Goblin Squad Member
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Just did a little testing on this today - my second character has Smelting 3 and was able to run jobs with his crafting queue. He has not gained any xp since the Alpha 9 patch. Rather than just doing a bug report I decided to raise it here, just to make sure we're all playing by the same rules.
If the intent is that these characters are able to craft, I'd like to know so that I can spend appropriate amount of xp training up my alts (to craft in the background, if I decide that would be efficient). On the other hand, if these characters are not supposed to be crafting (or adding to settlement construction queues), will their ability to do so be blocked once EE starts?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Because it means that the majority of crafting will be done by peoples alts, rather than those people that dedicate themselves full time to crafting. You know that whole "crafters are second class citizens" thing? It would push us one step closer in that direction.
For now. Once there ends up being a demand for T3 gear and consumables, well...hopefully, it turns out ok.
And this is from someone who will be running a crafter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If GW would allow Crafting queues on characters that are not actively gaining xp then they are severely limiting their income. People will quickly find out what level of Alt-crafter they need to sustain certain needs for their main/settlement, train them up to that level, stop the XP and then let them crank out Lesser Cure Potions, or +1 throw-away adventuring gear forever, at zero cost.
Or you will see that every serious settlement will have 7 maxed Refiner Alts and 10 Maxed crafter Alts across their members, that can be run forever without cost.
I think the current iteration of which character earns XP is just the first one. I think the plan is that you can not even log in a character that is not gaining xp actively. Right now you can immediately alternate between characters gaining xp: I am sure we will see limitations on that, for instance that you can only change it once every 24 hours. That would allow a crafter alt, who is put on gaining xp, to finish an entire line-up of queues, before the player disables him and set his fighter-alt to active.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is the problem with alts and crafting:
So far I was doing exactly that - the main character was roaming the region and gathered and is fighting - my second and third chracter mainly did the crafting.
XP wise
Char 1: 40% gathering, 30% fighting, 30% crafting
Char 2 and 3: 80% crafting
But this only worked BECAUSE they would gain XP. And I had the plan to have my destiny twin to me 80% crafter.
Now this doesn't work anymore. But solutions suggested here don't seem to help. If you only get XP once, then a crafter with 1000 XP is useless for everything but the worst items. If I use XP to train crafting to do exactly what is said above and pay for 1 month - to be able to churn out items for free and not paying GW after I stop.
Hello world - I can do the same by multiclassing with my main and stop training in crafting. Where is the difference if my fighter/gatherer stops at level 4 smelting to an alt that trains up to level 4 and then stops.
Oh - there is one difference - you can pay twice for a short time and then keep a character not advancing or you pay only for a single character and advance more slowly.
But one way or another you pay XP and then you have a crafting queue. You pay more XP and you have a better crafting queue. You pay multiple characters and you have multiple crafting queues.
Do you disallow a fighter to fight if a player decides to spend his XP for an alt crafter just because he started fighting first and not crafting first?
You either pay for multiple accounts and then you can use them all or you pay for a single one and you have dimished use one way or the other - either because your main is multiclass and therefore is less advanced in some areas as pure specialists or because he has multiple pure characters and therefore he is less advanced as XP is spread.
The 1000XP start doesn't truly make much of a difference here. The question would be - where could you stop with a crafter to be useful enough? That works for both - alt crafter or multiclas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The 1000XP start doesn't truly make much of a difference here. The question would be - where could you stop with a crafter to be useful enough? That works for both - alt crafter or multiclas.
This is the real question. The XP cost of crafting skills increases at a greater rate than adventuring skills do. At rank six or so, skill ups start costing > 8,0000 xp each. Taking a skill to Tier 3 viability would take over a month's worth of xp. That puts your adventuring "main" a month behind the level curve for every crafting skill you want to put on your alt. My advice, use DT, buy a second account, or let the crafters craft and pay them well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If GW would allow Crafting queues on characters that are not actively gaining xp then they are severely limiting their income.
Yet in so limiting their income GW may end with a more vibrant player economy increasing their income in the long run. If my alt is freely racking up crafting achievements there may come a point where I can capitalize on it with a month or two of xp when I can reach the next plateau of my craft efficiently thus enhancing the revenue stream for those months and minimizing the expense of running two characters. Without doing so, the player would pay for only one character's xp continuously.
Does my reasoning stand up to scrutiny?
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Goblin Squad Member
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One other point to bear in mind:
Unless this has change, gw said that they plan to make it possible tp play the game f2p in the long run.
-i don´t see them making that true only for non-crafter characters. (which, considering that you can craft some stuff without putting xp into it, wouldn´t be possible anyway imho)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Please help me know what reason there'd be for someone who's spent Experience Points training crafting abilities *not* to be able to use those abilities any time she chooses, earning XP or not.
If GW needs to make money on characters who pay a sub fee in order to improve crafting, then non-paying crafters might get pushed out. If you ran the business end, would you want players playing without paying?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thod hit the nail on the head above: if crafters can't craft without paying, then how can adventurers adventure without paying? It's exactly the opposite side of the same coin.
All should be allowed to do what they choose, to the extent they choose. A crafter with "enough" adventuring skills to satisfy his needs should be identical to an adventurer with "enough" crafting skills to satisfy hers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Every active character should be paying to play. Otherwise there will be a glut of lower level toons that only train up enough to be a menace and GW will never make another nickel off of them. What an awesome way to encourage those who actually want to pay to play to not play at all! Pure genius!
I call of the riff-raff filter. Many communities charge a hefty monthly fee to live in a certain community. My sister can afford to live in such a community (far north side of Atlanta, GA). It is not foolproof but it largely keeps out the unsavory types and pays for things like the golf course, the security team, the landscaping, the restaurant (members and guests only, if you please). Some people slip through the cracks, like an NFL quarterback that was sent to prison for running a dog fighting ring, and one residence was a very high end brother (now closed). :(
I hope they do not allow character not earning experience to play at all. If you log in you should be on the XP gain timer, burning that month's sub fee. After, GW is a business. But if Ryan's business model includes having a bunch of players running around not paying, I would be interested to see how much return he and his fellow investors expect to see from their investment.
...if these characters are not supposed to be crafting (or adding to settlement construction queues), will their ability to do so be blocked once EE starts?
They should in my opinion. But everyone wants something for nothing. Ryan has described some of how the accounts should work, once implemented, multi-boxing, account subscriptions...but not everything. It might be a good idea for there to be a blog soon as we are getting close to players committing cash to the game, and we all need to know what to expect from account management and how these things will work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One difference between an alt (non-paying) crafter and an alt (non-paying) adventurer is that the adventurer is in the world, interacting with and at risk from other players. The crafter character can log on, queue up 5 jobs, then log out - not interacting while toiling away in the ether. The adventure participates while the player is engaged in the world. The crafter can work his queue while disengaged.
My preference, I think, would be that when I log on a character, alt or main, then the xp hose is turned to that character. Crafting and construction queues continue as long as the xp hose is directed to that character, and suspended if the xp hose is directed to another character.
I'm a little leary about non-paying adventurers, but accept that GW will almost certainly have some trial accounts in the future. For now I'd ask whether we want every player to have 2-3 crafting queues running, even if it's low level stuff.
Note that low level can still be high plus stuff. If I find a +3 steel ingots recipe, it could be placed on a skill 1 alt to churn out +3 ingots for eternity. If alts can only craft when receiving xp, then it makes sense to give or sell the recipe to a player's main character instead, a character who will use it more often than my alt could.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ultimately the problem really comes down to passive versus active. For combat it doesn't seem like a big deal because you have to actively use skills you trained thus taking up time and risk associated with the activities. Crafting characters on the other hand end up being a passive source of content that takes little activity time to benefit from. This is one of the reasons I tend to prefer active and involved crafting systems, the issues become even more apparent in this style of game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has said there will probably need to be some limits on play of non-XP-earning characters. I can think of several options:
A counter starts when you stop earning XP (whether it's real days or game hours, the character won't load after that counter has completed.
Playing while not earning XP burns XP at the rate of 2400/day, so each time you log the character in, you'll lose capabilities at the same rate you gained them, either by selection or random (including watching for pre-reqs)
Any character that isn't earning XP can only be logged in as a 1000 XP character, but regains it's other capabilities if you start earning XP.
Not really F2P, but any character can be played without earning new XP at the "park" rate of [$5? $10?]/month instead of 15. (or, to avoid having separate rates, a non-earning character gets [50% 100%] more play time for the same rate. So a $15 play certificate gets me 30 days of XP-earning-play or [45 60] days of non-XP-earning-play)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe what they eventually plan to do is have certain limits to non-active (read: non-subbed) characters, and the main way they will do that, I imagine, will be through limited facility queues, limited AH slots, etc.
Basucally, they will make it so that full-fledged, XP earning crafters will always be the most efficient and optimal.
Edit: @Cal, I really cannot ever see them instituting a scenario whereby a character is losing XP. Mayhem would ensue, to be sure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe what they eventually plan to do is have certain limits to non-active (read: non-subbed) characters, and the main way they will do that, I imagine, will be through limited facility queues, limited AH slots, etc.
Basucally, they will make it so that full-fledged, XP earning crafters will always be the most efficient and optimal.
Edit: @Cal, I really cannot ever see them instituting a scenario whereby a character is losing XP. Mayhem would ensue, to be sure.
Oh yeah. I totally forgot about limited queues for crafting stations. That was supposed to interact with limiting access to your settlement and its crafting facilities. I wonder whether that's still part of the plan?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly, a player who logs his character on daily to queue up crafting tasks is clearly an active player - if he doesn't want to pay for more XP to get better at these crafting tasks, I don't see a problem with that. They still 'bought' this character to develop - are we arguing that if they stop the XP flow to their character, they should not be able to access it at all? It feels that way, in particular if you are stopping a crafter character from accomplishing what he is made to do.
I would say that as long as an account still has at least one active subscription (one character gaining XP) all characters on the account should function normally. This is what seems right and most logical, to me. (Also, I have always had the impression that this is the design intent.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly, a player who logs his character on daily to queue up crafting tasks is clearly an active player - if he doesn't want to pay for more XP to get better at these crafting tasks, I don't see a problem with that. They still 'bought' this character to develop - are we arguing that if they stop the XP flow to their character, they should not be able to access it at all? It feels that way, in particular if you are stopping a crafter character from accomplishing what he is made to do.
I would say that as long as an account still has at least one active subscription (one character gaining XP) all characters on the account should function normally. This is what seems right and most logical, to me. (Also, I have always had the impression that this is the design intent.)
We're not arguing about what people should and shouldn't be able to do. We're discussing keeping the game viable in the face of thousands of characters that are "good enough" to do what they are intended to do, so the player stops paying for them but keeps playing.
What the character should be able to do has to be secondary to whether the game is viable for everyone. If the economy has to be maintained for 100,000 characters, but there are only 25k paying and they have 75k that are active alts not generating income, then there is a problem.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure I agree that such a scenario would be a problem. Perhaps I should stay out of the conversation, but the entire theoretical problem seems to be based on the idea that the majority of players would rather have 4 characters and pay for one than work as a part of a group. I do not believe that to be the case.
I guess I'll just let you all hash it out, but it all feels like unwarranted paranoia to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem you have to grapple with here is when people get to certain levels of play, can't pay anymore, and want to use the free model for awhile.
When you have a level 15 Character, and is a lot of time and investment to just relegate them to a Tier 1 character without the ability to use their ques.
They are going to have to find a nice balance that allows Newbies to want to buy into the game, but old timers a nice slice of FTP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would suggest that when you go FTP the Alignment System, Reputation system, and Faction system doesn't function for you like a paying player. You can still take hits for doing negative things, but you can not increase your ratings. Older players will still be apart of their faction, while new players can't participate.
Essentially, this keeps low level newbies, neutral, and limits what kind of training they will have access to over time, as well as giving oldtimers the ability to sort of freeze their character. Also, this limits people from doing negative activities.
Then, to make sure these accounts aren't used for malicious attacks, any character that drops below -5,000 (this can be tweaked) will have their account locked, and if they want to continue they will have to pay. Any IP that that has multiple free accounts drop below -5,000 is IP banned from the game. I realize that a lot of people this won't stop, but I am sure that this can be tweaked to curtail malicious intent with free accounts.
Next, General Ques are frozen, they do not work. Your general que can be used for crafting, building, or for outposts, this would be turned off. If you want to craft, you will have to be an Expert that gets secondary ques, or a Commoner for building buildings and bulk resource boosting.
This will limit players into using their very limited experience (probably 1-2 weeks worth starting a new character) for niche rolls specifically. They get a taste of the game, and a lot of free content, but some of the more important things, and things that create a lot of depth will be limiting.
One last limit, Dungeons, the random ones we will be seeing in the future. You gain access for X amount of time, loot drops are higher inside of them, so on and so forth. These shouldn't be open for non-paying players, even if they are partying with paying players.
So, as a paying player you are paying for:
Experience per month, gaining a general que, the ability to gain reputation, alignment, participate in Factions, and random dungeon hunting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly, a player who logs his character on daily to queue up crafting tasks is clearly an active player - if he doesn't want to pay for more XP to get better at these crafting tasks, I don't see a problem with that. They still 'bought' this character to develop - are we arguing that if they stop the XP flow to their character, they should not be able to access it at all? It feels that way, in particular if you are stopping a crafter character from accomplishing what he is made to do.
I would say that as long as an account still has at least one active subscription (one character gaining XP) all characters on the account should function normally. This is what seems right and most logical, to me. (Also, I have always had the impression that this is the design intent.)
We're not arguing about what people should and shouldn't be able to do. We're discussing keeping the game viable in the face of thousands of characters that are "good enough" to do what they are intended to do, so the player stops paying for them but keeps playing.
What the character should be able to do has to be secondary to whether the game is viable for everyone. If the economy has to be maintained for 100,000 characters, but there are only 25k paying and they have 75k that are active alts not generating income, then there is a problem.
This. Exactly.
And it isn't paranoia, it is just the plain fact that this is still a business. They need to make money and to do that they will need to incent people to pay to play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any IP that that has multiple free accounts drop below -5,000 is IP banned from the game.
This piece'll need revision; we've heard many voices on these boards telling us how easy it is to spoof IP addresses. I can only imagine the chaos if someone figures out how to appear to be using the IP of another player...
Because it means that the majority of crafting will be done by peoples alts, rather than those people that dedicate themselves full time to crafting. You know that whole "crafters are second class citizens" thing? It would push us one step closer in that direction.
yeah until they make creative crafts.
Crafting is kind of like pve, too. I don't believe a game can survive on pvp alone... the gankers need someone to grief, etc.
Also disagree with not being able to craft while you aren't gaining exp. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Summary: I don't really see it as a problem, at least not in the next 1-2 years. But I tend to interpret 'crafting' as 'anything that involves T2 and T3 materials'.
-The argument potentially extends to 'free alts' working every building.
-'Real' crafters will have to spend xp. 'Free alts' (with say 1 day of xp each) can still crank out low-tier items, but so can any non-crafter who picks up lvl2 in a craft. Tier1 crafting has so low entry barriers that every player can (and should) dabble. No crafting alts needed.
-The value of a 2nd or 3rd crafting queue is great when you are making goods nobody else can (and takes days). It's not competitive against hordes of 'free alts', but doesn't have to be. The real money will be in T3 and T2 resources. To play the T2 game you need to pay more than a month of xp per character, for T3 lots more.
-"every serious guild will have 17 maxed alts". I suspect a lot of them will be mains, though some crafters may well want to invest a bit of xp in non-crafting alts (fighting, gathering and trading across the world while the main minds the store at home) and should not be punished for that.
-In any case the crafters won't be maxed in the first year. By the time this becomes a problem, GW will have introduced new and wonderful ways to solve the issue. Until that time, active crafter mains have a clear edge.
Crafters 2nd class? If a high-level dedicated crafter and a high-level dedicated pvp'er want to leave the game after 12 months, which account do you think the guild would consider buying out?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Low level crafters will take over the role that currently is been filled by free item drops. Turn these off and you will be happy to have some low level crafters to turn out basic items.
They still need someone to gather the resources. How many posters here actually have crafted? Do you get the raw materials from your guild or do you collect them.
You can only log in for 5 min and fill the craft queue if someone else spend a lot longer to actually harvest and gather all necessary ingredients.
If you think you could do that by buying ingredients low price at the AH and sell high price at the AH = good luck. This will work for rare and special items aka high crafter level - but try to sell a +0 long sword or some +0 wooden slippers. Good luck.
I remember a dedicated crafter just two days ago complaining nobody was buying her stuff. To be honest - she only had low level stuff and no recipes yet. There were multiple people who tried to help by offering advice and recipes - but don't expect that to happen for low level crafters.
So in summary - there is likely more harm as benefit if no XP means no crafting.
But GW needs to think how many characters they will allow per account. There are justifiable concerns for hordes of 1000 XP characters - but I would personally worry less about 1000XP crafters but about 1000XP fighters or otherwise characters that just fill up space to block / being used as cannon fodder and throw away.
I'm sure there will be more disruptive ways players can envison as crafting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First off, I want to say that I think the dialog in this thread is rather productive and many interesting questions have surfaced.
I do however, find it curious that there is such an intent focus on the concept of a "crafting alt". I understand how it might be desirable to have a crafting specialized alt to park at the crossroads of a bustling economy or of a different race to min/max racial skill bonuses, but with crafting ques making progress while you're out in the world adventuring I think that these benefits are being perceived as greater than they actually are.
I don't really see a great advantage to stopping the xp on my main char to give xp to an alt just for the purpose of crafting. Why not just spend some of your main char's xp budget on crafting?
IMHO, crafting alts are for players who either have a Destiny's Twin or have intent to purchase a second monthly sub long term to maintain a crafting character and an adventuring character with maximum XP each.
As for financial viability long term it is going to always be a balance between casual dabblers flocking to F2P vs. hardcore power gamers who maintain 2+ paid subscriptions to have high level output in multiple specialized roles.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The value proposition is that you can spend a few thousand XP making an alt that can craft in addition to the XP that you spend on your main. A character with weaver 4 and a character with tanner 4 can produce more than one character with weaver and tanner 4.
The counterpoint to that is the crafting achievement gates.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe very strongly that a non training character on a paying account should be able to log in. I even believ that a character on a non paying account should be able to log in. Whatever limitations placed on them I'll et GW and the rest of the community crowdforge I don't have that strong an opinion.
What I do believe however, is that alts should be able to do everything ,including queue to the hearts content, until GW has provided a mechanism for us to train more than one character per account.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I think that for the next several iterations the only thing that will be affected by selecting which character gains XP is the XP gain itself.
Eventually I want to go to a system where characters that are not gaining XP also cease active crafting jobs and cancel auctions and want to buy orders.
They probably will not be able to log in, either.
Then we'll think about how to let people buy back in to some of those services at reduced prices via MTX, but that will be dependent on getting the MTX system built.
This is all separate from the issue of having some kind of "trial" account for new players.
Existing accounts should not think of inactive characters as freely playable alts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I do believe however, is that alts should be able to do everything ,including queue to the hearts content, until GW has provided a mechanism for us to train more than one character per account.
If the tools are not in game yet to select and deselect characters freely and with some flexibility, I agree that non-training characters should be able to log in. However, their action should have some limits.
I believe very strongly that a non training character on a paying account should be able to log in.
Yes, in order to pay for training. But not to play, nor gather, nor craft, nor conduct PvE or PvE. You should have to pay to play.
I even believe that a character on a non paying account should be able to log in.
I can't see any reason for this to occur, except to pay for training. Which you should be able to do in an "Account Management" screen, not an in game screen.
GW is a business. I can't see a movie theater letting you go to every movie all year if you pay for one movie in January.
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I believe very strongly that a non training character on a paying account should be able to log in. I even believ that a character on a non paying account should be able to log in. Whatever limitations placed on them I'll et GW and the rest of the community crowdforge I don't have that strong an opinion.
What I do believe however, is that alts should be able to do everything ,including queue to the hearts content, until GW has provided a mechanism for us to train more than one character per account.
I think if your account has a paid character on it, you should be able to play your non-exp gaining alts. This basically means that you have to sub per char slot... or close, which is pretty ridiculous.
Now, if you stop subbing your acct, then I could see it... All of this is built around F2P ideas and MTX. I don't like it. I know it's seen as an essential model, but that you only get one character per 15 bucks a months is extremely steep.
Edit: well I somewhat take that back because I guess you could just keep switching your exp gainer. Still don't like it one bit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How will the Destiny's Twin work? I paid $100 for the Crowdforger Pioneer level during the Kickstarter. Do I get a Destiny's Twin? How do we choose this character from the selection? Is it one of the three alts? How do I know if I have one or not based on my Goblinworks or Paizo account?
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Goblin Squad Member
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To be quite honest if i had to pay a sub every month for a crafting alt I used for 10 minutes a day to fire off a few craft jobs I simply would delete the character.
Especially if it is not my main crafter and all the sub is doing is gaining XP the particular alt does not need as it can already make his +3 staves or whatever it was built for.
People seem happy for an alt to run around and gather and kill stuff without subbing but not craft.
I simply cannot see craft alts below level 10ish making enough per month to justify the real dollar sub.
But hey, who knows people may go for it, try it and see :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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I simply cannot see craft alts below level 10ish making enough per month to justify the real dollar sub.
What something is worth depends on what is valued, and values are subjective to the individual. You feel that way, I may feel another. You may value whether the monetary return is greater than your investment, I may value artistry. You will think you are right and I am foolish and I will think similarly about your values. I justify worth by a different measure than you in these hypothetical examples.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know there are some differences from EVE but why in the world would you not be able to log into characters not gaining xp? That seems really crappy to me. It's a huge kick to anyone that doesn't have Destiny's Twin when that perk is already really awesome. Even without earning XP it would be useful to be able to log in to an alt to check the market of another town and such. Unless the ability to see only what is for sale locally in the AH is off the table or it will list all the prices for an item and where they are being sold globally, this will be a primary use for alts aside from basic crafting. Not to mention zerg recon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know there are some differences from EVE but why in the world would you not be able to log into characters not gaining xp? That seems really crappy to me. It's a huge kick to anyone that doesn't have Destiny's Twin when that perk is already really awesome. Even without earning XP it would be useful to be able to log in to an alt to check the market of another town and such. Unless the ability to see only what is for sale locally in the AH is off the table or it will list all the prices for an item and where they are being sold globally, this will be a primary use for alts aside from basic crafting. Not to mention zerg recon.
Just to point out, both examples you gave were using alts to circumvent game mechanics. Minor circumvention, sure, but still. Alt mechanic decisions have a huge impact on the game, it is not a simple or subtle thing. It has already been stated that some of this has been taken into account since the auction houses will be linked for searches (you still need to travel to the right place to buy/pickup the item) to eliminate the need for market checking alts and third party market sites.
Having the ability to influence the market at all with essentially unlimited 'short time paid' alts that only required a few minutes of activity a day could have some serious ramifications on the economy and those participating. Do not underestimate your fellow players, they will use every system they can to their advantage and this is one that I feel is a very dangerous area.