Lemkii Twins's page

Between 8 and 11 depending on the character and the campaign.

Level 1 and 2 are kind of useless after a while. (I have started so many campaigns that it seems more to be an exercise in dancing softly) you don't really get in to your class until level 3 or 4. (Second feat and second level spells)

5 to 7 are fun since you can start seeing some of your character plans come to fruition. Also everyone can take a few hits and offer something to the combat.

After 12 is slowly becomes all or nothing. Everyone is now very powerful, but considering the amount of damage and Save or Die/Suck that can fly around, one bad roll can take you out completely, or end the encounter completely before the rest of the party gets to act.

In a good group everyone gets one combat a session to be the big hero. But sometimes it may be the same character doing the same trick for all the encounters.

Truth is, it's us shiny-loving, homedwelling, crafter-loving, safety-seeking, PvE mongering Carebears that, in the end, are the reason that conflict will exist in this world, since it is you competitive and action loving players that will want to try to take it away from us and make our homes unsafe, take our lands and "ruin" our PvE(make dangerous).

You need the civilians who want peace and quiet and shiny and lewtz, so that you can kick down our Lego-dreams(or want it for your own Carebears), so that we can get mad and rally to our cause by employing more of you!

You need Beauty and Stability so that Chaos and Destruction can follow.

Everytime one of us sighs "I wish we could PvE in peace for once", another seed has been planted for strife. Everytime you take away a shiny, we will cry foul and want revenge.

This is one of the reasons that I believe so much work is going into Escalations. You need PvE players in this game and GW knows it: you just need those that can see the bigger picture.

"If it wasn't for war, you would not know what peace is!"

-Col. Flagg

So how is the response to the Ustilav Escalation any different than the GW response to the Town Goblin farming?

In both cases it was, "Hey gang, your right. This is dropping loot a little easier than we want. We will fix, so take advantage of it while you can!"

In both cases, the resulting extra loot isn't breaking the economy. And more likely helping the over all game by seeding more goods early on.

In a month or so after the AI is tweaked, the extra loot will be trivial generated will be trivial.

And people laughed at me for being "diverse" in my characters. Half way in the Feb and neither of my DT characters have any T2 skills. But , I can do many different activities at T1.

Mistwalker wrote:

So maybe not as big a problem as some have made it out to be.

The melee ones pack a punch, as appropriate to their color, and the casters debuff you - most likely making it easier for the melee ones to hurt you.

Hmm, is it similar to the way that the Broken Men Escalation elder priests (red) seem to most debuff after the first spell or two? Same AI issue?

The debuff lowers your attack damage by a fair bit. Most of the mobs kill you in 3-5 hits, the purples can do it in 2. With a good sized group, though, you can just power through the escalation. It won't change when the casters have their AI changed, you'll just focus fire them first.

In the end it will all come down to handful of PCs doing focused fire in a predetermined order of attack. Maybe a little CC thrown around slow the mobs, but for the most part this is small group PvE in a nutshell. (For good or bad)

Mob AI is always, for some value, predictable. This is the nature of Computer games. Until we have RPG AI "learn and adapt" such that it can out think players, then this will always be the case. As such once a "trick" is learned, any encounter then becomes a trivial exercise.

Motivation for doing the exercise is the chance of some "good" reward.

Saying "Go fill up yer loot bags while you can" sends the opposite message to the player base and in the future it will be hard to justify holding people accountable for exploiting as past practice will say it's OK until fixed.

I think the message is, "Since everyone knows of this, it is no longer an exploit." Also this is a short term opportunity for those that want to take advantage of it.

Even if I don't go there and try to get the loot myself, it still puts it in circulation. More T2 recipes right now add to the immediate supply. So I still will benefit from all this farming since it will lead to lower/stable T2 prices quicker.

At this point, I am not overly worried about "easy" T2 recipe drops. Now that it is known to be a good loot pinata, different groups will get their swings at it.

Right now, the game still needs to seed a lot of T2 production with slightly higher drops. The profit and edge that those groups make now will be short lived. Even now, since coin is sort of worthless, most of those who are making T2 are trading in resources. (my guess is resource to make + 25% extra)

Fighter is the only role near feature complete and even then I suspect it only to be 75% complete.

All other roles are maybe a third to half feature complete. That does not even take in to account additional work for balancing and tweaking.

Much like "The other game," in PFO PvP can happen anywhere. However the chance of PvP is not the same in every hex. In some hexes at certain times, PvP will cost the aggressor. Right now that cost prevents rampant murder-hoboing, but does not deter going after the occasional "opportunity targets" (aka mobile resource nodes)

On the flip side, there are tools in place to mitigate your risk of unexpected death as long as you take certain precautions.

At the very least you will need to join a company to join a settlement in order to train after about a month or so. However, you can create your own "solo" company and already there are a few settlements that are welcoming said companies with no requirements.

Like any MMO, grouping will allow you access to certain content. It depends on your own goals towards advancement. But you do not need to group in order to acquire more advanced gear. You will need to trade and haggle for it, but everyone will be doing that. All gear is player made and not loot drops. Any individual can provide use to the established companies.

At this point in the game, any formal training/academy company/settlement should not worry too much about neutrality. The whole company-settlement connects are going to change over the next year.

What is important is to help new players through the maze of information that is needed to get a hold on this game. Should EL, Riverbank or whoever be the base of said academy is not an issue.

The New Player Guide has a wealth of information. But new players don't want to read it. How do you help players expect things to be like other MMOs but don't take time to understand the game.

Once Tutorial quests are in place that cover the topics of the New Player Guide, then players will have an in game foundation to get started.

Then other groups can better come in to help new players plan and play their first month or two. Even EveUni required all new players to go though the basics on their own before joining. But the basics were available to be learned.

Right now, new players don't last long enough to know who to ask for help. Or even develop questions beyond basic how does this game work.

Crafters success would rarely be public. Even if equipment gets maker's mark, all equipment is the same.

It isn't crafting itself that makes you well known, it is being a capitalist. Can you build a production empire that brings in a good deal of passive income over the months?

Also I don't think individual crafters are going to be well known outside their companies. Companies will have reputations with settlements and other players as providing a good supply of equipment.

Leaders of Companies most likely will have decent holdings. But since the time invested to craft T2 and T3 for the player, they are not easily replaced.

Wealth will come to those that can see opportunities and profit from them.

So much for my bid of 1000 Tansy Leaves.

In PFO a "combat" character will require the resources of at least 3 crafting professions (a weapon, implement, and armor) as well as 4 or 5 different refining professions to feed those crafting professions.

So one character will require the skills of about at least half a dozen other characters.

On the other side, crafters and refiners can most likely support at most a dozen other characters in the supply chain. Gathering will most likely be done as a side task for most characters. A few characters will be fully dedicated to gathering full time.

For the most part, I expect that even the largest settlements will have at least 1/3 of their population as dedicated crafters with everyone else at the very least providing resources and a good number of part time crafting characters.

So I expect to see a good balance between crafters and adventurers. And a fairly decent level of respect overall between the two.

Or it would just guarantee that people craft a lot of them.

Smallholdings and Base Camps are not craftable. You can only get them with real money. Only Campfires will be crafted.

There is one difference between industrialist in EVE and Crafters in PFO. Crafters will need to specialize and rely on a network of other people to provide goods.

In EVE I ran a profitable T2 production with 2 to 3 characters. I would say I was at least 75% self sufficient. That is I was able to manage the whole supply chain from resource gathering to transport and selling of final product with just 1 character. The seconded help with additional resource gathering, the third just opened up a few more bandwidth in production. The only things I could not produce in house were raw moon mining materials.

Now for time reasons I would purchase some additional resources that I felt were not worth my time to harvest myself.

In PFO, you may see a T2 crafter with maybe one T2 refining skill and the feeding T2 gathering. But all crafts require 3 or more refining skills.

T3 crafters will most likely not have any other T3 refining or gathering skills.

So a single character would be very limited in production if they wanted to control their whole supply chain.

Right now, I suspect most settlements are putting in place some time of BYO-Resource program, or setting internal prices at material costs. I really doubt any settlement will offer a full GRP for anything above T1, and even then, many T1 materials are still needed for higher Tiers (Coal is needed for T2 metals)

hmmm ... trying to start an armorsmith on MY DT account ... for hours and hours i killed a bazillion mobs last night and was wondering about drop rate for recipes?!

i got 4 out of 100's and 100's of looted items (0 armorsmith)

i understand "this is a social game" etc etc but didnt know that even just to get started you'd get stuck without being able to craft and would have to seek out others for recipes

all four starter cities NADA on recipes on auction house

or maybe i'm doing something wrong and there is some "free recipes" other than the bodkin arrows from the tutorials

don't want to bother this thread with my newbie questions so would a lovely armorsmith not afraid of a casual gamer taking 0.00102% of their future market share please PM me my next step(s)

and as for this thread I will purchase or trade for any armorsmith recipes

thanks in advance

A few points.

First, increase your knowledge skills will increase drop rates. (Local for bandits and Goblins, Nature for Wolves, Geo for Ogres.) Going from 3 to 6 in local gave me a significant increase in rate of Recipe drops.

Second, There are actually very few dropped Armorsmith recipes. (I think 6 Tier 1). 2 out of the 3 martial armors you get from gaining ranks. In general, there are a host more refining recipes then crafting.

Worse case, I would not expect anything more than 2:1 trades for same tier recipes. Even going though the AH, you can most likely get 1:1. The problem right now is the minimal use of the AH since it is annoying to use both as a seller and buyer.

d20 is a Terrible MMO system :) It is passable for Single player CRPGs but still needs some tweaks to work nicely.

Pathfinder the World and Pathfinder the System can be separated.

Lemkii Twins wrote:

IMO, Attributes should have direct game mechanic impacts and not be a passive reflection of training/experience. The current system is a needless confusion of established RPG design paradigms.

The developers have expressed a different opinion, and this is a design decision as fixed as any ever is. Your options on this subject are to make your peace with it, or not.

Making peace with the decision is easy. I voiced my opinion of the matter. This is not the first time I have had issue with game mechanics in any RPG (in any medium.) And I still have enjoyed them.

In this particular case it isn't game/fun breaking. I have offered my suggestion for an improvement, which the Devs can implement or ignore. The game is still very much in flux and things will change.

The means that Attributes increase as a result of training in feats and skills is not my concern. Nor is some amount of "cross-training."

It is the fact that from an RPG design element, as it is right now, Attributes are a more a reflection of what the character has trained, and does not have any impact on what a character can do.

If instead of the attributes listed each character had ratings for each

• Martial Training
  
• Subterfuge Training
  
• Arcane Training
  
• Divine Training
  
• Freeholder Training
  
• Expert Training
  

This would then match with the various achievements. So this way your advancement can be gated between what you have done and what you have learned.

Right now, the Attribute system sort of does this but decided to utilize d20-ish names which carry certain expectations. IMO, Attributes should have direct game mechanic impacts and not be a passive reflection of training/experience. The current system is a needless confusion of established RPG design paradigms.

If Feature Feats for Freeholder and Expert are put in, then that could address my "Discourage Specialization" issue.

The Transparency can be fixed with better UI and tool tips.

But I still don't see why attributes are needed when you can get the same results with just the Achievement system.

Discouraging total focus on a single skill is ok. But the other skills you learn should be complementary. The Freeholder armor skills offer bonuses to crafting. Gathering skills help with your supply.

However:

• Forestry grants/requires WIS
  
• Sawyer grants/requires CON
  
• Pioneer (bonus to Forestry) grants/requires CON
  
• Wright (bonus to Sawyer) grants/requires STR
  

So there is not a good overlap if I want to focus on Sawyer as my primary craft, supporting skills don't help.

The poor implementation of Abilities is a combination of the following factors.

• Transparency -- Unless you reach into the underlying spreadsheets you have no idea how much progression you have made or what feats will increase which ability. This can be addressed with UI tweaks in the character sheet and tool tips.
  
• Redundancy -- Because abilities provide no other benefit, they are just like the other achievements. I don't have a problem with the achievement system, you should show some use/mastery of activity in order to progress in skill in that activity.
  
• Discouraging Specialization -- As brought up by the OP and by others, there are issues with being a pure crafter and/or gatherer since you will not get enough points in your attribute unless you spend XP on other feats, which may not be beneficial to your chosen profession.
  

IMO, All ability point gating seems poorly implemented. Abilities have no other purpose than to limit growth.

One, no one is as big as BoB right now.
Two, in EvE an alliance could claim a dozen systems but only have to focus on one or two to protect them.
Third, there is nothing to destroy yet.

Also in EVE it was worth going into 0.0 and lowsec for better rewards. Right now, when a tower is in PvP mode there is no PvE benefit to be there. So why would "targets" stay?

So is not a question of being in the EVE mindset. The mechanics of the game currently don't give any benefit or support to that mindset.

The upside of Time base XP is that you don't need to grind away to be better at your character skills (mostly true, you do need to kill X things with a particular weapon to get higher rank feats, but In the time you get that XP you mostly have those kills)

When you actively play you focus mostly on wealth and possession improvement. Also you can work with what ever settlement to improve it as well.

My only question is, "Is it worth 15$ month for only 2/hours of playing per week?"

4 Days gives you level 4 in all 4 gathering skills.

I would recommend this for any player since there will always be a demand for T1 mats.

I am curious to know the amount more you get between level 4 and level 6 (or for the 20 points of skill)

I have shown that a combat character can spend about two weeks of XP and have about 90% self sufficient for all T1+2 equipment that they will need.

So settlements being 95+% self sufficient on T1+2 for every thing is not that hard, nor requires any dedicated crafters.

T2 is just now starting to become available from dedicated crafting groups. The well organized larger settlements can easily dedicate 17 characters to cover all the crafting/refining skills. Medium, and less structured large settlements will need to establish trade with other such settlements in the long run. I suspect more trade being done at the company level then at the settlement level.

T1 is always going to have a low barrier of entry. But as such real profit will be minimal. However, I only expect the market to only be about 30% for T1, mostly new characters and those that are dabbling secondary roles.

T2 will be the bulk of the market in the long run. But not for another month or two. Characters are just now being able to use T2 items, but the cost is not worth it yet. So there is little demand, and even less supply of T2 right now. Both of those will balance out in the coming months.

The only thing I would need to wait and see is the level of lost items over time. 20 deaths to lose gear is quite a bit. Time will tell how much item destruction PvP brings to the game.

Frazzlerunning wrote:

I can't say for certain, but could it be that this drop of T1 resource gathering could happen because the T2 mats in any given hex would be at or near 100%, while the T1 mats are farmed to a lower rate?

I remember seeing a dev quote indicating exactly this, but I can't find it now.

If that is the case, then it seems like GW is keeping an eye on global supply. It just seems like a significant drop in T1 materials because of lack of T2 gatherers and the current over abundance of T2 materials yet to be harvested. So as more people harvest T2, the ratios will normalize over time.

The issue has to do with being rank 7+ suddenly cutting in half or more the amount of T1 materials you can gather.

Two things can help with this. Make some hexes T1 resource only. Hexes around NPC settlements are a good start, but I am not sure of the metal/coal availability around NPC settlements.

Second is jigger the ratio of found materials so it is not as significant a drop.

If the "solution" to a problem is to NOT increase a skill, then there is a problem with the design of the skill/mechanic.

Here is what I have on my "combat" character:

Weaponsmith 3 (5,342 xp) -- All Steel weapons
Armorsmith 2 (1,908 xp) -- All basic fighter armors and one Freehold/explore
Smelting 4 (11,447 xp) -- All steel bits at +2 or more
Tanner 3 (5,342 xp) -- Basic Hide sheets and Strips for armor and weapons
Apothecary 3 (5,342 xp) -- Weak Varnish +2

My Twin has Sawyer for Pine haft +3

So for about 12 days worth of XP I can make all the T1 armor and melee weapons I will want to use.

Will I go further than this, I don't know. But over time I don't feel like I wasted any of these crafting skills. As more players come in, I still think there will a large enough T1 market to make some profit. And since I control my whole supply chain, I only need to consider my time value. I don't expect T1 markets to have great margins, but good ones to help supplement my adventuring gains.

Even if I wanted to just focus on a completely different crafting feat going forward, I don't feel that one month loss is going to be that significant by the time OE comes around. But I will have a lot of fun getting there instead of staring at crafting queues all day.

Diversifying your character can really hurt your advancement, so don't do it. DO be sure to have your secondary weapon (if you are a combatant) at Rank 4 attacks (Tier 2)- but you don't need to invest in it any more than that.

I would take with a minor change. Once you are focusing on Tier 2 (anything) pick one thing. I don't think diversification with Tier 1 abilities will be that much a detriment. And with T2 a 80-20 split won't put you far behind the curve over time.

Right now most people have at least two active XP earners, so doing a "crafting" alt and a "combat" alt is fine. But in the end, you have to consider the "fun" value of single character player. If a crafter takes "one month off" to train some combat/adventuring roles, then the player can participate in other activities while all the crafting queues are done.

To illustrate my illustrious kobold's point:

For crafting here are the early 30-day break points.

1 month (32.4 days) Rank 8 crafting
2 months (61.2 days) Rank 10 crafting
3 months (103.3 days) Rank 12 crafting
4 months (130.2 days) Rank 13 crafting.

After 4 dedicated months each additional month is at best only one rank of skill. And with a two month gap, there is only about 2-3 ranks difference.

Combat related skills is little less straight forward. But in the time it takes to get one combat skill to rank 4 you could instead have three combat skills at rank 3.

Yes, if they do everything perfectly, the crafters that started first will be the first to pioneer new tier 3 gear into the markets... for a month. While that is a valuable opportunity, it really shouldn't be a deal breaker for late starting crafters.

But also there won't be a sizable T3 demand for some time as well.

I suspect that after a few months, once enough T2 recipes get seeded into circulation, that T2 will be the majority of the active economy.

(My thinking is 30% T1, 60% T2, 10% T3)

A new character can have some role as a producer or consumer in the T2 economy with about a month of XP. After about 2 to 3 months they could have strong activity in the T2 economy.

The T3 economy participation would take 6 to 9 months of XP. But after a character reaches 12 months age, I don't expect to see much power ability difference between 12 month players and older ones.

Bluddwolf wrote:

I thought we made it pretty clear. Defending towers is a waste of time. It is easier to replace lost towers, with newly captured towers.

If defending towers is a waste of time, what was the advantage of exiting the NAP?

The WoT NAP was made less useful once PC settlements required 0 towers to match NPC settlements for training. Even at this point I am curious to know how many towers are needed to support the highest level skills trainable now and by the end of February.

With how the windows are set up, I suspect holding more than 15 towers is really not worth the long PvP window.

That is not as assumption I would have made from the title - and as stated, I haven't clicked the link yet. Call it cynical if you like, but as an EVE vet my default assumption is that most things using the term 'carebear' are going to be negative.

To be fair..."Carebear" is usual a derogatory term used by PvPers. So I don't think your assumptions are unfounded. I could see the article going either way before reading it.

The article does not touch much on my main reason to be a "carebear." Is that in many open world PvP games the PvP was pointless and/or just annoying.

I always go with Spaceballs for Then and Now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeZ9HhHU86o

soon is not now, but then.

Thanks for the spreadsheet too. Seems that all the spells are geared for combat. Pity.

Was hoping PFO would break from that MMO habit and include some non combat spells too.

Ah well.

There isn't anything but "combat" spells since there isn't anything outside of combat that can be modified by spells in game.

The only non-combat activities are resource gathering and crafting. For resource gathering there are a few speed buffs. There is room for some encumbrance buffs, but unless they last minutes they won't be that useful. Also any encumbrance buff would have to have other limitations as to not overshadow the other means of increasing encumbrance.

I don't expect to see Social modifying spells since social interactions should be with other players. And you can't force an opinion on another player. At best you can make the character friendly and unable to attack you, but that makes charm a combat related spell.

Travel spells are possible. But they should be limited.

Divination is also limited in this game since most things are player based content.

In short unless there is a non-combat game mechanics in place, then there is no need for non-combat spells. And it is the goal of PFO to have player themselves provide the non-combat content so limited need for non-combat mechanics.

That will take a special person who can deal with fighting with the AH interface.

The backlog XP is special case. Going forward new character/players will only have 1000 XP. So the "lost XP" should they just buy what they can at the start will not be a big loss over time.

My other reason for not focusing on the "new player experience" too much yet is more because the rest of the game is still in flux. And most new player issues are also general player UI issues.

For example, the UI for trainers is terrible. Even knowing what I want, it is very hard to figure out if I can get the feats I want, or what I will need.

Even putting in filters and sorts (show only Axe skills. Show feats for my next role level) would help everyone and not just the new player.

The early enrollment plan is a mixed bag. It is between beta and full release. It is beta in that many production features and tuning (like movement control and UI) are still very primitive or not even there. IT is full release in that there will not be any character wipe going forward.

The early game is overwhelming since there is very little guidance provided in game on what who and where. There is host of information in the new player guide and in other player made resources.

At this point I see the "New player Experience" as a lower priority then many other things that need attention. It isn't being ignored, there have a few tweaks with the intro quests in the past week, but there is still more room for improvement.

The game needs to be taken with quite a few grains of salt right now. And now is the time to bring up your views. Feedback is very important at this time.

In the end, all incidents regarding Towers taken around inactive settlements resolved the same way. There was some noise but no long term sanctioning of any party and most kept those towers.

This incident received more attention because of comments made by representatives of ACG to demonstrate their disapproval of portions of the NAP. Although there was talk of strong sanctions, the end result was the same.

In the end it was no big deal that towers around inactive settlements were taken by anyone. The use of towers is minimal and none of leadership of those settlements ever said they wanted them back.

Weather or not the NAP should have made any provision regarding inactive settlements of non-signatories is now moot. The one week restriction it did have is no longer in place.

I do think that this was a informational view in to the social dynamics of the game so far and should both the good and bad.

A few other features could work.

• Change the crafting and AH interface so as to not take over the whole screen.
  
• Allow crafting to pull directly from the local Vault.
  
• Real walled off areas that only allow "friendlies" in.
  

This does not mean an instance, but some area that will filter access to players. Aggressors would have the siege the gate in order to access said "protected" area. The size of the protected area will depend on the level of the settlement. New one just get the "keep" area, where as larger ones can enclose one or more of the other quarters.

Right now, all settlements are sieves. There is no defensible area at all, so aggressors can just come and go as they see fit.

I'd like to thank all the Protons and Neutrons.

You can do et!

I bet 3s he busts a knuckle on the 3rd one

Sure he will. It just won't be his own knuckle.

Tansy leaves are much less common...

And so my plan to hoard Tansy Leaves and force them to be the currency of realm is doomed.....Sort of, now they are more valuable!

I predict it will turn out to be a phenomenal decision in the gaming industry.

Note: The word "phenomenal" isn't always equated with success.

Time will tell.

We may go down in flames, but it will be spectacular!

"Spies? No Pies! I Trodded in one on the way in."

At this point, There is some impact with Economic retribution, but considering that the economy as a whole is very weak, the retribution is still a most a short term annoyance. Now this impact will improve as Settlement Development is introduced and other individual/company economic functions (AH improvements, caravans, et al)

Political retribution is the closest to equitable since an individual player can easily broadcast grievances through the forums. And settlement representatives can call out individuals.

Military retribution is at the same level with economic. WoT is severely limited and after a handful of towers, people will have access to all the training they could use though February.

I do have faith that with in the year there will be a lot more impact that players and companies could impose on settlements.

My issue is that as we stand right now is that settlements could gate player advancement. Players can not halt Settlement advancement, mainly because there isn't much advancement available to a settlement. It is only temporary and there are workarounds.