Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Cost Progression

    • 259 posts
    July 26, 2018 1:01 PM PDT

    While Blacksmithing this week in P99/EQ I hit a major roadblock that I feel should never happen in Tradeskills. The cost of the tradeskill materials increased so dramatically that adventuring will not cover that cost anymore.

    My character is just a little under level 200 and has moved into the next phase of armor type. Keep in mind that these are still just basic recipes, nothing Imbued, Enchanted or Rare. This includes the new mold’s and a new type of ore. The adventuring to tradeskill cost ratio seems to have leaned away from crafting.

    My Cleric is level 40 now but the currency I bring in on normal adventuring and grouping just isn’t enough to cover the higher cost of materials. The choices left to me at this point are to put crafting on the back burner for awhile to save up enough coins to continue, or to stop adventuring and grouping and do nothing else except farming for more coins. I don’t like the idea of the second choice at all.

    It is my opinion that the progression of materials cost should flow along with the amount of money you are gathering during your normal adventuring time. The higher end game recipes and materials should absolutely be very hard to find and gather. We need that challenge, but not for basic recipes, items and materials. I feel that these should progress steadily with adventuring.

    What is your opinion on the cost progression of tradeskills to adventuring?

    • 1315 posts
    July 26, 2018 5:06 PM PDT

    Crafting in P99 Era in EQ1 was never intended to be an adventuring experience, it was a passion that you poured resources into but never really made any out of like owning a sail boat (sorry Brad if this is not actually true and just how it ended up working out). All of the trade skills either hit a massive cost wall or a super tedious mat farming wall about the 200 mark where you needed to either devote an unbalanced amount of time or a financially destructive amount of money to progress further. Worse still, before Velious and after you were out of Banded or Cured silk there was virtually nothing that could compete with the drops you could get just by playing so the time and money went absolutely no where other than personal pride.

    I very much hope that crafting will have a system that virtually can stand alone from the adventuring progression. That being said the time and effort to max your character class level should also be about the amount of time and effort required to max your crafting class level.

     

    • 1785 posts
    July 26, 2018 6:01 PM PDT

    What Trasak said.  1999 era EQ crafting was set up as a very crude money sink, with mixed results, at least in practice.  I'm sure the developers at the time thought it would work out better than it did.

    The reality is that creating a system where crafters need to pay in-game cash to NPCs in order to craft doesn't work.  At best, they will just pass that cost onto the people they sell to, and while it will act as a money sink on the economy, it will create ill will between crafters and adventurers.  At worst, it will act as a barrier to entry, and new players simply won't even try to craft because "it's just for rich people to do".

    The right way to set up the economy, in my opinion, is this:

    - Crafting materials are sourced from adventurers as well as normal gathering.  Crafters should have to purchase things from adventurers periodically in order to produce goods which they then sell or use.

    - Crafted items should be desirable and equivalent to loot.  Not necessarily replacing loot, but standing beside it so that people have more options available.

    By ensuring that both sides need each other, it helps create a cyclical flow of goods in the economy.  Money sinks can and should be implemented on both sides equally.  For example, costs to repair equipment, or transaction fees for selling via the game's market systems, or even just costs to learn new recipes/spells/abilities.

    Since I'm voicing my opinion, here are some other things that damage or stunt a game economy in the long run, create barriers to entry, or only serve to divide players and create resentment:

    - Augmentation systems that apply to looted items.

    - Re-crafting systems that further empower looted items.

    - Differing levels of quality in crafted items that are determined solely by RNG.

    - Economies that have no mechanism for pulling items out of the economy.

    - Unlimited secondary markets.

    - Global consignment-based market systems (auction houses)

    • 768 posts
    July 26, 2018 10:32 PM PDT

    For those that solely want to craft, they will come to a stage where they will heavely depend on what the adventurer has to offer after his venture into the world. 

    There are ways around it, but I don't know if this game is going to that length. For example if you're able to have a farm and raise crops and livestock or plant vegetation. Or if the harvestable nodes are within "safe" distance for a craftsmen to gather. One could invent a larger or silent gatheringsickle or with larger range. This would allow crafters to continue harvesting and collecting without having to rely on adventurers to kill/clear the area before they can harvest productively. 

    When it comes to drops coming from mobs, one could implement the chance of finding rares in regular nodes. Just as long as you make it rare enough that there is no chance you'll hit the market with a full stack of it. This could serve as leverage for those bodydrops that only adventurers would supply. I must stress that this is a very dangerous balancing act. Go either way too far and you make the other redundant and there is hardly a way coming back from that, other than a clear cut at next expansion.

    About the reasoning behind making crafters pay for recipes and basic fuels, it does make sense for me that the higher you level up, the more expensive it gets. Those master dwarfs are not giving away their most precious recipes so eagerly. If you are their friend, you'll still need to pay up big time for their secrets. 

    If a crafter's sole occupation is crafting and he's broke so he can't effort to pay the next tier recipes. Perhaps that crafter is doing something wrong or if he's a no charge kind of guy, he might look towards those friends he crafter for to lend him a hand with the expenses. However if that crafter is also an adventurer, which is the case most of the time. He'll need to equip himself to level up equally to his craft if he wants to prevent himself from being unbalanced with his adventure and crafting levels. Or surround himself with wealthy high content friends.

    I'm not saying, here's the next expansion now the common recipes cost 1K more than previous one. It goes without saying that those things should be balanced, but yes I expect them to be sustantially more expensive. If you just make them 1 gold more expensive, the crafting content will be consumed in too quick a pace. Leaving the crafters no challenge nor sense of progression either. If you have a shop and want to expand (read if you are maxed out and start the next expac/with new recipes), you'll want to safe up some money and look for a place that offers more sellingspace. Makes sense?

    • 168 posts
    July 28, 2018 9:18 AM PDT

    Barin999 said:

    For those that solely want to craft, they will come to a stage where they will heavely depend on what the adventurer has to offer after his venture into the world. 

    There are ways around it, but I don't know if this game is going to that length.

    I seem to recall one of the streams mentioning this subject. Not sure that it was Bazgrim's crafting stream though. If I recall correctly, it was mentioned that if all you wanted to do is make a level 1 crafter and max out crafting, it would be possible.

    As far as the word "community" goes. That word is rapidly comming to the point of being over-utilized in the same way as people that don't like doing things one way or the other use the word "immersion" ..immersion killing specifically. What do I mean? Most days that I log into games, I need to be surrounded by fellow players and doing things and activities with the guild or even non-guild server folks; Community. Then there are those very very few days where I log in to escape RL and cannot muster the necessary civility to interact with folks in a nice way(fair odds of a reputation hit), I need some things in game that are completely soloable. I have used crafting/harvesting for this purpose in years past. I would rather not see the "community" concept forced into 100% of everything in the game, 90% of the game is enough IMO, and maybe up to 50% forced within crafting.

    • 24 posts
    August 15, 2018 9:26 AM PDT

    that is true Dashed, and i believe it was Bazgrim's but i could be wrong. and i do agree with being able to go to max level crafting as a level 1 adventurer. however, the method in which you'd acquire your resources would become troublesome. more then likely the resources would be too hard for you to acquire due to dragons one shotting you and having a 100 foot agro radius due to you being so horribly under leveled. but this wouldn;t stop you from buying ores and what not from the marketplace, from the profits you got from selling other goods. however this leaves a huge reliability on market stability which in the long run will not happen. A great example of this is WoW how a Copper chest plate is dirt cheap because any mob you kill can drop something better then a copper chestplate at level 10. but a single copper ore on the market now goes for almost as much as a ore found in a level 80+ area. the market became where you can almost trade any ores for 1 to 1. which is convinient for already high level adventurer's, but completely screws new players that would want to level just crafting. the only way i could see around this is having your levels in something comparable to a "stance" where in Combat Stance, it registeres you as your adventure level, and your Crafting Stance, register's you as your crafting level in terms of aggro. some people might say this could be used to access levels higher then you should be able to get to as an adventurer, but in my opinion as long as the levels could potentially be leveled at the same pace regardless of what your choice is then treat levels as levels, regardless of how that player chose to spend thier time. also Dashed, check out my post about crafting Interdependancy.