Goblin Squad Member
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From the third GW blog entry (a few paragraphs below the class list):
While we've focused somewhat on adventurers in this blog, it is our intention to give other types of characters similar goals and objectives—and similar rewards. If you choose to focus on crafting, you should be able to become an epic crafter with the perks and recognition due such a character. As development proceeds, we'll share more of our ideas about that with the community, and we'll get your feedback as we shape those plans.
I think they have it planned, they just haven't spelled it out in as much detail yet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The game seeks to capture the flavor of Pathfinder, the archetypes are part of this flavor, you don't need to invest into the archetypes to advance things like crafting. You are just at a disadvantage to go do things on your own, you either have to buy, or pay people to guard you at resources.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wasn't this idea presented and subsequently abandoned in several other MMORPG's during development due to lack of interest or presumed nonviability of pure crafters?
Only in themepark mmo's and failed sandbox titles. If you look at the most successful sandbox mmo's you will find crafting as a main profession very viable and popular.
Sandbox mmo's that focus on non-combat and PvE features historically do very well, the ones that focus primarly on combat and PvP don't.
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Goblin Squad Member
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PFO will be a sandbox game where you train individual skills rather than progress along predefined classes. However, class 'merit badges' and capstone abilities have been mentioned as an incentive for players to specialize along traditional archetypes rather than only jacks-of-all-trades.
Each "combat class" then corresponds a certain combination of skills,
ie Fighters train weapons, armors, endurance and a wide range of attack and defense techniques. Rangers train perception, survival, tracking and weapon skills. You should be able to focus on a single skill (ie only archery or only tracking), but in order to unlock syneregies ('level up') you need progress in the right combinations,
Crafting skills on the other hand I assume will be just standalone skills, although there could/should be merit badges for certain combinations (bowyer+archer, alchemist+transmuter, maybe some survival/perception+harvesting combos too).
'Pure crafter builds' is as simple as spending your precious training time on (one or more) crafting skills rather than combat skills.
The question raised is: is a 'pure crafter' better off if he focuses on survivability first and crafting second?
By the information we have so far, the answer seems to be: resource gathering is risky, if you plan to go solo then focus on survival. But a superspecialised crafter could live very well in a guild (or party) willing to escort him when needed.
However much is unknown, and we may yet end up with a system where there's little point in being a superspecialist crafter unless you are on of the two best on the server.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@randomwalker resource gathering will be risky only if you plan on going into the high risk/high reward areas. There should be no serious issues gathering at a more gradual pace near town.
From the whispers in various guilds so far, it sounds like people are expecting to find players wanting to gather and/or craft and protect and nurture them into an exclusive gatherer/crafter/builder for their guild, rather than a pay per trip into the wilds basis.
@randomwalker, I understood the dev blogs entire differently because they mention warning you if you train outside your achetype. I take this to mean that all skills are ultimately available to everyone, it's just that you declare an archetype and receive its capstone should I stick to only it. The blogs even mention training other paths after you hit "20" in a particular archetype.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@randomwalker, I understood the dev blogs entire differently because they mention warning you if you train outside your achetype. I take this to mean that all skills are ultimately available to everyone, it's just that you declare an archetype and receive its capstone should I stick to only it. The blogs even mention training other paths after you hit "20" in a particular archetype.
Wrong capstones specifically a lack of a capstone for switching from one archtype to another. They also have mentioned that not all skills will be tied to an archtype, and basically every skill that isn't tied to an archtype is safe to train whenever you qualify for them without harming your capstone.
I think you're only remembering half of the blog.
We also wanted to capture the idea from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that dedication to one path would have additional benefits. Therefore, if your character chooses to stay committed to one of these archetypes until it has achieved all 20 archetype merit badges, your character will earn an additional capstone ability! (A character can train in many other skills outside of their archetype skill tree and still progress towards the capstone ability—they just need to avoid training in the skill tree of a different archtype. Don't worry—if you accidentally start to train a skill tree outside your archetype, you'll be warned, the consequences will be explained, and you'll have a chance to change that decision before it's irrevocable!)
Of course, if you decide that it would be more interesting or fun for your character to training in the skills of more than one archetype, you'll still earn the appropriate class-type bonuses when you meet the prerequisites—you just won't be eligible for the final special capstone ability when you achieve the 20th merit badge in that archetype.
That reads to me like everything is available. You declare your archetype. But, even if you're a wizard you can train a "barbarian" skill, you just lose the ability to gain the wizard capstone. You're warned before you do this, as mentioned, but I don't think you'll lose your progression in the wizard archetype. Otherwise, if you did and you're now a barbarian only then you'd qualify for the barbarian capstone but that's explicitly not an option per the blog.
I think this is even more true with the games heavy leanings towards Eve Online. In that game, all base skills are available at the onset regardless of what character you choose to play. In order to get what are called certificates, you need to train certain skills. These don't give you a stat bonus in Eve but they can help skill planning as ships have a "recommended" cert plan to be able to pilot it efficiently even though you can actually fly the ship well before you have the suggested certs. Now, you can train anything you want but you won't get those certs until you train the requisite skills.
You're correct that there are certain non-archetype skills available to everyone without fear of endangering their capstone ability. But I think it will be more Eve-like in that everything is available to everyone (all the basic, low-level skills for each archetype are available at all times that let you train up that tree should you so desire). The divergence is that the merit badges in PFO will award a mechanical bonus whereas Eve's certificates do not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Buri et al,
as I read it (warning: I am not infallible), the situation is:
-For my wizard to get wizard levels/merit badges, I need to fulfill all criteria for Wiz1, then Wiz2 etc.
-I can thus train my wizard in _some_ barbarian skills without getting a barabarian level/merit badge. It is only when I fullfill _all_ the criteria for Brb1 that I become one. (note, some of these criteria may be either/or criteria).
-I can for sure train my wizard in any and all crafting skills without getting any non-wizard merit badge. (BECAUSE there is no crafter class)
-Assuming the class merit badges unlock powerful advantages, the fastest way to power up is by focusing in a single class. However you can still customise yourself with 'cross-class' skills such as crafting skills. My wizard could train polearms, stealth, healing and carpentry and remain a single-class wizard (but would be reaching lvl 20 quite a bit slower due to spreading out).
in short, Buri has it right in the previous post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I am leveling as a Wizard, and have not yet reached my Capstone (or my 20th Merit Badge, more likely), then as soon as I train a skill from another Archetype, I will no longer be eligible for my Wizard Capstone. It doesn't matter (as currently envisioned) if I don't get a Merit Badge in the other Archetype, all that matters is training the skill.
So, in order to get my Wizard Capstone, I will have to get 20 consecutive Merit Badges in Wizard, during which time I will only be able to train Skills from the Wizard Archetype list or from non-Archetype lists.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon's got this one right. It says as soon as you start training in another archetype's skill tree the decision will be "irrevokable" after you are warned. As a wizard you must progress only in your archetype's skill tree to gain wizard merit badges. If you train outside of your skill tree, the skills you train cannot be listed in another archetype's tree. If stealth happens to be one of those then yes you can have stealth, but I'm pretty sure wizards won't be able to use polearms or heal outside of cross-arhcetyping, or crafting potions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(A character can train in many other skills outside of their archetype skill tree and still progress towards the capstone ability—they just need to avoid training in the skill tree of a different archtype. Don't worry—if you accidentally start to train a skill tree outside your archetype, you'll be warned, the consequences will be explained, and you'll have a chance to change that decision before it's irrevocable!)
I read "skill tree of a different archetype" as meaning "all the skills you need to get a capstone in that archatype". If you read it as meaning "any of the skills..." then you are of course correct.
My interpretation is based on the logic that a wizard with healing and polearm skills (but no divine casting or armor training) isn't a wizard/cleric, wizard/paladin or other multiclass, and is therefore still eligible for the single class wizard capstone. (In pnp I can obviously invest in healing skill and martial proficiency on a pure wizard).
In any case, we have been promised an in-game warning (which i'm likely to ignore) once we start to stray, so noone will suffer because of misinterpretation of the system.
to OP: Crafting and harvesting skills are anyway not going to be in any class skill tree, so that any combination of crafter/adventurer is still feasible.
I think PFO could benefit from an artificer-style class that focuses on item creation with some combat utility. Having a generalist crafter class that players could use to specialize in various crafts, while maintaining survivability when scouting or defending harvestable nodes, would be a boon to the gaming community. It would also mean item creation specialists, if that is all they wish to pursue, have a capstone ability waiting to reward them for sticking to their class for 20 levels. I could see such a class creating temporary items in the field, repairing/enchanting items in the field (maybe even when engaged in combat), and finding/harvesting resources much quicker than standard classes.
If they also had the ability to specialize in various forms of magic item creation, I believe it would provide a legitimate choice for player characters that does not overshadow existing classes but also fills its own nitch.
Just saying.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The trick about an Artificer-type class is that you can't really put anything exclusive in it, or all of the Wizards, Monks, Rangers, etc. who want to craft are going to be very upset.
Personally, rather than focusing on an entirely new Class, I would really like to see them make all of the Alternate Archetypes available. I've been utterly enthralled with the idea of an Elf Wizard specializing in Divination with the Scroll Scholar alternate archetype, with Necromancy and either Evocation or Enchantment as opposition schools. I would prefer it if I could make Fireball an opposition school spell without also making Light the same.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd think that having the apprentice (laborer) level skills and abilities available to all classes, and master level skills available for the crafter class would be appropriate. Not sure which side of the divide journeyman skills go.
The wizards, monks, etc, can decide if they want to pursue mastery of their own field and get the capstone, or branch into the hidden secrets of the crafting class for those benefits. It's the same decision they must make with respect to any other class.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be quite disappointed if I either had to abandon any hope of getting my Wizard Capstone, or to wait 2 and 1/2 years to become better than an Apprentice crafter. I don't think I'm alone in that.
I don't believe GW will create classes for Crafting and Harvesting that make it difficult or painful for characters to also be Adventurers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the third blog entry:
While we've focused somewhat on adventurers in this blog, it is our intention to give other types of characters similar goals and objectives—and similar rewards. If you choose to focus on crafting, you should be able to become an epic crafter with the perks and recognition due such a character. As development proceeds, we'll share more of our ideas about that with the community, and we'll get your feedback as we shape those plans.
I think that there's a number of ways that they can do it, but from that paragraph, I'd think that epic crafters might have to focus on their craft. It might be possible in parallel, but that could still mean that a single-track mage will reach capstone long before a mage-crafter split-track.
It's certainly not set in stone at this point, according to the paragraph.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since you can only train one skill at a time, there is no way to reach epic crafting skill without focusing on it.
The balancing act is how many crafting skills vs adventuring skills, and what level you need them to be to become 'epic'.
Say reaching fighter lvl 20 requires 12 months of skill training and epic weaponsmithing requires 6 months: any fighter aiming to be master weaponsmith in the first year will have to sacrifice a lot of adventuring skill for it. When you finally reach the fighter capstone, the other guys from your batch will have reached the teen levels in their second class.
Whether you focus on crafting first or a balanced progression, the opportunity cost is the same. To me, reaching the capstone 6 months after your buddies is a serious sacrifice, 1 month after is an inconvenience, and 3 months after feels right to me.
The formulation "with the perks and recognition due to such a character" only means that they will try to make it worth the investment, which they can do for example by having craftable items be the most powerful in the game.
In any case, I expect most of the pure crafters will be alts of people paying to level two characters (or multiboxing). As a generalist type player, I hope they also make it worthwhile to be non-epic crafters.
Item Creation feats (in PnP) can be taken by anyone with spellcasting ability of the appropriate level and those with a high enough skill rank in specific crafting skills. If an Artificer-esk class cannot be brought to the table, I would at least like to see crafting/item creation feats available to any character class that qualifies.
One advantage magic-using classes will probably have is the ability to craft more diverse magical items without special assistance. That being said, I would love for a non-magic user to be able to forge magic items if they have the appropriate skills and access to a spellcasting ally or scroll of a necessary spell.
I'm still pushing for an Artificer who could fill the nitch between rogue (trapfinding/trap sense, use magic device) wizard (a number of prepared temporary item enchantments) and crafting specialist (gain the benefit of all item creation feats/merit badges at or close to the level you could gain access to them).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pheoran Armiez, I think I was probably talking right past you. I see now that you're coming from a perspective much closer to the PnP game, with which I have only recent familiarity.
When you talk about the Artificer class, there are probably a lot of implications that are clear in your mind, but which I don't have the slightest clue about.
My desire is that the Crafting classes be completely separate from the Adventuring classes, so that I can advance in both simultaneously with no penalty (like losing out on an Adventuring class Capstone).
I would be quite disappointed if there was an Artificer class that gave significant bonuses to crafting, such that the only way to be the "best" Blacksmith was to also be a Capstoned Artificer.
However, I think it would be awesome if there were an Artificer class that players who didn't want any other Adventuring class could take, that would benefit them in some way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pheoran Armiez, I think I was probably talking right past you. I see now that you're coming from a perspective much closer to the PnP game, with which I have only recent familiarity.
When you talk about the Artificer class, there are probably a lot of implications that are clear in your mind, but which I don't have the slightest clue about.
My desire is that the Crafting classes be completely separate from the Adventuring classes, so that I can advance in both simultaneously with no penalty (like losing out on an Adventuring class Capstone).
I would be quite disappointed if there was an Artificer class that gave significant bonuses to crafting, such that the only way to be the "best" Blacksmith was to also be a Capstoned Artificer.
However, I think it would be awesome if there were an Artificer class that players who didn't want any other Adventuring class could take, that would benefit them in some way.
Personally when it comes to classes and crafting there's 2 things that I would say.
1. I would not like crafting to interfere with an adventuring capstone. I am completely in favor of someone dedicated to crafting being better at it, I would like the time to maximize crafting to be very high, and I think it would be interesting if there were numerous sides of crafting specializations. Even 7 or 8 categories that took over a year each (sharp weapons, blunt weapons, staves/wands, light armor, heavy armor, jewelry etc...). But personally I don't think say someone who wants to dabble, gets bored with a pure crafting lifestlyle, maxes out an adventuring class, then switches back to maximize his craft, should not be able to maximize his craft later.2. I absolutely do not want any adventuring class to be a pre-req for crafting anything. That was one thing that I never liked in P&P. A retired legendary swordsman, will never make swords as good as a retired average wizard, that to me is a huge immersion breaking flaw. Especially considering the experts in gear making in P&P games, are the ones who are the least likely to need or even care about the gear they can make.
Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a few purely self reliant characters, IE ones who make all of their own gear, level up their craft to keep up with their adventuring etc... These guys will take far longer to reach anywhere then a pure focus on either side, but I personally see no reason to disallow or harm such a character beyond the massive increase in time to get anywhere on either side that this will throw. With classes there is a solid concrete benefit in some cases as many abilities might be used in tandem, or simply in alteration, while crafter/adventurer are really 2 seperate goals that one will not increase the other significantly
Lets take a page out of the Soulknife from the Expanded Psionics Handbook from 3e D&D. Everyone gets mind weapons and armor forged out of your own sense of awesomeness that level with you.
The End
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would suggest, on the subject of capstoning, that skills would be placed in categories of adventuring or crafting. Capstoning would apply to divergence in one set of skills but not both.
So I can level my monk, but putting skills in barbarian gets me a warning.
I can also become a master brewer, but levlling my blacksmithing gets me a warning for brewing mastery also.
Fairly simple and allows people to chase the master of a particular craft if they so choose.
You could again have a category for gathering skills.
And maybe something else for social/political/leadership/mercantile style skills also. (If these exist as they do in Eve)
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Goblin Squad Member
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My hopes in the crafting area lies in that they will make it worth while to those who choose to specailize in it. I don't want every one able to make the product I decide to produce. I want it the supply low enought that it actually sells for a reasonable price. I don't see any reason why a cap stone fighter couldn't be a master swordsmith. Though I don't think they should be trainable at the same time. It would be nice though if he choose to be a master swordsmith, he couldn't master another craft.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If taking skills in crafting screws up your adventure pathway, then you're going to have a mighty small pool of crafters. I don't have a hard number based on research, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of gamers in fantasy MMOs want to blast/stab/beat the crap out of monsters/opponents. For an overwhelming majority then, crafting will be off-limits--why would you invest in a robust, uberly cool system that only a handful of users will get to check out? Makes no sense.
That being said, I love the idea of someone truly pursuing a course of crafting, so that being a Master Crafter is a truly meaningful state--a gaming Wēland, so to speak.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is all assuming that the capstone abilities are powerful/useful enough to warrant training in a certain archetype exclusively.
In general, I wouldn't want to see your crafting/community/leadership/economic skill progression limited by how you chose to pursue an adventuring archetype.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm very much leaning *away* from working to capstone. If that's expected to take 2-1/2 years, well... I think that's about the longest I've stayed with a game. I'm planning on dual tracking adventurer and crafter, and not worrying about the capstone for either.
I do think that there are tons of crafters out there, looking for a game. We might not see them in most games because, well the crafting is such a minor part of most games. It will also depend on how painful the PvP becomes, whether the game is hospitable enough.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Mbando
You definately don't want the majority being crafters, thats the point of making you choose one over the other. But if you are able to craft everything you need to continue your adventuring with out slowing, would cause the crafting economics to fail. Can a fighter craft some, sure. Can a crafter fight some, sure. But a person who trains fighting to 100% shouldn't also be able to craft things very well. After all he is dedicating himself to the fighting. Vice-versa for the crafter. But once the hit the capstone for one, the other shouldn't be barred, but should take a longer time to learn. Also it was mentioned you could only capstone one class. Hopefully this will play into making a crafting character worth some thing
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would be nice though if he choose to be a master swordsmith, he couldn't master another craft.
I am 100% opposed to this. One of the best things about PFO is the fact that character development is open-ended. I can level up as a Wizard and add a few levels of Rogue if I want to. I very much want the same freedom in Crafting.
Just Say No to arbitrary restrictions! :)
I don't see any reason why a cap stone fighter couldn't be a master swordsmith. Though I don't think they should be trainable at the same time.
I'd be happy if I could train both at the same time, but I won't really be unhappy if I can't.
If taking skills in crafting screws up your adventure pathway, then you're going to have a mighty small pool of crafters.
I don't think that will be a problem. My impression is that branching out your training to do something else won't really take all that much time, but there will be so many possible skills that you'll never have a chance to learn them all. So, it will probably be fairly common and easy for a Fighter to take a few days and train up some Weaponsmithing. I can easily imagine it being the kind of thing where a Fighter has a choice between spending 7 days training the next rank of Sword, or spending 3 days to learn enough Weaponsmith to become an effective Journeyman at crafting a certain type of sword.
You definately don't want the majority being crafters...
I'm not so sure. While I agree that you definitely don't want everyone being a master crafter, I think it's very important to allow most people to be an effective Journeyman in a few things. Far too many people really enjoy being able to make their own gear, even if it's not the best. I'm confident there will be a strong market for higher-end gear that can only be produced by characters who have really dedicated a lot of time to developing their crafting skills.
But once the hit the capstone for one, the other shouldn't be barred, but should take a longer time to learn.
I don't believe this is what GW is planning, and I really hope they don't do this. For many of us, one of the primary features we're looking forward to is the open-ended nature of development. If GW starts moving towards systems that effectively limit me to choosing one specialization at the cost of others, I'm going to be extremely disappointed. If they ever implement something like WoW's Talent Tree, I might very well pick up my toys and go home, crying all the way.
Also it was mentioned you could only capstone one class.
That's not what GW is planning. They've said straight out that once you get one Capstone you'll be able to pursue another, and again, etc.
The more I think about all of this, the more I think I'm wrong to ask that we be able to train Crafting and Adventuring skills simultaneously.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Of course, if you decide that it would be more interesting or fun for your character to training in the skills of more than one archetype, you'll still earn the appropriate class-type bonuses when you meet the prerequisites—you just won't be eligible for the final special capstone ability when you achieve the 20th merit badge in that archetype.
Seems pretty straight forward to me, one capstone. I agree though with that every one should have basic craft abilities, but only one craft should be able to be maxed out, capstoned sorta. Otherwise you will just have one guy who will be a master at every thing and he wont ever buy anything from other crafters, ruining thier worth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Scarlette, Ryan Dancey cleared it up in a post.
I guess the question of "can you have more than one capstone" is "yes", you just have to do 20 levels in series instead of parallel in more than one archetype.
That's a little more straightforward.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm hoping you can train crafting like an archetype add-on to any character. So a monk, could, say, train to craft wondrous items in his spare time. However if there are 'experts' dedicated to making stuff and that only I must think they'll earn a lot of coin. Once they get mats somehow, of course.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you wanted to play pure crafter, you could always play a bard. You would have access to some spells, and like the rogue, a bunch of skill points and class skills. I would assume they would have access to pretty much every crafting skill available(due to the large number of class skills) and they wouldn't need to worry about training in another class's stuff(thereby sacrificing their capstone) since they have a large number of class skills.
Clearly, that is all conjecture since we don't know how the skill system will work and that is assuming GW keeps skills from the PnP version the same.
I highly highly doubt that skills are going to be identical, or necessarally even close to the PnP version, especially crafting skills. Considering right off the bat we know that crafting is going to require harvesting of materials, that adventurers will be finding rare items that crafters will drool at what they can make with etc...
That more or less completely reverses the system of PnP where 1. What is needed to craft is basically a feat and knowing the spell then just gold and time. Plus crafting as a skill that needs to be leveled has more or less been stated, so we pretty much know what is crafted is going to be
1. Common materials that are harvested
2. Rare materials that some adventurers will find, likely off rare/powerful monsters
3. The crafters crafting skill.
With those pre-requisits, I see no logical reason to make a spellcasting class any form of requirement, that in fact hurts the suggestion that a pure crafter will be a viable option of which Ryan has more or less confirmed.
Also I think you are missinterpereting the way classes work, yes there will be archtypes, which are basically groups of skills, and then extra bonuses for getting certain merit badges within an archtype. But that does not mean you inherantly get access to things on a level basis. IE you train things seperately you don't just suddenly get a clump of bonuses at once when you level up.