Looting, and Salvaging, Intelligent and Yes, size should matter.


Pathfinder Online

1 to 50 of 236 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I hope loot is rational...animals should drop skins and bones...if you take the time (and have the skill) to harvest the corpse. Otherwise animals should not drop anything. More intelligent foes could carry more interesting stuff. However, leather armour dropped by a giant should not be wearable by a gnome (or vice versa).

Leading to my next hope, intelligent salvaging...that gnome which loots a single piece of Huge leather armour should be able to cut it up (or have a crafts person do it) to make multiple pieces of small leather armour.

Perhaps a "salvaging leather" skill can also increase the amount of craftable scraps one can salvage from any given piece.

Goblin Squad Member

I would even go so far as to argue that any armour looted, even of the correct size range should need to be "fitted" by a relevant crafts person perhaps not prior to wearing, but definitely before getting full bonuses for.

Goblin Squad Member

Personally I'm under the school of thought that complete armor/weapons shouldn't drop at all to begin with. If so they should all be trash to the level that they are either salvaged for parts by the crafters.

However I also am of the school that if armor and weapons do drop, it should be all or nothing. IE if you can loot the sword and shield off an enemy... that should not be a .01% chance for the sword to be looted. What is there a 99.99% chance the sword just coincidentally breaks as he is dying?

Now my reasoning on not dropping fully equiped things is pretty simple. The crafting chain is, Adventurer brings back loot, to the refiners, who refine and sell to the crafters, who make something good of it and sell it back to the adventurers. When the adventurer gets something as good, or nearly as good straight from the enemy... well then the crafted items have to be a huge sight better than the crafted gear, to even merit 4 markups. Otherwise we wind up with the WoW economy model, IE crafting is at a 95% loss until max level, and even then at a loss unless you happen to have a ridiculously rare recepie, and even then are most likely unable to sell it for a profit, because getting that recepie meant you were the guilds designated crafter of that type and the condition of them letting you have it was that you did not share the gains of that recepie with outsiders. As a result crafting items was more or less a pure waste of money, (IE the materials to make X ran you 50 gold, the sword would sell for 10g, most likely to an enchanter who needed something to break down to be able to train enchanting... of which he was having to give away free).

IMO crafters should be a critical key part of the economy, and any gear of any moderate worth should have to pass through them.

Goblin Squad Member

Oh, I 100% agree. I think NPCs should drop loot similar to PCs. But, it is logical that some items humanoids carry should be in the humanoid loot tables. Not everyone wears all their gear all the time...and if it is not equiped, there is a chance it can be looted.

So, I am entirely against full equipment/armor/weapon drop too (in PFO at least) for PCs or NPCs. I was actually trying to add ANOTHER reason for employing crafters.

Goblin Squad Member

Forencith wrote:

Oh, I 100% agree. I think NPCs should drop loot similar to PCs. But, it is logical that some items humanoids carry should be in the humanoid loot tables. Not everyone wears all their gear all the time...and if it is not equiped, there is a chance it can be looted.

So, I am entirely against full equipment/armor/weapon drop too (in PFO at least) for PCs or NPCs. I was actually trying to add ANOTHER reason for employing crafters.

Well yeah, and I'm agreeing on the fitting concept, but I'm also thinking rather than fitting, 99.9% of the time, the most common use for a sword, will be selling it into the scrapyard (IE refiners turning it into quality scrap metal to be used by crafters to make into gear someone other than newbies will want to use).

I do agree though, sizing should and could also be a role of crafters, Jim the human hands over his old gear (also something I think should be fairly uncommon, IMO gear should deteriorate and wear out, making hanging onto 2nd best as a backup in case the best wears out too soon should be more common place) then tom the halfling, should need to have it resized if he wishes to use it.

Goblin Squad Member

7 people marked this as a favorite.

I think it would be best if the loot recovered from most bodies was crafting components. That's not a hard & fast rule, but it's a good starting point. Adventurers should be a resource faucet for crafters.

Goblin Squad Member

I hate long crafting chains... having refiners or people who are needed to make subcombines sucks. Ive seen a few MMO's where you can't be a 'self sufficient' craftsperson and they just sucked.

I'm fine with having monsters drop basic gear, EQII had decent player made stuff, but the problem was that in order to get enough money to get started on crafting you had to go out adventuring, and that advienturing rapidly gave you XP but not enough cash to really get ahead in crafting - so your crafting skill always ended up tailing your adventurer level, so the gear you made was always subpar to the gear you NEEDED to keep farming raw materials... vicious cycle, happens in all the MMO's.

You end up making crafting gear for kicks rather than actual use, and the reason you end up selling at a loss is because a hundered craftsmen have just crafted a hundred of the same Iron Longsword just for skillups and figured it was better to sell at a loss to players rather than an even worse loss to the junkvendor. A cheap sale is still better than nothing.

Perhaps if the players were able to melt those 100 swords back down into raw materials (or any trash loot for that matter) so they could recombine, now THAT would stop the proliferation of cheap wares and make it worhwhile.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
I think it would be best if the loot recovered from most bodies was crafting components. That's not a hard & fast rule, but it's a good starting point. Adventurers should be a resource faucet for crafters.

I need a like button for this

Goblin Squad Member

+

Goblin Squad Member

@Shifty - To be fair, we have no idea how PFO will be implementing crafting. However, I do not foresee the scenario you lay out as playing out in PFO.

Goblin Squad Member

@Dak - See the '+' symbol under the word REPLY? Hit that and that will favorite that post for you.

Goblin Squad Member

Ah, Agreed Ryan...good enough solution for me.

Goblin Squad Member

I fondly remember playing Temple of Elemental Evil. Where NPC’s dropped everything, and you had to be careful about where you wandered, as some areas were too dangerous for a bunch of low level PC’s.

Whiles Ryan’s suggestion for dropping crafting components would work, it removes the option of being able to use any of the NPC’s gear. It would be great if you could have the option of rendering the fallen items down into crafting components, or to keep them as they are.

It isn’t perhaps the most realistic approach (turning items into crafting components on the spot). However, it’s no less realistic than all loot automatically being converted into crafting components.

There may be time that you’re out exploring and you’re down to your last few arrows and your armour is battered and barely holding together. Imagine how cool it would be if you could replenish your supply of arrows or temporarily replace your armor with a bandits, so you can continue exploring rather than having to trek back to civilisation to buy supplies and repair your items.

Goblin Squad Member

3 people marked this as a favorite.

@Shifty - Pathfinder Online will not make you happy, I'm sorry to report.

Goblin Squad Member

Shifty wrote:
Perhaps if the players were able to melt those 100 swords back down into raw materials (or any trash loot for that matter) so they could recombine, now THAT would stop the proliferation of cheap wares and make it worhwhile.

Most new MMO's have this, you don't get a 100% return, but you can get 150% of the skill than selling everything. I know SW:TOR does this, and I think RIFT does too.

Goblin Squad Member

Why not both?

Basic weapons with no, or rarely weak enchantments dropped by enemies.

Take materials to a crafter to get higher quality stuff made.

And I'm a bigger fan of a system that more mimics the weapon disparity of the Pathfinder system rather than the hugely exaggerated systems where a level one can do 1-2 damage and a level 80 can do 100,000 damage. So when I say higher quality stuff, I'm talking about +5 swords, and a really good crafter who's been at it for a long time might be able to make vorpals and such. But from what I read of your plans for character power progression, that's more or less what you're aiming for already.

Goblin Squad Member

Shifty wrote:

I hate long crafting chains... having refiners or people who are needed to make subcombines sucks. Ive seen a few MMO's where you can't be a 'self sufficient' craftsperson and they just sucked.

I believe self sufficiant, is the anti-thesis of everything PFO is intending. That is not to say that nothing can ever be done alone, but the core focus of the game, is about meaningful human interaction. IE for the same reason that 1 guy shouldn't expect to be able to solo the top endgame raids in WoW, 1 guy isn't going to be able to make everything from start to finish.

Now that approach may lead you to the same critique people have on every MMO that does not cater to soloers... "But in X solo game, you can never find the party helping classes", to which the response is, when the game dosn't emphasize on partying or teamwork, 95% of the population rolls solo classes, the classes that are needed for groups become rediculously rare, and the players that would be them by choice leave the game quickly. Meanwhile games that cater to parties, people come into the main hub or whatever area, get a group going in minutes, because when partying is the most efficient way to level, groups gather fast.

The same will go for crafting in PFO. You see refiners, makers etc... as rare classes that no-one will make. If they are rare, they will be ridiculously profitable, making everyone make one, making them common, dropping their price down, economics 101. MMO 101, classes are only scarce when in low demand.


Ryan Dancey wrote:
@Shifty - Pathfinder Online will not make you happy, I'm sorry to report.

O snap!

Goblin Squad Member

Having to rely on someone else to make your subcombines is just annoying, especially when you need hundreds of the things which you are going to pay a large markup for, only to then sell back to a vendor at a wholesale peppercorn price, all it does is ensure that crafting remains inaccessible. Grouping is for adventuring, not for sitting down to a quiet afternoon of Evercraft.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Shifty wrote:
Having to rely on someone else to make your subcombines is just annoying, especially when you need hundreds of the things which you are going to pay a large markup for, only to then sell back to a vendor at a wholesale peppercorn price, all it does is ensure that crafting remains inaccessible. Grouping is for adventuring, not for sitting down to a quiet afternoon of Evercraft.

Why are you selling back to an vendor at wholesale peppercorn price? You are crafting just for the heck of it? Skill training, including crafting is time based, not use based, at least as far as I know. If you are some reason crafting 100 items that you are expecting a loss on, well you are apparently doing it for fun.

Now this part is just speculation but I have a feeling that also, gear destruction and cost will be factors. IE stuff will wear out, even vets will not likely consider lower grade gear as "inferior" for day to day tasks. (IE using that absolute best sword that they worked their tail off for, will damage the weapon in a way that will cost them more than they gain for fighting the run of the mill boars, but it is the tool for the job against the great legendary black dragon.

In other words, I have a feeling that a steady supply of low to mid level items, will be in demand eliminating the WoW and other theme park models where everything but the #1 item, is vendor trash that crafters make in abundance to level their crafting and then throw away.

Also it sounds to me like you are making assumptions on what and how trade will be done. Which I admit, your guess is as good as mine. It might be easy to use storefronts/stalls that can run AFK or even offline, or it could be something more complex. But the key thing is, skills are going to be leveled by time and not usage (though some merit badges may require you to make some items or something) but for the majority of the game, I'm almost certain that the intent is for all forms of crafting if done intelligently to be profitable, and yes sometimes that may involve finding a good refiner to get the preferred materials. Also do note, there is no statement that you cannot train in both refining and the crafting itself, there is no limit on skills, Though odds are if you don't focus on a specialty, you may be looking at a decade or longer to get everything you want.

Either way though I do have to agree with Ryan's point, if this game isn't your cup of tea, well we wish you luck on finding one that is. There are many people, myself included who love this gameplan when it comes to crafting, and PFO isn't designed to target the masses, it's designed to reach a niche of people of whom the games that target the masses aren't fun for.

Goblin Squad Member

Shifty wrote:
Having to rely on someone else to make your subcombines is just annoying, especially when you need hundreds of the things which you are going to pay a large markup for, only to then sell back to a vendor at a wholesale peppercorn price, all it does is ensure that crafting remains inaccessible. Grouping is for adventuring, not for sitting down to a quiet afternoon of Evercraft.

I actually disagree...my partner's favorite part of any game is the crafting. The more complex and interlinked the better. The more inaccessible, the more of an actual profession it becomes and the more profit she can make off it (although she crafts because she enjoys it, not for profit). There is nothing worse than actually wanting to excel and master something...only to find that the system is too simple to bother with.

Adventuring is for adventuring, crafting is for crafting...and I for one am so glad to see someone is willing to cater to both.

Goblin Squad Member

Why?

Because historically in MMO's you gained a smidgin of xp for every level appropriate craft you made, and you often had to make several hundred such combines to gain a 'level' (or tier or skillup etc) and so that meant you could end up with bags full of macguffins. Now all around you are other crafters similarly making endless bags of macguffins. They make so many of these macguffins that there is no way known that they could ever hope to sell them all - hence they go to the vendor for sale.

The lower level craft items in particular are usually pretty subpar, and even when they were 'ok' their usefulness has historically only been in terms of hours of gameplay until the user levelled into the next tier - so there is only a momentary ,arket for them, and at that point the players are all pretty penniless and either can't or wont buy wares.

I remember sitting there through EQ1 and EQ2 making hundreds and hundreds of items (all the way to endgame in several tradeskills) and would have been lucky to sell a dozen over the space of ages because people only wanted endgame crafted gear (or resist jewellery etc). It was better money in LOTRO just selling the raw materials than the finished goods, and in EQ2 that was really the final endgame as well. WoW crafting similarly was a bit disappointing. I found SWG crafting a chore. The Secret World has some nice ideas (ie the disassemble), Age of Conan... yeah next...DDO - well they had their own answer. Tabula Rasa...maybe we don't mention TR.

I think PFO sounds like a great game, I just think their tradeskilling is questionable. I've been at MMO's a looooong time now, and I don't make that comment flippantly.

Silver Crusade Goblin Squad Member

In PFO, why would you make hundreds of widgets? You gain experience based on training time, it has nothing to do with how much you craft. The market will balance itself, as there is *no* value in grinding crafting.

Goblin Squad Member

I'd need to see how thats going to work in practice, I've seen a lot of different models for progression, but ALL of them involved putting hammer to anvil and investing in a money/time sink.

Now if what you are saying is that PFO neatly avoids this and only has us crafting to produce end results wed use then put me down for the revolution, however as this flies in the face of the rest of the MMO market you can understand my slight disbelief that it will play out that way in practice.

Goblin Squad Member

Shifty wrote:

Why?

Because historically in MMO's you gained a smidgin of xp for every level appropriate craft you made, and you often had to make several hundred such combines to gain a 'level' (or tier or skillup etc) and so that meant you could end up with bags full of macguffins. Now all around you are other crafters similarly making endless bags of macguffins. They make so many of these macguffins that there is no way known that they could ever hope to sell them all - hence they go to the vendor for sale.

The lower level craft items in particular are usually pretty subpar, and even when they were 'ok' their usefulness has historically only been in terms of hours of gameplay until the user levelled into the next tier - so there is only a momentary ,arket for them, and at that point the players are all pretty penniless and either can't or wont buy wares.

Right, you are showing the historical sense of MMO's methods, which are indeed incompatible with goblinworks current plans... Goblinworks has also made it clear that the historical methods aren't the plan for PFO's crafting, so where is the conflict?

They don't intend for you to craft endless supplies of mcguffins, and I don't think low level cheap gear will be entirely useless. I actually imagine it will be the norm for day to day activities (IE people don't typically run around in the gear that takes a months work to obtain, because it can wear out, they save it for special occasions such as major wars, giant monster attacks, possibly high level dungeons when they appear).

The other issue with low level crafting gear in most games, it was generally weaker than say in WoW, random blues and greens dropped by bosses and normal enemies. Per Ryan's post in this very thread it is unlikely that complete gear will drop from enemies at all.

Goblin Squad Member

IF thats the case I will be delighted, but I am yet to see a clear framework for how the Evergrind is going to be avoided.

EQ2 had some good crafted items, in that they had a 'rares' system whereby if you were foraging a node of X material there was a chance of a rare forage occuring which could then be used to make some great level appropriate items.

Goblin Squad Member

Shifty wrote:

IF thats the case I will be delighted, but I am yet to see a clear framework for how the Evergrind is going to be avoided.

EQ2 had some good crafted items, in that they had a 'rares' system whereby if you were foraging a node of X material there was a chance of a rare forage occuring which could then be used to make some great level appropriate items.

Have you read the blog on how the skill system works?

if not take a look at Your Pathfinder Online Character Blog post

and if you are looking to see it in action, give eve online a try, it is a very similar system to what goblinworks is planning to use.

Goblin Squad Member

Shifty wrote:

I'd need to see how thats going to work in practice, I've seen a lot of different models for progression, but ALL of them involved putting hammer to anvil and investing in a money/time sink.

Now if what you are saying is that PFO neatly avoids this and only has us crafting to produce end results wed use then put me down for the revolution, however as this flies in the face of the rest of the MMO market you can understand my slight disbelief that it will play out that way in practice.

We don't have huge amounts of details on the crafting system yet. There is a crafting blog that talks about running structures that do the bulk of the crafting work that is worth a read but what we do know for certain is this:

Skill increases in Pathfinder Online are time based as opposed to usage based. It's basically an exact copy of the EVE Online skill system with the addition of merit badges that require you to complete some sort of achievement to unlock that skill's abilities.

EVE's crafting system DOES fly in the face of what you are used to. In EVE Online people do not produce items unless they need them or feel there is a market for them because there are no skill ups involved.

I don't think EVE's system is perfect. It's not very hands on, and involves no real effort to produce items but rather logistical challenges for mass scale production and sales. However since it's the skill system and not the crafting system that solves your concerns, I think you can rest assured that they will indeed not be a problem in PFO no matter how PFO decides to improve upon or entirely depart from EVE's crafting system.

Goblin Squad Member

I just want to clear up something. People seem to be assuming that all you need are skills, this is not the case if you go back and read the earlier blogs. We may very well see a 'grind' of some sort, training a skill does nothing, earning a merit badge is where you see the new options. The line '...slay a certain number of monsters' tells me there is going to be some sort of grind associated with badges.

It is up to us, in the community development phase to make sure that it doesn't turn into a monotonous endless grind. Keep quality up, and quantity down.

Goblin Squad Member

Valkenr wrote:

I just want to clear up something. People seem to be assuming that all you need are skills, this is not the case if you go back and read the earlier blogs. We may very well see a 'grind' of some sort, training a skill does nothing, earning a merit badge is where you see the new options. The line '...slay a certain number of monsters' tells me there is going to be some sort of grind associated with badges.

It is up to us, in the community development phase to make sure that it doesn't turn into a monotonous endless grind. Keep quality up, and quantity down.

True, but I at least think from the sounds of it, they don't intend for them to be the same grade of grinds, and the specific goals for a robust economy, leads me to at least conclude that they are not planning to set the merit badge requirements in a way that will destroy the market for the products, and the simple fact of having a time component will very significantly reduce the issue that WoW has, where everyone is constantly flooding out crap to raise their crafting. At least from my understanding of the merit badge system, time is still the much more significant component, at least I don't expect the requirement to be craft 1000 common items resulting in the market being flooded. Most MMO's set those numbers so high as the control on time, where PFO already has control of time, so no need to set rediculous numbers to slow people down.

Goblin Squad Member

You should be crafting because you want to generate income. Increases in crafting abilities will happen as a natural side effect.

The trap to avoid is a system where nobody will pay for anything but the absolute best stuff. We need an economy where people are buying lots and lots of quality levels.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
The trap to avoid is a system where nobody will pay for anything but the absolute best stuff. We need an economy where people are buying lots and lots of quality levels.

This is why I want to see very little deviation in gear throughout the ranks. Since the game is avoiding the 'epic' levels I would like to see something like a steel sword, be one of the highest produced weapons in the game.

Also a good reason to avoid the white<green<blue<purple<gold item progression, it only creates a large pool of 'worthless' items.

The Diablo syndrome should also be avoided where it takes 1000 tries to make a good product. Waiting for a 'Perfect Roll' should never

I think the key is to make a 'tier' of items useful for about 6 months of play. Of course, you will be constantly repairing/replacing weapons during that time.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Shifty wrote:

I'd need to see how thats going to work in practice, I've seen a lot of different models for progression, but ALL of them involved putting hammer to anvil and investing in a money/time sink.

Now if what you are saying is that PFO neatly avoids this and only has us crafting to produce end results wed use then put me down for the revolution, however as this flies in the face of the rest of the MMO market you can understand my slight disbelief that it will play out that way in practice.

Look at EVE Online's "crafting system". There is no ISK sink involved in training any of the skills, and no reason to set a factory up to grind something that you aren't intending to use or sell at a profit.

Goblin Squad Member

Valkenr wrote:
Ryan Dancey wrote:
The trap to avoid is a system where nobody will pay for anything but the absolute best stuff. We need an economy where people are buying lots and lots of quality levels.

This is why I want to see very little deviation in gear throughout the ranks. Since the game is avoiding the 'epic' levels I would like to see something like a steel sword, be one of the highest produced weapons in the game.

Also a good reason to avoid the white<green<blue<purple<gold item progression, it only creates a large pool of 'worthless' items.

The Diablo syndrome should also be avoided where it takes 1000 tries to make a good product. Waiting for a 'Perfect Roll' should never

I think the key is to make a 'tier' of items useful for about 6 months of play. Of course, you will be constantly repairing/replacing weapons during that time.

This sums up a lot of what seems to not work with crafting/economy in mmorpgs I've experienced: Especially those ruddy color-items. I think if items run the whole gamut of availability and fluctuation in costs to source the raw materials, through to processing and time taken to do this (lead time etc) and variable skilled workforce to change the quality/reputation of goods, that all has got to add opportunity for different quality swords for different purposes. And especially if even a lower grade sword is still a sword (cuts, slices, skewers!) and already gone through all the above. And requiring "the right tool for the job" adds use for a variety of implements, expands the role of crafting from arms, to work tools and so on.

No idea if another level of crafting "experimentation" could be added to vary the quality ie might slightly improve the sword or not?

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Onishi wrote:

Personally I'm under the school of thought that complete armor/weapons shouldn't drop at all to begin with. If so they should all be trash to the level that they are either salvaged for parts by the crafters.

However I also am of the school that if armor and weapons do drop, it should be all or nothing. IE if you can loot the sword and shield off an enemy... that should not be a .01% chance for the sword to be looted. What is there a 99.99% chance the sword just coincidentally breaks as he is dying?

Now my reasoning on not dropping fully equiped things is pretty simple. The crafting chain is, Adventurer brings back loot, to the refiners, who refine and sell to the crafters, who make something good of it and sell it back to the adventurers. When the adventurer gets something as good, or nearly as good straight from the enemy... well then the crafted items have to be a huge sight better than the crafted gear, to even merit 4 markups. Otherwise we wind up with the WoW economy model, IE crafting is at a 95% loss until max level, and even then at a loss unless you happen to have a ridiculously rare recepie, and even then are most likely unable to sell it for a profit, because getting that recepie meant you were the guilds designated crafter of that type and the condition of them letting you have it was that you did not share the gains of that recepie with outsiders. As a result crafting items was more or less a pure waste of money, (IE the materials to make X ran you 50 gold, the sword would sell for 10g, most likely to an enchanter who needed something to break down to be able to train enchanting... of which he was having to give away free).

IMO crafters should be a critical key part of the economy, and any gear of any moderate worth should have to pass through them.

I would argue that enemies should drop anything they would be able to use during combat. If the big bad was swinging a sword at me moments before his death while wearing a chain shirt and wielding a light steel shield then when he dies those items should not have magically disappeared from the world never to be seen again. The way to balance this is that NPCs should very rarely have an item of significant value to an adequately geared PC. As in PFRPG NPCs have significantly less gold available to spend on items and therefore generally have items that are less powerful than PCs. A CR 14 encounter has several CR 11 fighters and each one will have armor, shield, weapon, and some magical equipment; but none of the gear these enemies possess is enough that a 14th level fighter is going to be wanting to use it. However, the groups crafter can take these base items and add enhancements to them to make them competitive with what the fighter has equipped.

Now this is not to say all enemies should drop a full set of equipment. Dragons with magical swords popping out of their dead corpses has never made sense to me. Perhaps there are one or two magic items in the dragons horde, but most of it should probably just be gold, gems, etc. I just hate the idea of loot being completely independent of what the enemy actually had and/or only being some chance for a portion of the things I saw him use ("guys...was he naked while we were fighting him?").

Goblin Squad Member

Nipin wrote:


I would argue that enemies should drop anything they would be able to use during combat. If the big bad was swinging a sword at me moments before his death while wearing a chain shirt and wielding a light steel...

I do mostly agree on this, why one of my main points was that if they are lootable, they should always be mundane crap items that are so bad, that even starter gear and dirt cheap newbie items, are better, the enemies skills and abilities should just be high enough to make what is viewed as crap, still a threat. Though I do note we also already will be used to that dissonance of gear not being lootable off characters from the death rules in the game for PC, it isn't much of a stretch to extend that rule to the NPCs.

Goblin Squad Member

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Ryan Dancey wrote:
We need an economy where people are buying lots and lots of quality levels.

Which means an economy where lower tier stuff is usually some kind of intermediary component, and where those components continue to be used even on high tier stuff.

If you're crafting Copper Bolts at the lowest tier, you need to continue using Copper Bolts even when you're crafting Platinum Zeppelins.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
Ryan Dancey wrote:
We need an economy where people are buying lots and lots of quality levels.

Which means an economy where lower tier stuff is usually some kind of intermediary component, and where those components continue to be used even on high tier stuff.

If you're crafting Copper Bolts at the lowest tier, you need to continue using Copper Bolts even when you're crafting Platinum Zeppelins.

I'd say there's 2 possible ways, of which both can be used, 1 is the example you gave, IE some of the existing things are used in crafting of better things, a +4 sword could have 2 +3 swords as a needed component.

2. inevitable item loss. IE if the better items take 2 months of work to create, and wear out within 3 days of use. less powerful items will indeed need to be used for the majority of tasks, just like in eve, people don't casually drive a titan when out mining ore, or even in common lower stakes pvp battles because they know every time they take it out, they are risking thousands of manhours of work. Ship selection is a cost/benefit calculation, cost of the ship/item vs importance and difficulty of success.

The benefit of control 2 IMO, is it does greatly lower the regular power difference between the long term established vets, and the lowbies. IE the side that brings out it's top gear to every bout, is a side that is likely to bankrupt itself making it vulnerable. While a weaker side, may be attempting to use the absolute best gear and full resources. Basically this changes the dynamic from the longer established group has the better gear advantage in every fight, to the longer established group has the option to chose which fights to apply their gear advantage to, but may in fact be at a gear disadvantage against some poorer nations.

Goblin Squad Member

@Onishi, I really like the idea of making exceptionally powerful items decay at a significantly faster speed.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
@Onishi, I really like the idea of making exceptionally powerful items decay at a significantly faster speed.

Agreed, though they also don't even have to decay faster, even at the same speed accomplishes the goal, a weapon that costs 25 gold and 5 minutes to craft wearing out in 15 hours of active use is pretty barely notable of a cost just pick up a new one when it wears out, while the weapon that costs 500,000 coin, takes a month and a half to create, and wears out after 15 hours of active use... well you are going to pick those 15 hours wisely I imagine.

Goblin Squad Member

3 people marked this as a favorite.

The key reason EVE's economy works is that everything is disposable. It all gets blown up eventually.

Most MMOs don't have the courage to let your stuff get takn away from you. They fear the "I worked for a MONTH to get that shiny digital gizmo, take it away and OMGERRRBLEWAHHHH I QUIT!!!!!" Syndrome.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
Most MMOs don't have the courage to let your stuff get takn away from you. They fear the "I worked for a MONTH to get that shiny digital gizmo, take it away and OMGERRRBLEWAHHHH I QUIT!!!!!" Syndrome.

I must say that this will take me a bit to get used to. I have never played a sandbox game before. So, I imagine it will upset me the first couple of times it happens to me.

Except I don't plan on quitting over that.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
I think it would be best if the loot recovered from most bodies was crafting components. That's not a hard & fast rule, but it's a good starting point. Adventurers should be a resource faucet for crafters.

I really hope that's the case. That's what I understood from the blog, that "Pathfinder Online is based around the idea that virtually every object in the game world that player characters interact with is created by other characters."

That set me on fire, because I know it will require social interaction between players--what Shifty objected to is the whole thing I'm on about. I certainly understand that we don't want an economy where the component systems are complicated/laborious in ways that don't add to the fun of the game--for example I don't want to spend 20 minutes pressing buttons according to a formula. But I'm all about complexity--if we need multiple groups doing different tasks to harvest, refine, craft and ship goods, that's awesome.

Liberty's Edge

Onishi wrote:
Nipin wrote:


I would argue that enemies should drop anything they would be able to use during combat. If the big bad was swinging a sword at me moments before his death while wearing a chain shirt and wielding a light steel...
I do mostly agree on this, why one of my main points was that if they are lootable, they should always be mundane crap items that are so bad, that even starter gear and dirt cheap newbie items, are better, the enemies skills and abilities should just be high enough to make what is viewed as crap, still a threat. Though I do note we also already will be used to that dissonance of gear not being lootable off characters from the death rules in the game for PC, it isn't much of a stretch to extend that rule to the NPCs.

I can see the worry with making PC items lootable, but I think that should be allowed.

This will encourage "griefing" in that a viable option will be to hide in the bushes and ambush players transporting goods or just carrying nice stuff as they travel from one city to the next, but this will encourage a sense of realism. Bandits should exist and the idea of piracy as a tool for faster growth would make for interesting interactions. If one city is known for encouraging piracy then other cities may band together and take them out. If one lone pirate becomes infamous for his attacks on players then it may be more difficult for him to sell items he acquires and travel without being hunted.

Also, I believe it should be to the victor go the spools. If my band of allies takes the time and resources necessary to take down a neighboring enemies town then we should get to loot the spools.

This sounds like I am encouraging massive PVP warfare or lone griefers or worse groups which only prey on other players, but this will also encourage players to not just wander about alone with all of their wealth with them and to take care when transporting valuables. This will introduce more cooperation with players wanting to travel in groups and crafters wanting to have allies available to defend them in case of PVP attack. This will encourage players to police their areas and protect their allies. This will also discourage griefing as it will have a high cost if the player fails.

Perhaps items obtained from dead players should be damaged a certain percent when the player dies (which might break and will always reduce the value of the items), but I feel this could add a new dimension to the game.

Liberty's Edge

Onishi wrote:
Nipin wrote:


I would argue that enemies should drop anything they would be able to use during combat. If the big bad was swinging a sword at me moments before his death while wearing a chain shirt and wielding a light steel...
I do mostly agree on this, why one of my main points was that if they are lootable, they should always be mundane crap items that are so bad, that even starter gear and dirt cheap newbie items, are better, the enemies skills and abilities should just be high enough to make what is viewed as crap, still a threat. Though I do note we also already will be used to that dissonance of gear not being lootable off characters from the death rules in the game for PC, it isn't much of a stretch to extend that rule to the NPCs.

I can see the worry with making PC items lootable, but I think that should be allowed.

This will encourage "griefing" in that a viable option will be to hide in the bushes and ambush players transporting goods or just carrying nice stuff as they travel from one city to the next, but this will encourage a sense of realism. Bandits should exist and the idea of piracy as a tool for faster growth would make for interesting interactions. If one city is known for encouraging piracy then other cities may band together and take them out. If one lone pirate becomes infamous for his attacks on players then it may be more difficult for him to sell items he acquires and travel without being hunted.

Also, I believe it should be to the victor go the spools. If my band of allies takes the time and resources necessary to take down a neighboring enemies town then we should get to loot the spools.

This sounds like I am encouraging massive PVP warfare or lone griefers or worse groups which only prey on other players, but this will also encourage players to not just wander about alone with all of their wealth with them and to take care when transporting valuables. This will introduce more cooperation with players wanting to travel in groups and crafters wanting to have allies available to defend them in case of PVP attack. This will encourage players to police their areas and protect their allies. This will also discourage griefing as it will have a high cost if the player fails.

Perhaps items obtained from dead players should be damaged a certain percent when the player dies (which might break and will always reduce the value of the items), but I feel this could add a new dimension to the game.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Onishi wrote:
Nipin wrote:
I would argue that enemies should drop anything they would be able to use during combat. If the big bad was swinging a sword at me moments before his death while wearing a chain shirt and wielding a light steel...
... Though I do note we also already will be used to that dissonance of gear not being lootable off characters from the death rules in the game for PC, it isn't much of a stretch to extend that rule to the NPCs.

iirc, the reason for not being able to fully loot PCs was not to protect us from losing stuff when we died, but to lower the payoff from killing. That is, if killing PCs or NPCs pays out significantly better than all other adventuring activities, then the game is reduced to the one best path - killing for teh loots. If PC/NPC drops are comparable to other harvesting (considering risk, time spent, etc.) then there are more paths to fun.

Goblin Squad Member

In D&D the only real common difference between weapon qualities is between standard quality weapons and master work quality weapons. This same system could work for PFO. I like the idea of items wearing down over time. Perhaps the standard & MW quality items could be created from different material types which could affect some of the weapon properties.

For instance a silver longsword might wear out faster than a steel longsword. However, it is useful against lycanthropes. An adamantine longsword may have vastly superior durability. However, it’s quite rare and thus very expensive. While Mithral items may be lighter (mostly effective for armour) and slightly more durable than steel.

If PFO ends up using a systems where items deteriorate over time, then rather than having to replace the whole item it would make sense if it could be repaired by a crafter and may require some of the rare material component. So you might buy a steel longsword for 15gp, but it may only require 5gp to repair it compared to a MW adamantine longsword that is much more expensive and requires a crafter of the necessary skill level and some adamantine to repair it.

I’ve always been in favour of keeping items on a long term basis rather than endlessly trading them in, which is why I like the idea of legacy items or the ability to improve enchantments over time. I still remember fondly the first time my character found a +1 flame tongue longsword. Even when he was much higher level he used the sword in preference to others, because he/I had an emotional attachment to it.

Goblin Squad Member

Another thought. Deteriorating item durability is going to particularly affect melee based characters, and least affect spellcasters who don’t wear armour or use traditional weapons.

Also should ranged weapons deteriorate at the same rate as melee weapons? While there is wear and tear involved in using a crossbow or bow, I would imagine it is much less when compared to a sword that is cleaving through armour and bounding against other melee weapons. Perhaps ranged weapons do deteriorate slower than melee weapons. However, you have the added expense of having to buy ammo.

Goblin Squad Member

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Nipin wrote:


This will encourage "griefing" in that a viable option will be to hide in the bushes and ambush players transporting goods or just carrying nice stuff as they travel from one city to the next, but this will encourage a sense of realism.

This is not griefing. This is good emergent gameplay.

Griefing is doing something to another player with the intention and primary outcome of ruining that player's experience.

Killing someone and taking their stuff isn't griefing, if you take their stuff because you want/need it (even if you just want to sell it) for a reasonable in-game purpose. And it's not "ok" to want or need it because you want that person to feel bad.

RyanD

Goblin Squad Member

Ravening wrote:

Another thought. Deteriorating item durability is going to particularly affect melee based characters, and least affect spellcasters who don’t wear armour or use traditional weapons.

Also should ranged weapons deteriorate at the same rate as melee weapons? While there is wear and tear involved in using a crossbow or bow, I would imagine it is much less when compared to a sword that is cleaving through armour and bounding against other melee weapons. Perhaps ranged weapons do deteriorate slower than melee weapons. However, you have the added expense of having to buy ammo.

When it comes to missile weapons, they just have to calculate and make ammunition costs + wear, close to equal to the costs of wear of a normal weapon.

Now magic... why is that any less likely to wear out... IMO with PFO's direction on production, manufacturing etc... All classes will most likely need to be comparably gear dependent. Now I know that many people don't like the thought of a wizard, a fighter a monk and a paladin, having comperable need for, and cost of gear. Maybe make special handwraps for the monks and special daggers/staffs etc... for the wizards etc...

The need for this was largely shown in DaoC, where PK parties were generally made of naked wizards killing poeple with nothing to lose.

1 to 50 of 236 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Paizo / Licensed Products / Digital Games / Pathfinder Online / Looting, and Salvaging, Intelligent and Yes, size should matter. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.