Goblinworks Blog: If I Had a Hammer


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Discussion thread for new blog entry Goblinworks Blog: If I Had a Hammer

Goblin Squad Member

Will there be item duration that decreases over time and use? If so, are items repairable to full quality?

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Crafting just got intense! Cant wait for all the comments of all the crafters reacting to this blog! :)

Goblin Squad Member

I can see various groups specialising in different resources (mining, logging etc) and scouting which hexes are most suitable. Pause for thought as to how much time is spent working for the settlement in non-combat goals, also.

Scarab Sages Goblinworks Executive Founder

Great info. My only question, where are all the screenshots etc from your milestone presentation? :) I read that first sentence, immediately stopped reading and scrolled down the rest of the blog looking for new pics!


I really like the info about threading--it ensures that killing those with few items of worth will have essentially no point, profit-wise.

I also like the stuff about crafting. Definitely reinforces the need for players to work together.


Quote:
The player must place a gathering kit of the correct type near the node. This spawns a storage object and some additional art to indicate that the node is actively undergoing gathering. Over time, the storage fills up with components that can be removed and carted off, and the total available components in the hex is reduced.

I'm wondering how long the gathering facility will remain in the game world if material is still in the storage compartment? Say I wiped the node out and have carted off some of the raw material, but haven't finished cleaning the storage compartment out, how long do I have to finish carting the raw stuff off before the facility poofs?

I'm really glad to see the quality level of raw materials! That's cool.

One thing I'm curious about. Item repair? Can items be repaired out in the field, perhaps with some sort of repair kit or tool, or are all repairs done in a settlement?

Goblin Squad Member

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So... how many characters can I have?

Crafting sounds interesting enough to dedicate one to.

Goblin Squad Member

Fantastic blog, great to see new details on crafting.

A bit of clarifying on threads was nice, too.

Goblinworks Game Designer

1 person marked this as a favorite.

We don't currently have a concept of item degradation/repair. You'll use consumables to temporarily boost certain gear in effectiveness, which likely expire when you die, and we're hoping that will cover enough of the intended effects of a degrade/repair cycle to not require such a system. But we'll be able to say more for certain later, once we get a better picture of the actual usage patterns for items.

Goblin Squad Member

Looks like my alt will be making weapon blanches, armor oils and salvage kits!

Goblin Squad Member

Quick comments: I like how skills are being used, and the way in which the whole crafting process is a multi-person affair.

Goblin Squad Member

Will the highest quality (300 Gold) crafted item, lets as a sword, be better than any similar style sword dropped by a boss or rare mob?

I'm certainly hoping that loot drops are always of lesser quality (max 290) than a master crafted item.

Goblin Squad Member

Stephen Cheney wrote:
We don't currently have a concept of item degradation/repair. You'll use consumables to temporarily boost certain gear in effectiveness, which likely expire when you die, and we're hoping that will cover enough of the intended effects of a degrade/repair cycle to not require such a system. But we'll be able to say more for certain later, once we get a better picture of the actual usage patterns for items.

Sounds like a good plan.

Also, this system reminds me somewhat of Ryzom, which isn't a bad thing at all.

It also means coordination between characters specialized in exploration/finding and those specialized in crafting/gathering will be all but necessary.

Enchanting doesn't sound like it has a lot of utility, but neither does it sound like it's had a lot of attention. Curious to see where that goes.

CEO, Goblinworks

4 people marked this as a favorite.

@Bluddwolf - it's just "300" not "300 gold". Gold is just a UI color.

We don't intend for usable items to be dropped by anything as loot from the system. You get them by crafting them, buying them, or looting dead PCs.

I suspect we have to leave some room at the bottom of the quality pyramid for some loot drops just to help make sure low level/new PCs don't get too squeezed, but that stuff will not be meaningful to the in-game economy.

CEO, Goblinworks

3 people marked this as a favorite.

@Dakecenturi - I am going to task Mike and the art team with doing a blog with lots of pretty pictures soon. Lee and Stephen still have a lot of stuff queued up first. :)

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:

@Bluddwolf - it's just "300" not "300 gold". Gold is just a UI color.

We don't intend for usable items to be dropped by anything as loot from the system. You get them by crafting them, buying them, or looting dead PCs.

I suspect we have to leave some room at the bottom of the quality pyramid for some loot drops just to help make sure low level/new PCs don't get too squeezed, but that stuff will not be meaningful to the in-game economy.

This is excellent news, finally we have a fantasy based MMO that breaks from the loot monkey / raid dungeon grind design.

Silver Crusade Goblin Squad Member

No big surprises today, read the blog, happy with what I found - see you next week.

PS. Pretty pictures are a great idea^^.

Goblin Squad Member

So we purchase threads??? That doesnt sound like something craftable, so how does that work?


Great news about the crafting.

The only question I had was in regards to the private storage that your crafted item goes in until you claim it:

What happens if for some reason you craft an item, but then lose access to the settlement before it is completed or claimed from storage? Lets say something happens like your settlement is destroyed in a War with another hex, or you're kicked/outlawed from the settlement because of social reasons or you broke the laws/alignment of the settlement.

Is there any way to still claim your crafted item? Or is it lost at that point?

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I like the idea of no gear degradation too. So instead of a negative re-enforcement for ensuring crafting/gathering are needed, you guys are using postive re-enforcement through consumables that give bonuses but are temporary. I am always a fan of positive re-enforcement rather than negative when it can be applied. This combined with inevitable (sooner or later) item loss through PvP should work fine.

I do have a question though. Will there be any options for not making an "honest" living beyond being a bandit. Like if I invade a goblin cave, and kill all the goblins will I be able to loot a treasure chest filled with some coin or something? Or maybe a treasure map where X marks the spot and I find a bag of coin?

I understand you dont want people finding awesome gear from PvE, and thats fine, but if Im neither a thief, a gatherer, or a crafter what other options might I have as an explorer that likes to make trouble for the the local goblinoids?

Goblin Squad Member

Please do not do color coded gear. There are so many other ways you can classify gear, I'm not sure about the rest of you but I get nauseous thinking about that particular color code you are using. :(

Everything else sounds great though!

Goblin Squad Member

2 people marked this as a favorite.

You're over-thinking it. To me its a non-issue. Just because gear is color coded for identifying strength of gear, doesnt mean the game has turned into WoW.

Goblin Squad Member

turn the colors upside down.

orange is worthless throwaway gear
Purple is weak mundane gear
blue is slightly enchanted gear
white is good gear
grey is legendary gear (a la holy avenger)

Goblinworks Founder

I was wondering, let's say I'm an expert or maxed out and some new person wanted me to make them a standard sword. Now could I use less materials since I'm so good at crafting I know how to make one faster and without using as much in the way of material.

Or could I add in maybe another bar of Iron to improve the quality or make it a heavier hitter/stronger durability to last them longer for this person and the difficulty would be slightly larger for me since I'm making it stronger, though I'm already a master so it shouldn't be a problem for me to do.

Goblin Squad Member

Brady Blankemeyer wrote:

I was wondering, let's say I'm an expert or maxed out and some new person wanted me to make them a standard sword. Now could I use less materials since I'm so good at crafting I know how to make one faster and without using as much in the way of material.

Or could I add in maybe another bar of Iron to improve the quality or make it a heavier hitter/stronger durability to last them longer for this person and the difficulty would be slightly larger for me since I'm making it stronger, though I'm already a master so it shouldn't be a problem for me to do.

Using less mats or faster crafting wasn't mentioned but they did say you could use better QL mats than required to produce a better item. So you could make the standard sword with higher end materials and it would get some bonuses.


I'm VERY happy to see this. As someone who wanted to specialize in harvest and refining (was hoping refining was going to be in game, and not a wow version of "gold ore = gold bar"), I'm very very please. GOOD JOB GW!

Goblin Squad Member

I like the idea of discovering new and better recipes for weapons, armor, magic items, and general gear. I can see the big reward for a PvE as not being only rare materials but secret recipes for special ... items.

Goblin Squad Member

leperkhaun wrote:

turn the colors upside down.

orange is worthless throwaway gear
Purple is weak mundane gear
blue is slightly enchanted gear
white is good gear
grey is legendary gear (a la holy avenger)

To what purpose, just for the sake of being obtuse? The colours are rather arbitrary, so if an understood system works, there's no need to change it just to be different, much less to do a simple inversion.

i just hope the colours will be different enough, and have level numbers, so people with colour-blindness and other vision issues don't find it difficult to tell the item levels apart.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
for characters with the enchanter craft skill to apply a minor but permanent magical boost

Emphasis mine.

I really hope that 'enchanter craft skill' is embedded in the skill tree of each specialty. For example, part of the Blacksmith specialty, Weaponsmithing specialty.

From what I understand how it will work is each specialty will have it's long and involved crafting skills, big enough to be comparable to a class (Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, etc).

What I don't want to see is a long and involved crafting tree for Blacksmithing and then a completely separate one for enchanting. I hope the ability to enchant is within the 1 1/2 years of the Blacksmithing specialty skill tree. Or, any other specialty for that matter.

Goblinworks Game Designer

Greedalox wrote:
So we purchase threads??? That doesnt sound like something craftable, so how does that work?

Purchase with XP.

Quote:
I do have a question though. Will there be any options for not making an "honest" living beyond being a bandit. Like if I invade a goblin cave, and kill all the goblins will I be able to loot a treasure chest filled with some coin or something? Or maybe a treasure map where X marks the spot and I find a bag of coin?

PvE will tend to reward coin and components (possibly in the form of broken or otherwise unusable stuff you salvage into components; e.g., "dented goblin breastplate" that can be salvaged into iron).


Two things:

First, security certificate issues persist going from paizo to goblinworks.

Second, the capping of the highest grade materials to the skill rating of the gatherer is a concern, especially since it is capped by the skill rating of the harvester, not the skill rating of the refiner.

Edit: threads are purchased with XP? Are XP = PLEX, or training time devoted to nothing else?

Goblin Squad Member

Great news! Im really happy with the proposed structure of crafting, especially the different quality levels of raw materials and being able to produce different versions of the same basic item. I think this should be fantastic news for crafters and will be definately continuing my trend of having a specialised crafting character.

Im also really happy with the confirmation that all player gear is crafted (barring possibly starter gear) and that drops are materials and not gear.

clynx wrote:
The only question I had was in regards to the private storage that your crafted item goes in until you claim it .. <snip>

I think the materials should be lost. The entire settlement was razed to the ground. I doubt the attackers are going to be polite enough to leave the storage vaults alone. This would provide another element of risk and involvement for crafters. Now crafters would have even more of a vested interest in making sure that their settlement is not destroyed. Or if a war/attack is imminent, theres a mad scramble for transport services to move all the materials to another location. Would be very interesting.

Hobbun wrote:
I really hope that 'enchanter craft skill' is embedded in the skill tree of each specialty. For example, part of the Blacksmith specialty, Weaponsmithing specialty. <snip>

Ive got mixed feelings about this one. From a traditional PnP perspective, only casters could create magic items (for example Craft Magic Arms & Armor requires Caster Level 5) and thus enchanter crafting skills should be caster-based. However, a case could be made for a non-caster blacksmith to be able to use scrolls to enchant the armor/weapons. There are cases from fantasy literature and lore where dwarven blacksmiths (who could not cast or use any magic in several settings and systems such as AD&D) could still create magic weapons and armor. Im personally ok with either option as long as each 'skill tree' is well defined and fun.

Turin the Mad wrote:
Second, the capping of the highest grade materials to the skill rating of the gatherer is a concern, especially since it is capped by the skill rating of the harvester, not the skill rating of the refiner.

I actually see this as a feature, not a problem. Means that having higher gathering skills has more of an impact than just how much or how fast you can gather resources. Skilled gatherers are now as important as skilled refiners who are as important as skilled crafters/enchanters.

Goblin Squad Member

Stephen Cheney wrote:
Greedalox wrote:
So we purchase threads??? That doesnt sound like something craftable, so how does that work?
Purchase with XP.

Do we gain threads normally but also have the option to buy more?

Is there a cap on how many we can buy?
Are we able to unthread items and reuse the threads on something else?

Stephen Cheney wrote:
Quote:
I do have a question though. Will there be any options for not making an "honest" living beyond being a bandit. Like if I invade a goblin cave, and kill all the goblins will I be able to loot a treasure chest filled with some coin or something? Or maybe a treasure map where X marks the spot and I find a bag of coin?
PvE will tend to reward coin and components (possibly in the form of broken or otherwise unusable stuff you salvage into components; e.g., "dented goblin breastplate" that can be salvaged into iron).

Some of this sounds like what my colleague Xenos calls being an "arcanifex" one who can butcher innately magical creatures for components, like harvesting basilisk eyes and such. If someone who is ignorant of the skill opens up the loot window and closes it, is it possible to have someone with the knowledge come behind them and collect components?

Maybe creature lore could also allow people to see whether something is hostile or docile, and what level of danger it presents (/consider) relative to one's own power.

Salvaging scrap iron from broken equipment sounds useful too, though it would also be nice to have a chance to recover some basic gear like arrows, whether ones that the character shot but which didn't break, or unfired arrows from others with bows.

Goblin Squad Member

Turin the Mad wrote:

Two things:

First, security certificate issues persist going from paizo to goblinworks.

Second, the capping of the highest grade materials to the skill rating of the gatherer is a concern, especially since it is capped by the skill rating of the harvester, not the skill rating of the refiner.

Edit: threads are purchased with XP? Are XP = PLEX, or training time devoted to nothing else?

From "are you experienced blog"

Quote:
Every hour your character is able to advance (via being subscribed or otherwise buying advancement time), you gain Experience Points (XP) whether or not you're logged into the game. These accumulate at a fixed rate throughout your career (currently at a rate of 100 XP per hour, but that may change as we get deeper into pricing). After 24 hours in the game, you'll have earned 2,400 XP; after 10 days you'll have 24,000; and so on.

Goblin Squad Member

Stephen Cheney wrote:
Greedalox wrote:
So we purchase threads??? That doesnt sound like something craftable, so how does that work?

Purchase with XP.

Quote:
I do have a question though. Will there be any options for not making an "honest" living beyond being a bandit. Like if I invade a goblin cave, and kill all the goblins will I be able to loot a treasure chest filled with some coin or something? Or maybe a treasure map where X marks the spot and I find a bag of coin?
PvE will tend to reward coin and components (possibly in the form of broken or otherwise unusable stuff you salvage into components; e.g., "dented goblin breastplate" that can be salvaged into iron).

Good stuff. Thanks for the answers Stephen, really appreciate it.

Now to figure out how the twice marked of Pharasma figures into the equation ^.~

Goblin Squad Member

Can I get someone to message me the blog, work internet has it blocked.

Goblin Squad Member

Phyllain wrote:
Can I get someone to message me the blog, work internet has it blocked.

Sent you a copy, but there might be others with similar issues, so here it is:

Quote:


If I Had a Hammer
posted by Ryan Dancey, on Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Last Friday, the team did their first major milestone presentation. Everyone participated in producing art, game design, or software for this milestone. We all got a chance to see some of the work the art team is doing on the first character models that will be used as we begin to test the game, as well as experiments the art team did on various shadows and surface lighting techniques. The game designers continue to elaborate on the idea of hexes and how various hex types will interact to form the overall map of the game world. And the programmers showed off a working multi-client / server implementation of a chat service which they are using to test their networking systems. We are also able to visualize a large in-game space with a walled structure, some watchtowers, trees, and terrain looks so we can debate questions of size, scale and distance from a common reference. The world is taking shape!

We're also busy working on the fulfillment system that we'll use to get rewards to the backers from our recent Kickstarter, including access to the multitude of PDFs that were a part of many of the reward tiers. If you backed either of our Kickstarter projects, thank you! We're very grateful for your support.

Kickstarter Fulfillment

Our recent Kickstarter wound up creating a very complex project with a number of different reward tiers and many add-on options. Some of the rewards and add-ons are books and PDFs that need to be written, developed, and edited and then shipped or made available for download, others are metal and plastic miniatures that need to be manufactured and shipped to you, and some are in-game benefits that won't be available until we have a game to play. We want to make sure that we get all these rewards into your hands as soon as they become available, and we want to be sure that you receive the exact combination of reward tier and add-ons you want.

To make that happen, our partners at Paizo are working on a fulfillment system that will go live in a few weeks. We'll ask backers to log into the Paizo site to confirm your personal information for receiving your digital and physical Kickstarter rewards. You'll be able to specify exactly how you want to "spend" your pledge for add-ons, or even increase your pledge to a higher reward tier or select more add-ons if you wish.

We expect to have our pledge management system ready in late March. When we're ready to go, we'll send backers an email notification with information on how to access the fulfillment tool. We'll have more details about that process when the fulfillment tool is ready for use, but here's a quick preview:

If you have a paizo.com account and it matches the email address you used for Kickstarter, the fulfillment tool will connect your pledge to your account automatically.
If you have an account on paizo.com that uses an email address different than the one you use on Kickstarter, we will have a simple process for you to connect your Kickstarter pledge to your account.
If you don't have an account on paizo.com, you'll be asked to create one. Of course, you can get ahead of the game by signing up for one now. While you're there, drop by the Pathfinder Online messageboards and say hello!
Again, thank you for your enthusiastic support. This is going to be a lot of fun!

Speaking of creating things, let's move on to the game design topic of the week: crafting. This week's dev blog digs into the question of how gear gets created. We've been clear that we want an economic system run by the player characters to be central to the game design, and the process by which resources are gathered, made usable, then crafted into items is absolutely critical to that objective. Designer Stephen Cheney has written up some detailed thoughts about how the system might shape up.

Gathering, Crafting, and Gear Progression

The vast majority of gear in Pathfinder Online is player-crafted. Players acquire resource components through gathering, harvesting, looting, or salvaging. Most components have an intermediary step to refine them. Crafters then turn the refined components into usable gear and items. Sometimes there's even an additional step where usable items become components, such as with enchanting.

Throughout this entire process, each component and finished item has a quality rating. This rating ranges from 1 to 300, which is the same numerical range as skills. Quality rating is capped by the skills of the characters harvesting a resource, processing a component, or crafting an item, which means that the highest quality final goods require highly skilled characters to have been involved with the whole production process.

Salvaging, Looting, Harvesting, and Gathering

There are five ways for components to enter the world:

Existing items may be salvaged for components. This can be done using either a field salvage kit or by taking the item to be salvaged to the appropriate crafting facility. The salvage kit is consumable, but allows the wielder to use the quality rating of the kit instead of her own skill level when determining the quality of the component gained through salvage (and doing it in the field likely reduces the item's encumbrance versus lugging it home). In a crafting facility, the character can use her skill to deconstruct the item. Salvaging an item is inherently lossy, and will not return all components used in its manufacture. In addition to reclaiming player-crafted goods, creatures and NPCs that use gear may drop damaged or otherwise worthless gear which can be salvaged for useful components.
Enemies may drop raw components. Many creature types, particularly magical creatures, will drop "remnants" that can only be collected by players with the correct knowledge skills, and which are useful in enchanting and alchemy. Creatures may also have useful leather and meat available to players with the right skills. We currently envision this as presenting an additional loot window visible only to those with the correct skill rather than being a "skinning" type action performed on the corpse.
Harvesting nodes will appear throughout the world, and players can interact with them using the correct profession skills to acquire a small number of components. For some nodes, this may require the player to have a particular harvesting tool. These are very similar to the way harvesting is handled in other MMOs. These nodes actually draw their resources from the hex's current chance to generate supply (e.g., a hex that is very likely to create iron ore mines is also more likely to spawn iron ore harvesting nodes).
Gathering nodes will often appear in hexes. These are very large sources of material (mines, stands of trees, magical essence junctures, etc.). The player must place a gathering kit of the correct type near the node. This spawns a storage object and some additional art to indicate that the node is actively undergoing gathering. Over time, the storage fills up with components that can be removed and carted off, and the total available components in the hex is reduced.
Meanwhile, creatures are drawn to the gathering operation (both spawning new attackers and drawing in nearby existing creatures); these are usually hostile, but may sometimes be allies if you have the right alliance ratings for the escalation cycle going on in the hex. These creatures will generally try to attack players in the area, but will destroy the gathering operation if no one is around, so it may require a lot of organization to try to run multiple gathering operations simultaneously.
Gathering kits are crafted by players and generally include peasant levies provided by a settlement (this represents you supervising a large number of unseen NPCs doing most of the work). This is one of the ways a player can get the Heinous flag: levies of enslaved peasants produce a slave labor gathering kit that can mark you Heinous while the operation is in progress.
Players may also set up long-term farms, ranches, logging camps, mining operations, etc. instead of an inn or watchtower in appropriate terrain. These constantly generate more common, lower-quality components, and may allow players with the correct professions to work to improve the resources acquired.
In most of the cases above, the quality rating of the components is procedurally generated in some way. For salvaging and looting, it's based on the creature's rarity and threat; for harvesting and gathering, it's based on the hex location and how frequently it's been farmed lately. For example, a vein of quality 200 metal is much rarer and more valuable than one that's only quality 100, and quality 300 components are extremely rare.

When you salvage, collect, harvest, or gather, your skill bonus (or in the case of salvaging, the quality rating of the field salvage kit) sets a cap on the quality of the components recovered. A character with a 150 bonus to his mining skill reduces a higher-quality vein to quality 150 ore, but would get the full 100 out of a quality 100 vein.

This relationship of quality to skill bonus continues throughout the later steps of crafting...

Refining

Most component types have an intermediate production step that uses a different skill. Miners gather ore and weaponsmiths turn it into swords, but a smelter needs to turn that ore into ingots, solder, wire, and foil before the weaponsmith can use it.

The refining step requires a facility and may take time. As with acquiring the raw components, the appropriate skill bonus serves as a cap to the quality of refined goods. Quality 150 iron ore turns into quality 110 iron ingots if the refiner's skill bonus is 110.

Crafting and Enchanting

Each crafter has a number of recipes unlocked by raising the correct skill, and may be able to acquire others by exploring and getting achievements. Recipes call for several components (generally refined components). For example, a basic steel longsword may require 3 steel ingots and 2 leather strips.

Every crafting recipe for a final, usable good includes a minimum quality; if your components aren't good enough, you can't even attempt to make the item. Once you bring them together, the quality of the item is set to the quality of the worst component (or your crafting skill, if lower).

Using the minimum quality (or slightly higher) gets you a standard version of the item. At certain milestones of higher quality, your item will come with upgrades. A minimum 100 recipe made at quality 200 may, due to these upgrades, result in a better product than a better recipe made with minimum quality components.

For weapons and armor, upgrades typically come in the form of additional keywords. Other items get upgrade bonuses we're still working out, but you'll always get something cool for using higher-quality components than are required.

Finished gear can effectively be used as a component (along with magical essences and gems) for characters with the enchanter craft skill to apply a minor but permanent magical boost. Enchanters can also make temporary-boost consumables for gear (some of these work by temporarily supercharging the minor enchantment on the item).

The actual production process for all crafting involves going to a crafting facility, selecting the recipe you want to make, and selecting which of your components you want to use for the production. Once you've locked everything in, a crafting timer begins counting down (likely adjusted based on building upgrades, the number of people using the building, and other settlement features). For long productions, there may be intermediary events that encourage you to check in on your project from time to time. When the timer completes, the item is dropped into a private storage compartment in the crafting building for you to retrieve. We're hoping we'll be able to further streamline this process, particularly for large batches or heavy items, by letting you automatically move items from and to private or shared vaults anywhere inside the settlement rather than having to have all the components in inventory (e.g., pulling components straight from your personal vault and depositing the finished item directly into your company's vault).

Ultimately, the best items in the game will be the results of a long process: they were made out of a mixture of rare, high-quality components that made their way through the hands of several highly skilled professionals as they were gathered, refined, and assembled into a finished item. A maximum-quality sword isn't a rare drop from a raid boss, it's the hard work of at least half a dozen professionals with unsurpassed skill that brought elements of increasing refinement from the wilderness into your hand.

Quality and Color

To make high-quality materials and items obvious at a glance, we're expecting to map standard videogame rarity color codes for item names roughly into quality level. The lowest quality items will be listed in gray, somewhat better items will be white, intermediate items will be green, moderately good items will be blue, fairly high quality items will be purple, and really high quality items will be orange or even gold.

This means that the color code of an item will be more indicative of its "level" than serving to indicate that the item is better than its level as in other MMOs. Starter characters will probably never have items better than gray or white, while advanced characters may only wield such items if they're really desperate after death has parted them from other gear.

When you're listing items for sale, or making purchase orders on the market ,you'll be able to specify a range of quality for the items you're working with. You'll be able to sort listings by quality to help winnow the lists to the stuff you can afford, and to allow you to more easily see the market price for various degrees of quality. An item's color coding is simply a quick and easy way to get a rough approximation of the relative value of that item.

Threading and Powerful Items

As mentioned previously, players that die and respawn leave most of their gear on their husks. The only items that remain with them are those that have been attached via metaphysical "threads." Players will have discretion in tying threads and can reassign threads without losing them: one day a player might have 19 threads devoted to her armor; the next day she could switch them to instead protect her gloves, hat, boots, belt, and amulet. (Items require different numbers of threads based on their size and importance.)

As a player advances, she can purchase more threads. However, items of higher quality and tier require more threads. A starting character with starting gear has sufficient threads to protect all the gear she is likely to carry (one weapon, a set of armor, and a half dozen or so miscellaneous items). A character that has reached level 20 in a role and has all top-quality gear, meanwhile, may only be able to protect her armor and one weapon, three weapons and a miscellaneous item, or some other combination (but she could protect a larger amount of gear if she were willing to use weaker items for some of her slots). And a new player given a top-tier weapon may not be able to bind anything else but that.

Additionally, players use threads to bind to intermediary resurrection sites: you can always respawn at the nearest big statue of Pharasma (usually confined to rare, significant locations), but the world is also full of player-created or pre-placed smaller shrines to Pharasma. If you bind to one of these smaller shrines, it's likely to be much closer to the place you died.

Effectively, starting characters are going to have sufficient threads to protect most of their gear and rarely suffer major setbacks from being killed. However, as players advance their characters, they'll have to start making meaningful decisions about death: Will you use mostly weaker gear so you don't have to risk much of it on death? Will you bind to a lot of shrines so you're always near your corpse for a better chance to recover everything before it's looted? Or will you bind only your most prized and best gear, risking the rest?

Discuss this blog on paizo.com. Link.

Goblin Squad Member

Thank you.

Goblin Squad Member

Would an Item that of quality 200 ( just random numbers as an example ) require only quality 200 components to craft?
Or does it require quality 200, 100 and 50 components with more quality 100 components then quality 200 components and more quality 50 components then quality 100 components?

A.K.A. Do low quality resources stay useful or do they become useless later on?

Dark Archive Goblin Squad Member

Hmmm. The crafting process does sound overly complex though I do agree with much of it. The longer the chain of events required to make an object, the more there is that can go wrong. Additionally, what if I want to do everything myself? Will I have to multiclass?
I know and agree that working with others to create a chain of supply and refinement should be the quickest and best way to craft items. But, will it be the ONLY way? How does a 300 skill crafter make a 300 quality item if there are no other 300 quality resources, miners and refiners about. Will there be a (long, drawn out) process that lets a crafter use their full skill? Or is it a case of you may never construct a 300 item unless every resource and step is also 300 skill or quality?

Will this also mean that the best quality items won't appear in the game for two years because no one will be 20th level until then? Or will there be some way to organise groups of people together to create a better result than any one could on their own? Such a mechanism could also be used in rituals- a group of casters in a besieged city trying to cast a meteor swarm spell before the invading army breaks through and kills them all?

Goblin Squad Member

Papaver wrote:

Would an Item that of quality 200 ( just random numbers as an example ) require only quality 200 components to craft?

Or does it require quality 200, 100 and 50 components with more quality 100 components then quality 200 components and more quality 50 components then quality 100 components?

A.K.A. Do low quality resources stay useful or do they become useless later on?

Quote:
Once you bring them together, the quality of the item is set to the quality of the worst component (or your crafting skill, if lower).

As per the quote above, a QL 200 item would need QL 200 or better components and the characters skill would need to be 200+. If you were able to include a QL 100 component it would drop the QL of the item to 100 instead.

Goblin Squad Member

Pryllin wrote:
Or is it a case of you may never construct a 300 item unless every resource and step is also 300 skill or quality?

Yes, this is truth. If any resource/component or skill is lower than 300 the item QL will drop to that lower QL.

Goblin Squad Member

Oberyn Corvus wrote:


Hobbun wrote:
I really hope that 'enchanter craft skill' is embedded in the skill tree of each specialty. For example, part of the Blacksmith specialty, Weaponsmithing specialty. <snip>

Ive got mixed feelings about this one. From a traditional PnP perspective, only casters could create magic items (for example Craft Magic Arms & Armor requires Caster Level 5) and thus enchanter crafting skills should be caster-based. However, a case could be made for a non-caster blacksmith to be able to use scrolls to enchant the armor/weapons. There are cases from fantasy literature and lore where dwarven blacksmiths (who could not cast or use any magic in several settings and systems such as AD&D) could still create magic weapons and armor. Im personally ok with either option as long as each 'skill tree' is well defined and fun.

there's no reason why it has to be either/or. Enchanted blades could be unlocked via enchanting skill tree or bladesmith skill tree (devs need to consider what 'level', ie xp cost, a skill i multiple skilltrees should have). Or it could require both.

Default scenario: Enchanting is 'postprocessing'. Blade (quality x), enchanting materials (quality y) and enchanting skill (quality z) gives an Enchanted blade of quality =min(x,y,z). Enchanting would likely be a separate skill tree.

Alternate scenario: Enchanting is part of the production. Master bladesmiths take iron, leather and fairy dust (or magic gems or whatever materials) and forge an enchanted blade. Specific enchants could be branches of the crafting trees or a separate tree, but the same smith would need both skills.

in either case, gathering and refining materials for enchanting would be separate skill trees.


Hmm, I was hoping for a more interesting crafting process than "hit button, wait, hey c'mere this screw needs a bit of hammering". Balancing crafting with assembly time and relying on logjams to keep the player around is kind of a roundabout way to design the process. I was hoping for a more engaging and realistic way of crafting (within the complexity limits the game can offer, of course).
For example, I really like the minecraft crafting system (especially with mods). Rather than bringing resources together and pressing a button, you actually feel like you're assembling the item. Another thing is that there's no "dead time" where you just sit and wait - the player is almost always busy.
Of course you can't just copy this system, but you can use some elements from it, like Multi-stepped crafting (raw materials -> components, components -> the item, maybe components -> higher-level-components in the middle). Maybe you already thought of that, but you mentioned it only concerning Refining.

I just hope that crafting will feel like crafting and not like factory management. Right now, it sounds more like the latter.

Goblin Squad Member

Hobbun wrote:

...

I really hope that 'enchanter craft skill' is embedded in the skill tree of each specialty. For example, part of the Blacksmith specialty, Weaponsmithing specialty.

From what I understand how it will work is each specialty will have it's long and involved crafting skills, big enough to be comparable to a class (Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, etc).

What I don't want to see is a long and involved crafting tree for Blacksmithing and then a completely separate one for enchanting. I hope the ability to enchant is within the 1 1/2 years of the Blacksmithing specialty skill tree. Or, any other specialty for that matter.

Hobbun what is the issue? Are you merely intent on being completely independent so you don't have to rely on other players?

Goblin Squad Member

Now I want to make my Destiny's Twin a dedicated crafter =D

I like the wide range of quality on items (1-300), and that the quality is limited by the skills of the creator/salvager. The idea of field salvage kits which apply their own quality is really cool. This makes me want to be my settlement's premier junker ><

Pretty cool to have knowledge checks to loot additional materials from NPC kills, though I wonder if it will be apparent that a creature has those materials available if you don't have the requisite skill to loot them.

I'm sure a lot of people are happy to see the inclusion of long-term mines, rangches, farms, lumbermills, etc along with the already-planned inns and watchtowers. Having these types structures share spawn locations seems like a good idea: They all could be owned by a person/small group and aid in RP. The only one that doesn't seem to fit this is the watchtower, which might be more useful to a settlement.

I think it will be really cool to come across people that have been witness to the entire history of a hex since it was a frontier. They might know all the different groups that moved through it or settled around it, territorial disputes, the wars that were fought, festivals that were held, etc. I hope that these locations are much more numerous than settlements (settlements can hold hundreds or thousands of players, these hold few) and that there isn't too much reason for a settlement to demolish one in favor of building a watchtower.

Might I also suggest that Mage's Towers and Druid Groves be added to these buildings? Mage's Towers can give magical components and Druid Groves maybe give a slight increase in harvesting rates in the hex (as an effect of the druid's masterful nurture of nature)? Not sure about that one, but once those two structures are included, it seems like most people will be able to happily pursue their in-game dreams.

I also like the added dynamic of spawn locations to threading!

Goblin Squad Member

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You know what might be interesting?

You know those 'memorial' signs you see along the side of the road "Near this spot in 1530 the Spanish Explorer Hernando DeSoto journeyed in his search for the Font of Eternal Youth' or whatever.

When a great player battle is won or lost, or a settlement is destroyed, or other great event involving many players a readable monument might be erected that would persist, ensuring a sense of history is in the game.

Also key to promoting enduring history would be if there were a calendar tracking days, months, and years.


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Papaver wrote:

Would an Item that of quality 200 ( just random numbers as an example ) require only quality 200 components to craft?

Or does it require quality 200, 100 and 50 components with more quality 100 components then quality 200 components and more quality 50 components then quality 100 components?

A.K.A. Do low quality resources stay useful or do they become useless later on?

I really really Hope they take a page from Eves crafting system and use all levels of material throughout the crafting process. Meaning that a level 1 recipe might require X amount of copper ingots, while a level 20 recipe would require XX amount of copper in addition to X amount of adamantite and X amount of unobtanium (made up material for example). This would ensure that lower level gatherers will be needed by higher level crafters and refiners, guaranteeing them a revenue stream as well as a place within the crafting community and settlement.

Goblin Squad Member

Ravenlute wrote:
Quote:
Once you bring them together, the quality of the item is set to the quality of the worst component (or your crafting skill, if lower).
As per the quote above, a QL 200 item would need QL 200 or better components and the characters skill would need to be 200+. If you were able to include a QL 100 component it would drop the QL of the item to 100 instead.

This is problematic. As this makes anyone who is not able gather process and craft 300 stuff pretty much irrelevant thus making playing catch up really hard.

I'm very much in favor of a system that does not have stuff that is rendered useless once you have "skilled" past it.

Like it has been stated in the Fear the Boot interview quite well:

Quote:
But you sort of can. I mean, even in EVE, and I suspect in Pathfinder, there will be resources that are trivially easy to obtain, but that all the guilds and organizations will need just billions of. Veldspar comes to mind, but, you know, rocks or whatever it’s going to be in Pathfinder could be it. And by doing that, there will be people in the player economy who want your stuff, there’ll be a self-paced economic growth to that, because as they get more and more money from their super high-end stuff, they’re competing with one another for your newbie rocks, and you can sort of get into it.

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