Goblin Squad Member
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No, I wasn't trying to be snide. However I come off, I do try to not be snide.
You've been pressing for the ability to enchant while you craft for quite awhile now. I don't understand why you think you wouldn't be able to pick up enchanting skills from the wizard line of training to supplement your crafting skills.
Ok, thank you for clarifying, it can be hard to tell someone's demeanor sometimes on just text alone.
To answer your question, because I really didn't want to have to go down another classes path to pick up an ability I felt should be associated with a crafter. I feel the epitome of a crafter, and what people will want in the end (at higher 'levels', are weapons/armor that are enchanted.
My job as a crafter is to make the entire item. I feel incomplete if I have taken my entire skill tree (2 1/2 years worth) and I still can't make items that those who spent equivalent time in their classes (Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, etc) would be using. A "20th level" Fighter is going to be using an enchanted weapon. I feel as a "20th level" Expert Weaponsmith, I 'should' be able to craft that for him.
I understand that I can't do it alone. As I've said, I will need to rely on others to supply me with materials, and I am fine with that. But in regards to things crafting, or at least in my example of crafting weapons, I should be able to craft what is the epitome of my Expert class.
@Milo Thank you for explaining your side in more detail. I will say, I do like a lot your ideas and theories, but as I said above, if you separate enchanting from the crafter's skill line/tree, in a sense it feels incomplete. I am a maxed out Weaponsmith Expert, but I can't even make, what I think would be the height of my class, a powerful, enchanted weapon. Something just seems wrong about that for me.
But really, I do think it is too early to tell. Maybe an enchanted weapon/armor won't even be that desireable at high 'levels'. And I would be ok with certain aspects changing from the PnP version. Some things just don't translate well. However, I don't think that will happen as magic weapons/armor not being something you strive for at higher levels seems to really go against the spirit of the game.
However, I guess we will see.
I don't have much pity for the high-level miner who "can't be asked" to hire proper guards to get the extra good materials. If he can't be asked, he can mine iron. That's how the game works.
I have much more sympathy for the lower levels who can't mine adamantine. But if it's so unprofitable, surely they still aren't going to derive much benefit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If Being's and Valandur's suggestions that lower mats might always be needed for things like settlement construction or higher level craftables, then I'm happy.
I hope this is also the case, and I think that is what GW wants as well. We just need a concrete example showing how that would be the case given the info that has been presented.
What I would like to see is more experimentation in refining and crafting. Some games - GW2 for example - has implemented an experimentation element into crafting, where players, by mixing and matching materials, can unlock new bonuses that weren't in the original recipe product. At that point, you could sell this new recipe to other crafters or be the only producing the new end product...at least until someone else discovered it as well.
I like this idea, and think it could work nicely with the idea of "information as game object" that Ryan has floated in discussions of Cartography. As as long as these "secrets" are an in-game "object, whereby you must obtain the "secret" in order, in this case, to craft the new item, then I think this would be awesome. In other words, simply reading the new recipe off of a website wouldn't cut it.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I wanted to mention a few things about the economy that this blog and a few of our responses imply that I think may have flown a bit under the radar.
The factor that warps the system is the thread. Threading your most valuable goods means that they will not exit the economy often, which implies that they will be over-supplied vs. the demand.
We mentioned earlier, but it may have been overlooked, that we intend to introduce a wide range of consumables for all sorts of effects and bonuses. You will be expected to apply a number of these consumables during a combat encounter. So the consumption rate of these things is going to be ferocious.
This will create a very liquid market for these consumables, which will be crafted from low quality resources and be craftable by inexperienced characters. Demand will be very high which means that making the stuff will be a path to return a reasonable profit.
However, since you are very likely to thread your arms & armor(*), demand for those types of items will be greatly reduced. As you become able to make more and more powerful items the market for what you make will get smaller and smaller and eventually it will become easily saturated. What is likely to happen is that at the high end, you will be able to find the best arms & armor, across a wide variety of keyword configurations, available for sale in any moderately well supplied market, but the inventory will turn over very slowly. A small number of high end crafters will saturate this market very quickly, and then they'll cease crafting more stuff, nor will new high end crafters see much point in crafting more inventory for a market with a low demand. There will be some demand as characters gain enough character ability to use the high end stuff, and as some is lost to mischief and misadventure, but the consumption rate will be a fraction of that of other types of gear due to threading.
Everything not arms and armor will not have this problem, because you won't want to thread it (while threading your arms & armor) so there will be a lot of item destruction through combat.
Arms & armor will exist in a parallel economy. We know that crafters will craft even in the absence of a "correct" price signal since that is what attracts those players to the game, which means that the markets will be saturated. With a high supply and low demand it will be a buyer's market. Characters will be unlikely to dispose of arms & armor so they'll accumulate in inventory, making gifting of that gear to friends (or alts) common, further degrading the market price.
This may all be fine. Having two economies - one for arms & armor and one for everything else may be harmless. We may find that such a situation creates a lot of problems and we need to remove arms & armor from the economy, and that we'll have to change the game to implement a drain. So for now we're just saying "we're aware of the potential for concern" but we're not going to tie ourselves in knots trying to anticipate every potential bad outcome. I'd rather see what actually happens than try to theorycraft from intuition and thought experiments.
RyanD
(*) Or whatever the equivalent items are for a given role; wizards will have staves, etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From a consistency-with-expectations sense, I agree it makes sense for a skilled refiner to be able to get a higher quality output from lower-quality materials, but I think for gameplay reasons it makes more sense as it's presented in the blog.
First, and IMO most important, it gives highly skilled harvesters something that's exclusively theirs, which cannot be substituted. Without that I think harvesting would quickly become a second-class profession in terms of the value of their interaction with the larger community of players.
Second, the ability to refine high quality materials from lower quality inputs would inflate the market of those lower quality inputs, and possibly price them out of reach of the low-quality crafters who actually need the stuff.
Third, as KarlBob points out, it lessens the competition lower-level harvesters might get from higher-level harvesters - the skilled harvester isn't generally going to bother mining the Q50 iron node if there's a Q200 iron node just over the hill from which they can get a much better profit.
The "problem" of having a long-term market for the lowest quality stuff - IF that's ever genuinely a problem, which we'll only discover some years down the road - could be resolved by eventually making the NPC starter towns sinks for those materials.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've tried to read every post in the discussion, but I may have missed it...did someone say whether or not items were going to degrade over time and create the need for craftsmen to repair goods? I know from past discussions, this worries crafters for all the new armor and weapons that they won't be selling, but if most people are going to thread their arms and armor, they won't be needing new items anyway. But will excessive use (hitting things with your sword, blocking those hits with your shield) damage those threaded items over time?
Having the need for repairs, especially if it requires a skill level equal to that of the item to repair it, could be a small income source for crafters as well. Loving player run markets, I remember that having people available to make repairs on the spot was always a nice feature.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Last word was they don't intend for armor or weapon to degrade. That might change if market saturation becomes too much of a problem but they think it won't because the economy for those will be seperate from the very robust consumables market they plan.
This would include consumable buff items that use low tier resources.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I would like to see is more experimentation in refining and crafting. Some games - GW2 for example - has implemented an experimentation element into crafting, where players, by mixing and matching materials, can unlock new bonuses that weren't in the original recipe product. At that point, you could sell this new recipe to other crafters or be the only producing the new end product...at least until someone else discovered it as well.I like this idea, and think it could work nicely with the idea of "information as game object" that Ryan has floated in discussions of Cartography. As as long as these "secrets" are an in-game "object, whereby you must obtain the "secret" in order, in this case, to craft the new item, then I think this would be awesome. In other words, simply reading the new recipe off of a website wouldn't cut it.
It's a really nice thought, and I rather liked the GW2 system of discovery even if it was pretty trivial after the first few tries - if nothing else it made the leveling of crafting skills way less grindy. However, the recipe website will exist nonetheless and simply turn what was intended to be an element of exploration into a grind instead. "Yeah, I'm halfway through discovering Improved Steelmaking, another 25 attempts or so and I should have it."
On the other hand, if those "secret" recipes - or at least the discovery process - were somewhat randomized per player it might be workable. I think the final recipes themselves would have to be the same in order to not create a long-term economic bias in favour of specific "lucky" players. Either that, or players need to be able to research the same recipe more than once.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here you go, Hobs:
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.
I agree with you that there should not be a quality rating applied to raw materials. Differences in harvesting skill should determine what nodes you can see, how much time it takes to work them, and how much you ultimately get out of them. At the refinement stage, there could be differences in quality, but the resources should be able to be reworked, improving quality at some cost in quantity. That would be similar to salvaging the resources of a broken or low-quality crafted item; the resources which come out would not inherit the 'broken' or 'poor quality' tags, or else there would be no point in salvaging.
As to item drain, I'd rather see wear & repair than to have to dump a pile of oils on my weapon every combat. Certain optional effects could be nice, like weapon blanches that make a blade or pile of arrows count as silver for a while. Maybe there could even be a blanch that reinforces a weapon to make it more resistant to wear. Improved skill of the user of a tool could also slow wear. Frequent maintenance of smaller amounts of wear could mitigate the need for more extensive repair later, and provide work for apprentice crafters who couldn't handle the more complex repairs anyway. At some point, the weapon or other tool is retired, but because we aren't having to stage raids to get the stuff, it's not such a big deal to turn it into a wall hanging, hand it off to a new player, scrap it for salvage, etc. It's a slower drain, but if the crafting skills are also useful as repair skills, and there's an NPC demand for gear (who's equipping the guards of a settlement, repairing their gear, etc?) then threading need not make their skill irrelevant.
Last word was they don't intend for armor or weapon to degrade. That might change if market saturation becomes too much of a problem but they think it won't because the economy for those will be seperate from the very robust consumables market they plan.
This would include consumable buff items that use low tier resources.
Yep, they are relying on consumption from PvP looting and items proofing on husks due to players dieing to be enough of a drain so they won't need to have item degradation. I believe Stephen said they would monitor things and if needed they could always add it to the system later.
I had actually forgotten about the whetstones and armor kits. These will have to be reapplied often to keep arms and armor in top shape. Being as these items won't have a quality level, lower skilled players can generate a steady revenue stream from crafting and selling them on the market.
Edit: ah, Keovar beat me to the post :p
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Goblin Squad Member
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I had actually forgotten about the whetstones and armor kits. These will have to be reapplied often to keep arms and armor in top shape. Being as these items won't have a quality level, lower skilled players can generate a steady revenue stream from crafting and selling them on the market.
Out of curiosity, where are you getting that they won't have a quality level?
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I had actually forgotten about the whetstones and armor kits. These will have to be reapplied often to keep arms and armor in top shape. Being as these items won't have a quality level, lower skilled players can generate a steady revenue stream from crafting and selling them on the market.Out of curiosity, where are you getting that they won't have a quality level?
Honestly, it's a guess based on this comment by Ryan above...
We mentioned earlier, but it may have been overlooked, that we intend to introduce a wide range of consumables for all sorts of effects and bonuses. You will be expected to apply a number of these consumables during a combat encounter. So the consumption rate of these things is going to be ferocious.
This will create a very liquid market for these consumables, which will be crafted from low quality resources and be craftable by inexperienced characters. Demand will be very high which means that making the stuff will be a path to return a reasonable profit.
I'm basing it on the fact that if they have quality levels, low skilled crafters would make no money off of them aside from what low skilled players who don't have much coin can afford. The only way inexperienced crafters could make steady income from that sort of thing is if they didn't have a quality level.
I may be way wrong :p retreading the quote, we'll it won't surprise me if I'm wrong.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm basing it on the fact that if they have quality levels, low skilled crafters would make no money off of them aside from what low skilled players who don't have much coin can afford. The only way inexperienced crafters could make steady income from that sort of thing is if they didn't have a quality level.I may be way wrong :p retreading the quote, we'll it won't surprise me if I'm wrong.
Not necessarily though, depends on a randomness factor etc... When it comes to things that exit the economy quickly, price is a much greater influence of things. IE 50 coin each vs 100 coin each, on something that you will go through 100 of in a day, is a big deal, even a vet player has to do the math on the importance of what they are doing, need for success etc... IE you aren't going to use 1000 coin for a mission you expect to net 500 coin on, you may only buy the good stuff, when something extrodinary is happening.
That being said, if it is the same cost for a high level character to make quality X item, as it is for low level character to make mundane X item, then we could be talking levels of wealth difference that would be unideal for the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess I still have a problem disconnecting real world experience/knowledge from POL actuality. Let me see if I can state my take on what I'm reading and see if it makes any sense.
1) Gathering and Harvesting produce different materials:
From the blog, "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." Also from the blog, "Gathering nodes will often appear in hexes. These are very large sources of material (mines, stands of trees, magical essence junctures, etc.)." Effectively Gathering will produce small quantities that will not require an on-site storage facility and can be carried away immediately by the gatherer. However, Harvesting will produce large quantities of material that will require an on-site storage facility as an intermediate step in getting the materials away. I believe that the quality of a gathered resource is fixed and the quality of a harvested resource is variable, as I will examine below.
2) Gathering Quality: Because gathering produces a small quantity of items (maybe even single items), it makes sense that for a small quantity of Q150 X, I don't think a Q100 gatherer should be able to gather it at all. Let's say that you need a Q150 hydra eye for a spell component. If you find a Q150 hydra body as a resource (regardless of whether you kill it or discover its body) but you only have Q100 at the skill eye gathering, then you should not be able to successfully gather Q150 hydra eyes at all. Your skill level just isn't high enough to extract those individual eyes successfully.
3) Harvesting Quality: The way harvesting is written it appears to presume that a harvesting resource contains all qualities equal to and below its quality level. If you find a Q150 iron ore node, a Q100 miner will only be able to extract the Q100 iron ore from that node. The node may become exhausted of Q100 iron ore, but later a Q150 miner could harvest the remaining Q150 ore. A Q150 miner will get all of the Q100 iron ore from a Q100 node, but never any Q150 iron ore as it does not exist in that Q100 node.
4) Refining/Processing Quality: A refiner/processor gets a large batch of Q150 resource. If the refiner/processor only has Q100 skill level, he/she will only be able to produce Q100 material from the Q150 resource. All of the Q150 resource is consumed, but the result is still only Q100 material. A Q150 refiner/processor could consume Q150 resources to make Q100 materials, but why would they do that?
5) Recipe/Formula Quality: (This is where I may be misreading the blog/threads.) A crafter needs a recipe/formula to craft an item. If the quality of the recipe/formula is Q100, a Q150 crafter will only be able to make a Q100 item using the Q100 recipe/formula assuming they have Q100 materials or greater. A Q150 crafter with a Q150 recipe/formula could craft a Q100 item from Q100 materials if Q100 materials were all they had.
6) Crafter Skill Quality: A Q150 crafter has a Q150 recipe/formula which needs a number of raw materials to make an item. If all the materilas are Q150, the crafter will be able to make a Q150 item. If one or more of the materials is sub-par, say Q100, then the crafter can only make the item at Q100. If a Q150 crafter with a Q150 recipe/formula uses some Q200 material (assuming that all the rest of the material is Q150) then the Q200 material is consumed but only to produce a Q150 item.
7) Enchanting Quality: Someone with the Q150 skill enchant item can not enchant an item of a quality greater than Q150. (The Enchanter may also need a Q150 enchantment formula, but I haven't actually read that in the blogs/threads.) The Q150 Enchanter may enchant a Q100 item. The exact result of an enchantment remains to be read in future blogs.
8) Equipment Consumables: I'm just guessing now, but it seems that equipment consumables act as flags for items. With armor, if it is not maintained with the proper consumables, it might get the disrepair flag which would be a debuff. Armor maintained with the proper consumables would have the functional flag and perform with the normal armor buff. Temporary spells might give the armor a enhanced flag with an increased buff. There would be similar consumable flags for unarmed/naked functions like unarmed strike and dodge bonuses. (Glucosamine supplements for dodge? Skin hardeners for unarmed strike?)
Thoughts?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess I still have a problem disconnecting real world experience/knowledge from POL actuality. Let me see if I can state my take on what I'm reading and see if it makes any sense.
My interpretation differs from yours on a couple of points.
2) Gathering Quality: Because gathering produces a small quantity of items (maybe even single items), it makes sense that for a small quantity of Q150 X, I don't think a Q100 gatherer should be able to gather it at all. Let's say that you need a Q150 hydra eye for a spell component. If you find a Q150 hydra body as a resource (regardless of whether you kill it or discover its body) but you only have Q100 at the skill eye gathering, then you should not be able to successfully gather Q150 hydra eyes at all. Your skill level just isn't high enough to extract those individual eyes successfully.
3) Harvesting Quality: The way harvesting is written it appears to presume that a harvesting resource contains all qualities equal to and below its quality level. If you find a Q150 iron ore node, a Q100 miner will only be able to extract the Q100 iron ore from that node. The node may become exhausted of Q100 iron ore, but later a Q150 miner could harvest the remaining Q150 ore. A Q150 miner will get all of the Q100 iron ore from a Q100 node, but never any Q150 iron ore as it does not exist in that Q100 node.
I think both of these things work the same way, and the way that they work is in between your two descriptions. Gathering/harvesting a particular Q150 resource by a harvester with a skill of 100 will result in materials of Q100, and the Q150 resource will be consumed. You can imagine this as the eye gatherer who bruises the eyes and otherwise gathers them imperfectly, so they're still usable but not as good; or the miner who mines the nice concentration of iron ore but gathers too much of the surrounding rock with it and thereby reduces the overall quality (yes, I know that's not very realistic). Basically, it works identically to the refiner or crafter who takes a higher-quality material than they have the skill to fully use and ends up producing something of lesser quality.
I think that gathering/harvesting and refining will have SOME minimum skill requirements, it just won't be a binary "have Q150/don't have Q150" in terms of the quality of the result.
6) Crafter Skill Quality: A Q150 crafter has a Q150 recipe/formula which needs a number of raw materials to make an item. If all the materilas are Q150, the crafter will be able to make a Q150 item. If one or more of the materials is sub-par, say Q100, then the crafter can only make the item at Q100. If a Q150 crafter with a Q150 recipe/formula uses some Q200 material (assuming that all the rest of the material is Q150) then the Q200 material is consumed but only to produce a Q150 item.
While recipes may have a minimum material quality, I don't think they'll have a maximum. From the blog:
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.
I hope they do a similar thing for refining, although the converse - that is, that in addition to higher output quality with higher input quality for basic raw materials, there will be certain things (e.g. steel) which require combining multiple raw materials and have a minimum quality requirement. It would be really interesting if refiners could play with combining various materials in quantities to create refined materials with differing characteristics.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Assuming you're still talking about the system in the blog and not one of the proposed alternatives...
1) Gathering and Harvesting produce different materials:
From the blog, "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." Also from the blog, "Gathering nodes will often appear in hexes. These are very large sources of material (mines, stands of trees, magical essence junctures, etc.)." Effectively Gathering will produce small quantities that will not require an on-site storage facility and can be carried away immediately by the gatherer. However, Harvesting will produce large quantities of material that will require an on-site storage facility as an intermediate step in getting the materials away. I believe that the quality of a gathered resource is fixed and the quality of a harvested resource is variable, as I will examine below.
You immediately swapped the meaning of the terms after the quote. Gathering is large scale, Harvesting is small nodes. Semantics, yes, but might makes things clearer to keep them straight :).
We're currently not settled on how much, if any, random swing there will be in the Quality of resources produced (e.g., whether a 150 node will always output 150, or whether it will output a range near 150). If there is swing, it will probably be very similar between Harvesting and Gathering (as both pull off the same pool of resources for the hex). Harvesting is really just there for "ooh, piece of candy" style resource accumulation (low risk, low reward), while Gathering requires more preparation, time, and risk for much higher payoff.
2) [Remnant] Quality: Because gathering produces a small quantity of items (maybe even single items), it makes sense that for a small quantity of Q150 X, I don't think a Q100 gatherer should be able to gather it at all. Let's say that you need a Q150 hydra eye for a spell component. If you find a Q150 hydra body as a resource (regardless of whether you kill it or discover its body) but you only have Q100 at the skill eye gathering[Knowledge: Arcana], then you should not be able to successfully gather Q150 hydra eyes at all. Your skill level just isn't high enough to extract those individual eyes successfully.
Haven't settled this for sure yet. It may be that you need 10 Ranks in Knowledge: Arcana to see the Hydra eyes, but if you have those it will come out at Q100 if you have skill 100.
3) Harvesting[/Gathering] Quality: The way harvesting is written it appears to presume that a harvesting resource contains all qualities equal to and below its quality level. If you find a Q150 iron ore node, a Q100 miner will only be able to extract the Q100 iron ore from that node. The node may become exhausted of Q100 iron ore, but later a Q150 miner could harvest the remaining Q150 ore. A Q150 miner will get all of the Q100 iron ore from a Q100 node, but never any Q150 iron ore as it does not exist in that Q100 node.
Nope, as currently designed, a skill 100 miner that comes across a 150 quality lode of iron ore could empty the hex out of iron and have a storage container full of Q100 ore with nothing left for anyone else to find.
Metal is obviously a weirder thing to imagine, simulation wise, for this than, say, gems. A gem miner of insufficient skill could easily permanently degrade the gems coming out of the earth before a refiner's even gotten a hand on them.
4) Refining/Processing Quality: A refiner/processor gets a large batch of Q150 resource. If the refiner/processor only has Q100 skill level, he/she will only be able to produce Q100 material from the Q150 resource. All of the Q150 resource is consumed, but the result is still only Q100 material. A Q150 refiner/processor could consume Q150 resources to make Q100 materials, but why would they do that?
A skill 150 refiner with Q150 raw materials will always refine them as Q150 refined materials (unless he somehow degrades his skill level to 100). Otherwise correct.
5) Recipe/Formula Quality: (This is where I may be misreading the blog/threads.) A crafter needs a recipe/formula to craft an item. If the quality of the recipe/formula is Q100, a Q150 crafter will only be able to make a Q100 item using the Q100 recipe/formula assuming they have Q100 materials or greater. A Q150 crafter with a Q150 recipe/formula could craft a Q100 item from Q100 materials if Q100 materials were all they had.
A skill 150 crafter with Q150 materials making a Q100 minimum recipe will make the item with one or more upgrades. The Q150 version of the min 100 recipe may not be as good as a min 150 recipe made with the same materials, but it's better than the min 100 recipe made with Q100 materials.
If you have a min 150 recipe but only Q100 materials, you will not be able to make the recipe (even at a lower quality).
As an example (these are unlikely to be the final numbers or names), you might have two recipes:
Iron Longsword (min Quality 40) - 3 Iron Ingots, 2 Hide Strips
Silvered Iron Longsword (min Quality 80) - 2 Iron Ingots, 1 Silver Ingot, 2 Hide Strips
If you had 3 Iron Ingots, 1 Silver Ingot, and 2 Hide Strips, all of Quality 80, you could make either recipe (with an ingot left over either way). The regular Iron Longsword would be 40 points better Quality than strictly required, so it might get the "Sharp" keyword as an upgrade. Meanwhile, the Silvered Iron Longsword automatically comes with the "Silver" keyword, but wouldn't get an upgrade with the minimum materials.
So your choice would be to make a longsword with the "Sharp" keyword or one with the "Silver" keyword. Depending on whether you have attacks that activate "Sharp" or "Silver" and whether you plan to fight a lot of lycanthropes soon, you might prefer one or the other.
6) Crafter Skill Quality: A Q150 crafter has a Q150 recipe/formula which needs a number of raw materials to make an item. If all the materilas are Q150, the crafter will be able to make a Q150 item. If one or more of the materials is sub-par, say Q100, then the crafter can only make the item at Q100. If a Q150 crafter with a Q150 recipe/formula uses some Q200 material (assuming that all the rest of the material is Q150) then the Q200 material is consumed but only to produce a Q150 item.
Correct, as currently designed.
7) Enchanting Quality: Someone with the Q150 skill enchant item can not enchant an item of a quality greater than Q150. (The Enchanter may also need a Q150 enchantment formula, but I haven't actually read that in the blogs/threads.) The Q150 Enchanter may enchant a Q100 item. The exact result of an enchantment remains to be read in future blogs.
Probably correct, since I'm not sure we want to allow a skill 100 Enchanter to be able to downgrade a Q150 item in the process of enchanting it (since that could do weird things to upgrades already on the item). There will likely be more desirable enchants that require a higher quality item to start with.
8) Equipment Consumables: I'm just guessing now, but it seems that equipment consumables act as flags for items. With armor, if it is not maintained with the proper consumables, it might get the disrepair flag which would be a debuff. Armor maintained with the proper consumables would have the functional flag and perform with the normal armor buff. Temporary spells might give the armor a enhanced flag with an increased buff. There would be similar consumable flags for unarmed/naked functions like unarmed strike and dodge bonuses. (Glucosamine supplements for dodge? Skin hardeners for unarmed strike?)
Nope, it's a bonus, not a penalty (otherwise it would functionally just be item degradation). For weapons, consumables will increase the damage, and there are likely to be better consumables that require better quality materials. For armor, the consumables increase damage resistance. There might be alternate consumables that increase attack/defense, or crit chance/crit resist, or something else to your preference, but you'll likely only be able to run a limited number of consumables (possibly only one) on a given item.
As Onishi pointed out, you'll still see brisk usage on the lower end consumables because the higher end ones are much more expensive and possibly not worth the cost based on what you're doing. So a veteran might be able to run around with low end consumables running all the time (creating a demand from lower end crafters), but only pull out the better ones when there's a clear and present need.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The ore thing is not as strange as it may first appear. Getting good quality metal out of a given amount of ore is skill dependent, even in the real world.
Watch some of the gold mining shows popular these days on TV. You can see just how much skill goes in to getting the maximum amount of gold out of any given input volume of dirt. The better you are at the process, the more gold you get - two people given identical piles of dirt will produce different amounts of gold based on their skill at using the technology.
Ore absolutely has different qualities. The iron ore in Japan, for example, is terrible. To compensate for their crappy inputs, the metalsmiths of Japan had to master advanced manufacturing techniques to get weapons about as good as those produced elsewhere in the world (like Europe) where better ores were more easily obtained.
So I wouldn't obsess to much about the "reality" of a situation where the output is a factor of the skill of the processor. It's more "realistic" than you might first think.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ore absolutely has different qualities. The iron ore in Japan, for example, is terrible. To compensate for their crappy inputs, the metalsmiths of Japan had to master advanced manufacturing techniques to get weapons about as good as those produced elsewhere in the world (like Europe) where better ores were more easily obtained.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwQqtf86qOc its fascinating.
As Onishi pointed out, you'll still see brisk usage on the lower end consumables because the higher end ones are much more expensive and possibly not worth the cost based on what you're doing. So a veteran might be able to run around with low end consumables running all the time (creating a demand from lower end crafters), but only pull out the better ones when there's a clear and present need.
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So the consumables for arms and armor DO have quality ratings. I was wrong in thinking that they didn't. Ah we'll, it happens.... :P
I would speculate that the highest-end crafters - based on current information - are only of value to their immediates. In a VERY large charter group/company/band of hooligans they *may* have their services in continual demand.
Otherwise - based on current information - crafting past (point X) will be a *greatly* diminishing return, pushing crafters to become Journeymen of many, many trades fairly quickly or to shelf a narrower crafting skills set to do adventurer stuff.
Varying quality raw materials - i.e., the iron ore of Japan example - demonstrates the value of more than just the harvesting facet of crafting. That same example demonstrates the not-insignificant advantage of masterful processing/smithing skills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Stephen, thank you for catching my dyslexia over harvesting/gathering. I probably shouldn't write with a head cold. But if being wrong generates such detailed right answers (as currently known) I be very glad to be wrong any day of the week. Head cold...not so much.
@Ryan, thanks for the clarity about ore.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What about contruction of settlements and buildings? Are these gonna be made by crafters or is this gonna be more something thats NPC constructed but PC directed and if so how?
Or at the very least, have a need for harvesters to supply these NPCs with materials to make the constructions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I find it far more fun having items degrade with usage, having to seek out a crafter to repair the items, or buy new ones. Remember one can't forever repair items, they never return to the initial crafted quality. It made you check first before going into battle that your items was in good condition. It is very embarrassing to have your item break or crumble in the middle of combat, wasting a few moments to pull out replacement, or deciding to make a run and fight another day. Those are exciting moments in the game to me. Having a crafter too, it was great to having other come visiting to have items repaired, or to buy new ones. Got a good chance to interact, talk about the latest happenings.
I say oil and liquid enchantments are fine for the added bonuses in combat, yet your items still degrade if the not permanently magical enhanced to resist great deal of damage, though super excessive damage probably still destroy the item in a single go, but those were extremely rare. you probably most likely loose the item first, than being destroyed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You immediately swapped the meaning of the terms after the quote. Gathering is large scale, Harvesting is small nodes. Semantics, yes, but might makes things clearer to keep them straight :)
With all due respect, his usage makes more sense. Consider it in terms of food collection; a hunter-gatherer tribe vs. an agricultural harvest. Which one involves smaller, incidental collecting and which one is a large-scale operation?
For the consumables, could they be run like ammunition? I'd rather not have to fumble around in my inventory to use them each combat, or promote 'zerg' rushing meant to squeeze the most use out of a duration. Instead of having a duration they could just be represented as a stack, and count down as you make (weapon) or receive (armour) attacks. There could be slots to hold differing types, so you could switch out what you're using via hotkey. Of course, for someone using a bow, your consumable is your arrow stack.
For the consumables, could they be run like ammunition? I'd rather not have to fumble around in my inventory to use them each combat, or promote 'zerg' rushing meant to squeeze the most use out of a duration. Instead of having a duration they could just be represented as a stack, and count down as you make (weapon) or receive (armour) attacks. There could be slots to hold differing types, so you could switch out what you're using via hotkey. Of course, for someone using a bow, your consumable is your arrow stack.
What if there were pre-created buttons for such things. You could, within the UI, enable each type to be shown, or hidden. If shown, the button(s) could appear along say the right or left edges of the screen, and when clicked would automatically use the related item starting with your first bags top left slot continuing until your last bags lower right slot is exhausted? Would that work?
Btw.. I greatly favor being able to position your UIs buttons anywhere on the screen you wish with an auto lock feature that locks the UI into place.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Is the skill system still such that making lots of low quality items is neither neccesary nor sufficient to make high-quality items? A master jeweler, for example doesn't get that way by making a thousand square-cut hematite gemstones.
I don't think there's a model out there that completely eliminates the grindy aspect of making lots of junk.
The crafter might simply save up XP until he can qualify for enough skills be 'high quality'. Except for crafting whatever products it might take to actually activate those interim skills, he might not have to craft many low quality items at all.
That's the way I'm seeing it. My plan is to make little stuff can make money off of, but not to raise skill.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First, Two years into the game, who is going to want to buy a new player's iron if it's lower grade than anyone uses anymore?
Answer: New refiners that only have the ability to refine low quality ore. They sell it to new crafters etc. Two years on the new players won't ONLY be miners they should keep about the same balance of professions as ever.
And who says high end crafters won't want low Q ore? That's WoW-think. When they make something small and cheap (low quality) that gets used and replaced a lot with high sales volume they'll want low Q ingots not Q280.
If they enable all types of material being needed in crafting all levels of item, a system similar to what Eve uses, then this problem will pretty much never surface because so much of it will be needed...
That's confusing "quality" with "type". Tritanium is not pyerite is not zydrine is not morphite so they can blend imaginary ingredients however they want to make imaginary spaceships. In something more historically based iron is iron is iron and most weapons and armor will start from iron (smelted into steel). Not a mix of iron and copper etc. which an inferior amalgam and you just can't create a Q250 masterwork weapon from low quality Q40 steel ingots.
I seriously doubt it will ever be half the problem as depicted in the anxieties of this thread.
First, Two years into the game, who is going to want to buy a new player's iron if it's lower grade than anyone uses anymore?Answer: New refiners that only have the ability to refine low quality ore. They sell it to new crafters etc. Two years on the new players won't ONLY be miners they should keep about the same balance of professions as ever.
And who says high end crafters won't want low Q ore? That's WoW-think. When they make something small and cheap (low quality) that gets used and replaced a lot with high sales volume they'll want low Q ingots not Q280.
If they enable all types of material being needed in crafting all levels of item, a system similar to what Eve uses, then this problem will pretty much never surface because so much of it will be needed...That's confusing "quality" with "type". Tritanium is not pyerite is not zydrine is not morphite so they can blend imaginary ingredients however they want to make imaginary spaceships. In something more historically based iron is iron is iron and most weapons and armor will start from iron (smelted into steel). Not a mix of iron and copper etc. which an inferior amalgam and you just can't create a Q250 masterwork weapon from low quality Q40 steel ingots.
I seriously doubt it will ever be half the problem as depicted in the anxieties of this thread.
Proxima Sin, the first quote isn't something I said, it's someone else's quote I Included in a post I made.
What I meant with the second quote was if GW took a page from Eves system and made higher level recipes require, in addition to the higher level material, lower level material as well, then it would eliminate lower level players being of no help to higher level crafters. For example, take a look at say a Drake, it requires a lot of titanium in addition to the other material. GW could alter recipes for say +4 chain mail to require 400 ingots of copper and 250 ingots of iron in addition to the mithril and adamantium that would normally made up this recipe.
This would provide a need for lower level material by higher level crafters who will likely purchase vast quantities of these low level mats from lower level gatherers and refiners as opposed to harvesting these materials themselves. It's provides steady income to lower level players, it has certainly helped my character in Eve when he was just starting out by having a ready market for the ore my guy mined.
However I do agree with you that these concerns may well be unfounded, but we won't know until we get in and see things running. No real recon not to consider the potential problems though.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Thing is, it isn't "copper is level 0-50, iron is level 50-100..."
It's "copper, level 0-300" "iron, level 0-300". Part of the current plan is that a level 50 miner can only get level 50 ore, and that level 50 ore cannot be made into level 100 ingots by any means. Something that changed level 50 copper into level 50 iron would be radically different from something that changed level 50 copper into level 50 iron.
EDIT: ... And a recipe that used copper and iron and had a minimum quality of 150 would require quality 150 copper quality 150 iron- meaning that a skill 50 miner could not have provided any of the ore.
Thing is, it isn't "copper is level 0-50, iron is level 50-100..."
It's "copper, level 0-300" "iron, level 0-300". Part of the current plan is that a level 50 miner can only get level 50 ore, and that level 50 ore cannot be made into level 100 ingots by any means. Something that changed level 50 copper into level 50 iron would be radically different from something that changed level 50 copper into level 50 iron.
EDIT: ... And a recipe that used copper and iron and had a minimum quality of 150 would require quality 150 copper quality 150 iron- meaning that a skill 50 miner could not have provided any of the ore.
Ah thanks for mentioning this, when I replied to Proxima's post I was not considering item quality so didn't understand the point she was making. When I originally suggested this, it was before this weeks blog and our finding out about material quality. Now that we have material quality to factor into our discussions, my suggestion will have to be either rethought, or scrapped totally. As Proxima Sin mentioned, it might not even be needed ultimately.
If there is a way to increase the quality of materials by double refining or some other method, then lower quality material may still be useful. I know that's been mentioned but haven't seen any comment on this by a Dev.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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However, since you are very likely to thread your arms & armor(*), demand for those types of items will be greatly reduced. As you become able to make more and more powerful items the market for what you make will get smaller and smaller and eventually it will become easily saturated. What is likely to happen is that at the high end, you will be able to find the best arms & armor, across a wide variety of keyword configurations, available for sale in any moderately well supplied market, but the inventory will turn over very slowly. A small number of high end crafters will saturate this market very quickly, and then they'll cease crafting more stuff, nor will new high end crafters see much point in crafting more inventory for a market with a low demand. There will be some demand as characters gain enough character ability to use the high end stuff, and as some is lost to mischief and misadventure, but the consumption rate will be a fraction of that of other types of gear due to threading.
Maybe a comparison with the big ships of EVE Online might be fitting here? When I first tried out EVE (back in ... 2009 or so, maybe a bit earlier), the biggest ships (Titans and other supercaps) were quite rare, extremely hard to make, and only the biggest alliances had perhaps *one* titan. Fast forward to 2013, and CCP needs to start thinking on how to handle the (by now) many wealthy and experienced players, in a game where those big ships are now used to grind NPC pirates ("ratting", from shooting piRATes), and are brought to fleet battles regularly. Only now (4, maybe 5 years later) do they have to worry about what the role of these ships should be in the changing sandbox.
I can imagine the same thing with high-end armour and weapons, which might be very rare and costly, but could become less so over time. Worry about that when needed, and at this point in time just note it as something to look into once the first few people can actually create those items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can imagine the same thing with high-end armour and weapons, which might be very rare and costly, but could become less so over time. Worry about that when needed, and at this point in time just note it as something to look into once the first few people can actually create those items.
In my opinion, it is something that needs to be figured out long before the first person gets the item, as any solution implemented after, will generate a huge stir, and extreme discontent of the player base.
super powerful gamebreaking item at risk of devistating the game world once everyone has one.
1. Nerf item: The 5 people who busted their tail for 4 years getting the item, and everyone else who was close to the item, aren't exactly going to be happy to hear about that.
2. Raise the game world, drop the requirements, make it easier go get, Well you've still got the issue of everyone without the item feeling insufficiant even moreso, You have everyone who worked hard to get the item feeling furrious that the item isn't as valuble now as it was when they busted their hump to make it, etc...
Anything that is going to be implimented, that has good potential to be created more often than destroyed, must right out of the gate be appropriate for a world in which many people have it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For the consumables, could they be run like ammunition? I'd rather not have to fumble around in my inventory to use them each combat, or promote 'zerg' rushing meant to squeeze the most use out of a duration. Instead of having a duration they could just be represented as a stack, and count down as you make (weapon) or receive (armour) attacks. There could be slots to hold differing types, so you could switch out what you're using via hotkey. Of course, for someone using a bow, your consumable is your arrow stack.What if there were pre-created buttons for such things. You could, within the UI, enable each type to be shown, or hidden. If shown, the button(s) could appear along say the right or left edges of the screen, and when clicked would automatically use the related item starting with your first bags top left slot continuing until your last bags lower right slot is exhausted? Would that work?
Btw.. I greatly favor being able to position your UIs buttons anywhere on the screen you wish with an auto lock feature that locks the UI into place.
I favour the UI and controls to be configurable in all sorts of ways. That's the one thing I truly miss about WoW. There's a limit to how much we can put on the screen and expect people to keep track of.
Those with vision issues (like myself) may find a cluttered UI makes the game virtually unplayable. Some prefer to play using keybindings far more than clicks, especially if they have a motor control disability that makes using a mouse too slow. We can't assume that the way we happen to play will work for everyone, or even for ourselves, in the future (could develop carpal tunnel issues if nothing else).
If the item-buffs are handled by duration, then perhaps the inventory slots which hold them need only show up when you don't have one running. If you're not in a situation where you're likely to use them, you could close the UI element until next combat.
I would not be in favour of a generic 'item-buff' button that just uses the first thing it finds, because that would involve sorting your pack too often to make sure things appear in the correct order. That's why I was suggesting that there be item-buff/ammo slots in the equipment UI, which allow you to load different types, which could be switched between via keybinding or click. Depending on the different types of weapons you use, you might load some slots with blade blanches, some with arrows, and some with armour enhancers, component pouches that modify spells, or even potions. If a stack runs out but you have more of that type elsewhere in your pack, another stack would load into the emptied slot.. If you don't have more, the empty slot would show up to remind you to load it, but you could dismiss it if you don't want to reload it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I completely 100% agree with this. UI options and controls options are a must for me as well. We need a completely reconfigurable UI: You want spreadsheet data clutered UI go for it, or if you are a minimalist like myself, that should be viable as well.
As for controls, we need to have completely rebindable keys and multiple peripherals: mouse and keyboard, keyboard only, lefty set ups, gamepad support. All of which are completely ligitimate and functional, as long as this isnt a twitch based or mouse aim targeting game.
When a game allows for it I much prefer to use gamepad when Im playing on my big screen and sitting in my comfy lazyboy (usually reserved for more casual gaming sessions or games that you can always play casual). And then for serious and competitive play ill sit at my computer and use mouse and keyboard.
Its all about options and player comfort and ease of access.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only way I can see where one could increase the quality of the end product of a step is to use more materials for that single higher quality product. Well that what happens in the real world mining and refining industry.
Right, a way to refine material again to increase quality at the cost of quantity. As iron-poor as Japan was, they worked to make the most of what they had and the result didn't come out like a goblin dogslicer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the idea of having different qualities of metals. I used to have a lot of fun as an artisan in SWG and part of the fun was a) hunting down the best quality of materials and b) having different quality goods because of those materials, instead of endless amounts of identical items.
To add to Stephen' and Ryan's point about RL quality, almost every crafter and artist needs a specific quality of material for their best work. Get an impure block of marble and the sculptor has a problem. Flawed diamond and that solitaire isnt worth as much. Weakened wood and a bowyer or instrument-maker has a problem. So on and so forth. Its a bit less intuitive with ores because we see them as being smelted down to an equal-level, but even then its a matter of purity and concentration so it applies.
In short I think it makes sense for QL to apply to the deposit and to be reduced if a lesser skilled gatherer tries to extract it (damages, weakens or contaminates the resource).