pay the outragious prices that people will gouge everyone for, or be shunned by the elitist community.

    Crafting should require some time invested to max out, but thats an insane per item requirement imo.

    • 84 posts
    March 6, 2017 5:28 PM PST

    Good post.  Thank you for sharing.  Just some feedback based on my opinions and experiences only:


    1)  Agree that being a master crafter should mean something.  You should be able to make a name for yourself.


    2)  A mini game with some luck involved is a good idea.


    3)  Making 1000's of the exact same item should have a diminishing return on crafting advancement, although not sure it should decline to zero.


    4)  Having crafters be interdependent with adventurers is also a good idea.  However, I am not sure about having raid drops included in that interdependent relationship.  Based on prior experience, how would a dedicated crafter obtain raid components?  Would seem to me that human nature would be inclined to keep those raid components off the market and internally available to only those in their guild.  If that is the case, then really how different would that be from just having the raid loot not require a crafting upgrade.  In other words, it would seem that this mechanic would just be a superficial 'extra step' to upgrading raid loot, that would be entirely fulfilled internally within the guild that completed that raid in the first place.  I believe a better system is to offer the crafter the ability to obtain raid level components within the crafting spheare.  Some of those items could be ultra rare by products of producing common items or perhaps obtained through challenging quest lines or even perhaps as ultra rare drops from common mobs or resource nodes.


    5)  I like the concept of crafting advancement taking dedication and a long time to master.  I would be inclined to vote for years rather than just months for the average crafting career.


    6)  Good thought on items having quality levels.  Even better would be to have a much more granular system whereby eseentially every finished product is different based on a wide variety of factors, including resource quality, crafter gear, crafter skill, and some luck.  Basically the exact system that most enjoyed in Star Wars Galaxies.


    In summary, I think Pantheon will be helped immensly if they can design a crafting system that is complex, challenging, and rewarding.  The in-game economy will be robust, as crafters scour the game world buying and/or hunting/harvesting for quality resources.  Think of the demand for resources, if upon every attempt on making an item, you have a chance to squeeze out a liitle bit higher stats than the previous item you made, thereby making that item all the more desirable to others who might buy your goods.
    Very much looking forward to seeing what Pantheon ultimately comes up with in regards to crafting!

    • 70 posts
    March 7, 2017 3:25 PM PST

    Locuus:  I believe it's the best, thought out post on crafting I've ever read.  I'd play this game and only craft.  I love crafting, and hope to see Vanguardish crafting here or better.

    I love having to think about what to do during my crafting and not just mindlessly wait for a bar to fill.

    I love mini-games in a game as that is where your skill comes in.  I believe harvesting should also have this skill required to do.  Chopping a tree down should not be a waiting game, it should have my character in a mini-game.  The tree should be able to fall on my character and kill me, or badly injure me.  Mining should have it's dangers and challenges as well.

     

    I'm all in for a system like you have described!

    • 10 posts
    March 8, 2017 7:37 AM PST

    Zuljan,

    That is how I feel as well. People who can create legendary items should be rare and this should make them known. Name recognition and reputation should matter.

    As for the mechanics of limiting Mastering multiple disciplines, it makes sense, but it should be done in a way that feels natural. One way that comes to mind is if we have a crafting tree. The tree will have all options from cook to alchemist, enchanter or blacksmith.

    You get only so many advancement points and you are free to disperse them in any way you like, but if you choose to be a cook, alchemist, tailor and blacksmith, you will only get so far in each tree. If you want to become a master, you will have to choose a craft and invest most of your points there.

    This can open a lot of interesting possibilities, for example if the tree offers different passive skills (use 10% fewer materials vs craft 10% faster, vs 15% less prone to accidents..etc) different Master crafters in the same discipline can be different from each other. If you invested max in blacksmithing but only reached Journeyman in Alchemy.. well maybe you can imbue low-mid tier gear with some alchemical powers. If you invested some in leatherworking and maxed Blacksmithing, maybe you can add leather to your armors which will reduce the impact a bit or improve durability.

    So many possibilities if a crafting system is taken seriously.

     

    Hi kellindil,

    The point of it is that if we want crafters to be able to create end-level gear, we cannot have people master crafting in a week and start cranking out legendaries. Also if we want crafting to be interactive, playing several mini games takes time.  At the end, Master crafters should be akin to Master raiders - rare and powerful. A lot more people will dabble in crafting, and even be able to create great items, but much fewer should reach the top and be able to make the true legendary gear. After all there is a reason why legendary gear is rare and not the norm.

    It all ties together with the idea that reaching max adventurer and having the max gear level should take about the same time as reaching max crafter level and being able to craft the max gear. If one is much easier than the other then it will dominate and make the harder option irrelevant.

     

    By reducing the number of items one needs to craft to go up a skill tier, and increasing the time it takes to creaft each time we end up with a similar amount of time as if each item were created in 1 min, but you needed 10-15 times more items before you "level up".

    Overall I think it is much more realistic, balanced, and engaging system.

     

     

    Trustar,

    I definitely wouldn't want what you describe with raid drops to happen. But maybe if those raid drops are not so rare then people will freely sell them?  Maybe killing 100 Salamanders duting the raid dropped 20 fire eyes which while valuable, are pretty mucha guarantee to drop in such quantities every time. Of course the guilds will favor their crafters first, but there might just be enough to sell some to crafters who have the money but not the raid connections. I believe if balanced right, shortly after raids start, the rare items will start trickling out into the market even if at high prices. Plus let's not forget that to finalize that uber-item the crafter might need to be part of a raid to get to a special forge anyway. Might get the item for being part of the group and/or crafting the item for whatever guild is organizing the raid.

    If raiders and crafters are to be interdependent, crafters will have to need something from raiders, and something more than just escort to that special forge at the end of the raid.

     

    Baldrith,

    Thanks for the kind words. I love crafting and am tired of it always taking second place to the "action" part of a game. There really is no reason for that, after all didn't everything we use while adventuring come from a crafter?

    When playing games I keep thinking how it could have been better, and I end up with a lot of ideas. I keep improving the system in my head and it is at a stage that would require a major effort to make it happen. I tried to describe the parts of it I think could fit what I know of Pantheon.


    This post was edited by Locuus at March 8, 2017 8:14 AM PST
    • 432 posts
    March 24, 2017 3:41 PM PDT

    Did you play Vanguard and EQ2 ?

    Just asking because what you described is almost exactly how trade skills were in those 2 games - a "minigame" , several stages in the crafting process , different qualities of finished and intermediate products etc .

    Then in VG,EQ2 there was equipment and skills that could made you more proficient in this or that particular stage of the crafting process .

    So as Brad was there when the VG trade skill system was designed, one could make an educated guess that in Pantheon it will be the same or better .