Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Harvesting - All skills available

    • 511 posts
    April 13, 2017 1:35 AM PDT

    I am not sure how I feel about this. The fact that everyone can have every harvesting ability eliminates a good portion of what made harvesting in VG such a good system. When a crafter has to work with a miner, and a woodcutter, and someone with cloth etc it creates a better economy then that same crafter being able to do it all themselves.

    I would like to see a modified system. Maybe everyone can get the first rank of all harvesting skills, but in order to get the rares you have to specialize and you can only specialize into one area. That way everyone has basic access to all harvesting but you have to specialize to get the good stuff that you need to make the rare goods.

    While I have never been big into crafting I really enjoyed harvesting and forged many great relationships with high end crafters as they knew I always had stuff in stock or could get it quickly. I worry that the current system will allow crafters to skip that integral part of a strong economy.

    Your thoughts?

     

    • 120 posts
    April 13, 2017 2:44 AM PDT

    I mostly agree with you, and I trust VR to make a good, educated decision, perhaps even tweaking the system based on our feedback in alpha.

    I think it makes sense and is neat for everyone to be able to gather most things. I know some people get triggered by the real world example, but in real life, if I see a plant, I can pick it. I don't have to really learn how to first. If I see a tree, I can grab a big axe and start chopping away.

    Now on the other hand, when I pick that plant, if I'm not educated, there's a good chance I'm going to damage it, or not understand that the roots are the useful part, not the leaves, or some such thing that essentially makes me less good at picking plants than someone who was trained. And if I have no knowledge of how to cut logs, then I'm probably going to get a really rough cut, or not even be strong enough to cut the whole thing and therefore only get a partial yield.

    I think I'd like to see the system where everyone can harvest, but not everyone is equally skilled, and training in the skill makes you much better at it. Potentially even with specializations so that you can't just master all of the harvesting professions.

    • 1468 posts
    April 13, 2017 3:22 AM PDT

    I'm more of a crafter than a harvester. I personally prefer to pay someone else to do the work for me (if I have the money available of course) but I can see where you are coming from. A skilled gatherer should be able to get increased yields than an unskilled gatherer.

    Rather than having a gathering class system like in Vanguard what about having a skill system for all the different gathering skills so if you wanted to pick flowers mainly you'd have to practice picking flowers and if you wanted to cut down trees you'd have to conecentrate on cutting down trees. But if you exceeded say a skill of 50 in any gathering role the maximum skill you could get in other gathering skills would be 50 (50 is just a number I pulled out of my arse it could be anything). That way you'd have one gathering skill you were excellent at and the rest of the gathering skills you would only be good at.

    Thus crafters would have to go and look for the players that are rated as excellent in the right gathering skills to get the really good ingredients. Of course if they were just making a low level item then any gatherer could do the job.

    That would make it really easy to make low level items and would basically have a gathering class system for really high level items. How about something like that?

    • 112 posts
    April 13, 2017 6:13 AM PDT

    As a crafter I admit to being biased toward allowing all harvesting.  Nothing worse than needing that one minor component to complete your work, it's right there you can see it, but don't have the skill to harvest it. Now I have to wait until my guildmate logs on to grab it for me.  I see your point though and would not be opposed to limitations.  

    I especially like the idea of having a specialization for one type of harvestable that allows for greater yield and increased chance for a rare drop.  This would fit into a crafters mindset.  I am mostly dealing with metal so I would specialize in that, but my recipes will certainly require leatherworks, lubricants, and other compenents.  Even thoguh I could gather some basic materials myself it would be easier to get them off of someone else.  

    It seems like they are going to rely on the accessibility of harvestables based on ecology and faction. In the silvered longsword example, let's say that silver is mainly found in the elven lands, but the wererat  problem is happening in the human territory.  It would be difficult for a local crafter to gather the silver himself he would most likely rely on a supply runner who had good faction with the elves to keep a constant supply flowing.  This type of partnership would be further enhanced by the fact that there will be no global auction house so no way to bypass physically moving materials across zones.  All this requires the dev team to strategically plan resource and recipe availability.

    Crafting/harvesting always evolves during alpha, I am sure the team will be watching the market to see if it gets flooded with materials and make corrections accordingly.

     

    • 1921 posts
    April 13, 2017 8:10 AM PDT

    If they require specialization for harvesting and/or crafting, I won't use those systems.  I'll just pay someone else for finished goods on a saturated market.

    If they allowed everyone to harvest and craft, without specialization?  I might consider it.  But what's been outlined so far?  Nope.  Not for me.

    Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt, won't be doing it again.  All specialization does is encourage mutli-account crafting, which turns a potential fun mechanic / massive time sink into a "I have more RL money, so I will buy 14+ accounts" mechanic, which I won't participate in.

    Many other MMO's with more than 10k subs have permitted a single character to harvest and craft anything/everything, without the need for specialization, so if I want to craft, I'll just play those.  In Pantheon, no crafting/harvesting for me. :)

    It's great to see this information revealed so far in advance, as now I can focus purely on combat, classes, and skills/spells.

    • 3852 posts
    April 13, 2017 8:21 AM PDT

    I am the opposite of Cromulent. I craft but harvesting is my real love - I am more of a harvester than a crafter.

    My two guiding principles in terms of what I want from Pantheon above and beyond the basics (grouping encouraged, slow leveling etc) are reasons to have "alts" and things to do when one can't group or simply isn't in the mood.

    The preference for alts is partly from bias (toonlings are so cute) but at least as much out of belief it is good for any MMO. Frequent creation of new characters benefits the game by keeping starting areas busy and giving people who have done all they want to do with their "main" happy and busy (translation - paying). It can generate direct revenue if a game charges for extra character slots (few if any of us want an in-game store or a free play model but a larger number can tolerate VR charging for ancillary services such as character slots, server transfers and the like that do not make the game "pay to win").

    The relevence here is that crafting and harvesting limitations encourage creation of new characters. For crafting, specialization is the obvious mechanism. For harvesting one common approach is to limit the number of skills any character can have. This can be a limit on total number or a limit to one crafting skill and one harvesting skill or whatever other number of skills VR picks.

    Somewhat more complicated would be to have a specialization system for harvesting, and if VR adopts one for crafting as I hope they will this becomes even more desirable. If consistancy is the hobgoblin of small minds, my mind isn't all that large I tend to prefer consistancy.

    Let us assume three harvesting skills (not a preference or request just an assumption) such as botany, mining and skinning with one specialization allowed. Assume I pick skinning to specialize in. This can work in a number of ways. Presumably I can skin any skinnable carcass but:

    1.  I can only harvest relatively low level ores and plants, OR

    2.  I get fewer materials from an ore or plant, OR

    3.  I get no rares from an ore or plant, OR

    4.  I get no ultrarares (reference to the Vanguard system of harvesting) from an ore or plant, OR

    5.  I cannot harvest the highest level ore or plant, OR

    6.  I skin much faster than a non-specialist, OR ...well enough choices

    Any of these will encourage the dedicated crafter or harvester to have "alts" which is what I think is good for the game.

    • 201 posts
    April 13, 2017 8:52 AM PDT

    I would be fine with a system where you can get say, 2 harvesting skills or so instead of all of them.  Personally, I think limiting harvesting is not a terrible idea also, but I don't mind having to buy or trade with other people.  Also, maybe a system where, instead of crafting you can choose more harvesting?  Say you do not want to craft at all, so instead of ANY crafting skill, you can have all harvesting skills?  or 4 out of 5?  So you can pick 1 craft, 1 secondary craft and 2 harvesting, or 4 harvesting?  Just ideas.  Getting all harvesting is convenient and all, but if everyone can do all of them, then why not just call the skill Harvesting, and have it apply to wood, ore, plants, etc?  No reason to differentiate if you are giving everyone everything.

    • 69 posts
    April 13, 2017 9:29 AM PDT

    I know we are talking about harvesting in the OP, but I would like to share that EQ1 made all tradeskills available to everyone up to skill level 100. The first TS you raised above that would be your "specialization." Then through AAs you can raise extra one up, and then raise your main way, etc. I thought this kind of system was fine. It allowed me to get basic materials and receipes my main skill needed without having to find a Master Blacksmith to make me a basic fork for cooking, etc.

    Would this kind of system abate your frustration. if lets say you can raise one skill to (making up numbers here) 300, one to 200, and all the rest to 100?

    Personally, I am in favor of VR's presented way. I think they are spot on with their logic for gathering. I will admit that I dont go crazy on crafting like I do other parts of my MMO experience, but this system seems well thought out and more game-practical, so I am looking forward to this.

    • 1618 posts
    April 13, 2017 9:53 AM PDT

    I like how they have it. Everybody can harvest it all, but crafting is limited.

    This allows those that don't want to craft be able to supply us all. 

    Plus, I can now harvest everything,  not just what I need and sell/trade the other mats I don't need. Have to support my crafting habit somehow.

    The more people can harvest what I need, the cheaper it will be for me.

    • 105 posts
    April 13, 2017 9:57 AM PDT

    Temmi said:

    I mostly agree with you, and I trust VR to make a good, educated decision, perhaps even tweaking the system based on our feedback in alpha.

    I think it makes sense and is neat for everyone to be able to gather most things. I know some people get triggered by the real world example, but in real life, if I see a plant, I can pick it. I don't have to really learn how to first. If I see a tree, I can grab a big axe and start chopping away.

    Now on the other hand, when I pick that plant, if I'm not educated, there's a good chance I'm going to damage it, or not understand that the roots are the useful part, not the leaves, or some such thing that essentially makes me less good at picking plants than someone who was trained. And if I have no knowledge of how to cut logs, then I'm probably going to get a really rough cut, or not even be strong enough to cut the whole thing and therefore only get a partial yield.

    I think I'd like to see the system where everyone can harvest, but not everyone is equally skilled, and training in the skill makes you much better at it. Potentially even with specializations so that you can't just master all of the harvesting professions.



    You pretty much spot on described how we felt with regards to the real world examples, and that skill/knowledge will yield better results. Specialization for Harvesting is something we hadn't considered as of yet, but that might not be a bad idea. I think we'll wait until we're further down the track and see how that could play out.

    Having better or different tools to use on nodes will also affect the items you're likely to find when interacting with Harvesting nodes. Some will require specialized tools to interact with as well, but we'll talk more in depth about that soon ;)

    As with everything though, we will be looking for feedback during testing. Much of what we've discussed in the past and down the track is potentially subject to change.

    • 3852 posts
    April 13, 2017 10:05 AM PDT

    >Having better or different tools to use on nodes will also affect the items you're likely to find when interacting with Harvesting nodes. Some will require specialized tools to interact with as well, but we'll talk more in depth about that soon ;)<

     

    Harvesting tools as in Vanguard. Presumably made by crafters. YES!!!!!

    • 105 posts
    April 13, 2017 10:14 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    Presumably made by crafters. YES!!!!!



    https://giphy.com/gifs/loop-enthusiasm-9E5wP1RiPvnos

    • 511 posts
    April 13, 2017 10:26 AM PDT

    Yes I would like to see some system where either you can still learn all the basic harvesting skills but in order to get higher yelds, get rares, epics, legendary what not, you have to choose which one you want it in. Either do this through skill caps, gear liek Pickaxes that can only be welded from people that specialized in that skill etc.

    And to Vjek, I think your claiming the sky is falling. Sure their are some people that rather then trade with someone that has the goods already  or cna go get them they will make one toon for each crafting specilization and then one for each harvesting and do it that way. However for them to do this takes longer then if they just traded to for it in the first place so it is a trade off of get it down or spend the hours getting a new toon up to where she/he can harvest/craft what you need. Also it does not require having 14 accounts unless VR plans on limiting it to 1 toon per account...

    • 483 posts
    April 13, 2017 10:30 AM PDT

    @Dreconic

    I am not sure how I feel about this. The fact that everyone can have every harvesting ability eliminates a good portion of what made harvesting in VG such a good system. When a crafter has to work with a miner, and a woodcutter, and someone with cloth etc it creates a better economy then that same crafter being able to do it all themselves.

    I would like to see a modified system. Maybe everyone can get the first rank of all harvesting skills, but in order to get the rares you have to specialize and you can only specialize into one area. That way everyone has basic access to all harvesting but you have to specialize to get the good stuff that you need to make the rare goods.

    While I have never been big into crafting I really enjoyed harvesting and forged many great relationships with high end crafters as they knew I always had stuff in stock or could get it quickly. I worry that the current system will allow crafters to skip that integral part of a strong economy.

    Your thoughts?

     ___

     

    I like your idea, giving everyone the ability to harvest the lower tier mats is awesome, But if you want to harvest the good rare materials you need a certain level of experience and you can only spec into 1 path.

    • 28 posts
    April 13, 2017 1:11 PM PDT

    As an avid crafter since EQ1 I actually think letting everyone do harvesting is the best way to go.  Yes it does mean some crazy crafters will go harvest all their own components but with the alternative of salvaging gear allowing for people to get components it doesn't make sense to limit harvesting.  Plus I don't know a single crafter that hasn't opted to buy mats from a person who loves to harvest over going out to do the harvesting themselves.

    Back in the early days of EQ1 it was very common to have crafters sit around in a zone that would drop a mat they needed and offer a piece of crafted gear for enough mats to make 2 or 3 more combines on that piece of armor.  If you were lucky you walked away with as many of the crafted gear as you had when you started + a few skill ups.  This method worked out great for everyone, the people killing stuff were still getting XP instead of not being able to get mobs cause some random high level had the area on lock down and I was able to work on my skill ups while waiting for the next person to run over with the mats.

    I really don't see that allowing everyone to do every type of harvesting will take away from the community.  Even just in this thread there are people who have said they'll go harvest but won't craft and as a crafter I appreciate those people because the time it takes to harvest can be PAINFUL when I only get a couple hours a day to play.  I don't want to spend it harvesting for the components I want to spend it crafting or leveling.  There may be days I want to go harvest but most of the time I'd rather find some other way to get supplies and I know many other crafters from other games that felt the same.

    • 72 posts
    April 13, 2017 3:18 PM PDT

    From a logical and realistic standpoint, being able to harvest -almost- anything makes sense.  I can try to harvest a flower common for it's medicimal purpose with my own hands, then attempt to hack down a fragil type of tree for it's easily etched surface for an intricate design; but this does not mean that I'll do a good job at either.  I'll probably tear the flower to peices while pulling it out from the roots while damaging the wood as I hack away at the tree's trunk senselessly with a rusty, poor-quality axe for the first time.  Clearly, I have 1 skill for both and have no clue what I'm doing *haha*.  However, there would be nothing stopping me from commiting to these sorts of activities. 

    There is, however, another layer of depth to all this.  Will a Crafting involve part processing?  If so, then crafting will still have a sense of depth which requires interaction among all crafters to create a finished product.

    Then as other's have mentioned, there is also the implimentation of skill limitations on harvesting, similar to how Vangard handled weapon proficiencies initially.  You had only so many points you could use to develop a weapon skill set.  Final Fantasy XI had a similar system for crafting/harvesting, before they broke the level 75 limit.  You were given 150 points to skill up certain trades and harvesting abilities, which ment that you could completly specialize one tradeskill to the cap of 100, then distribute the rest of the skill points into a secondary.  You could also distribute these points into various catagories to create a variety of tradeskill specializations as well.   However, that game did not have a tiered system based on 10's of levels.  Every harvest item was valuable across all levels, making all content and areas valuable throughout the game's lifespan.  This also ment that a low skilled tradescrafter could contribute something to players of all levels and interests. For example, A low level alchemist might craft a resin that might be used by a higher skilled carpenter to make a higher level bow or even a house item, etc.


    This post was edited by Farrinard at April 13, 2017 3:44 PM PDT
    • 26 posts
    April 13, 2017 5:13 PM PDT

    I'm pretty indifferent about "who" can harvest. I (and VR should) care more about the crafting economy as a whole.

    In a healthy crafting economy, the sum of the market value of the raw materials should always be less than the market value of ANY item created from those materials. I.e. the market value of a fork should always be higher than the market cost of the iron ore + coal needed to craft it.

    Usually, games sabotage the crafter economy with 2 compounding issues:

    1. A high amount of mats per craft artificially inflates demand on gatherable mats.
    2. A high number of crafts per skill-up multiplies the effect of issue 1 and artificially increases the supply of the resulting craftables.

    While it won't fix 1 or 2, having everyone able to gather may help increase material supply to fight potentially poor design in the greater item economy.

    • 72 posts
    April 13, 2017 6:10 PM PDT

    vladrynne said:

    In a healthy crafting economy, the sum of the market value of the raw materials should always be less than the market value of ANY item created from those materials. I.e. the market value of a fork should always be higher than the market cost of the iron ore + coal needed to craft it.

    I know this pain all too well.  Basicly, the cost to craft an item outweighs the value of the item you craft.  I assume this results from difficulty in obtaining said components, and higher levels attempting to make developing your own craft a a more difficult process.  Then there's also the Gold/plat farmers who also are 3rd party employed to make the obtainment of monitary gains and crafting an absolute drugery, since their desire is to 'entice' you towards purchasing their own farmed game money for real life cash.  So many companies have destroyed their own economy and their crafting systems to combat this issue.  

    • 201 posts
    April 13, 2017 6:41 PM PDT

    I think a system where everyone can gather but only specialize in gathering one or two things makes sense also.  So, if you are a master at mining things, it stands to reason that you are not also a master at skinning an animal...so you can get rare and ultra rare materials from mining ore, but when you skin, all you can get is the basic leather, nothing rare.  Now, theoretically, the basic leather should still be the most needed item for most people to level their skill, and to produce basic materials for other crafters and crafts, and this should keep the supply for basic materials up, while keeping rarer stuff rarer.

    • 511 posts
    April 13, 2017 10:57 PM PDT

    Farrinard said:

    vladrynne said:

    In a healthy crafting economy, the sum of the market value of the raw materials should always be less than the market value of ANY item created from those materials. I.e. the market value of a fork should always be higher than the market cost of the iron ore + coal needed to craft it.

    I know this pain all too well.  Basicly, the cost to craft an item outweighs the value of the item you craft.  I assume this results from difficulty in obtaining said components, and higher levels attempting to make developing your own craft a a more difficult process.  Then there's also the Gold/plat farmers who also are 3rd party employed to make the obtainment of monitary gains and crafting an absolute drugery, since their desire is to 'entice' you towards purchasing their own farmed game money for real life cash.  So many companies have destroyed their own economy and their crafting systems to combat this issue.  

    I always thought that goods crafted just for skill ups (Say forks) should craft at an over all deficet to the crafter unless they went out and harvested the metal for themselves. But, that the cost of making an armor would be greater (and require far mroe raw materials) as it has the greater potential to sell for more.

    I have also been in games where even basic armor is sooo expensive to buy as someone who does not like to craft not because resources are scarce but because only a limited number of people even make said armor. In this situation crafters have even come together to artificially raise prices becuase they can go out and just harvest what ever they want and thus control the full process.

    • 1584 posts
    April 17, 2017 12:41 PM PDT

    The harvesting thing isnt much different than EQ1 really just easier, instead of killing mobs in zone that might drop components for other tradeskills, you are just being in a particular area in a zone or what not and picking/mining/skinning these items for yourself or for another tradeskiller.  But i do hope that the more specialize craftable items are a little bit more drop specific items than harvesting cept for maybe the raw mats.


    This post was edited by Cealtric at April 17, 2017 12:44 PM PDT