Goblin Squad Member
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Exactly. Being able to make nails for a small profit vs. needing to make nails to gain skill are completely different worlds. The people making nails will do so as markets demand, not as training demands - which is what causes some items to absolutely flood auction houses in other MMOs.
If you assume it will take some time for a given item to be crafted, you will probably also find that it is largely novice craftsmen or even non-craftsmen who have dipped their toes into crafting for supplemental income who are producing these basic of the basics while dedicated craftsmen spend their time on items that benefit from their higher skill levels and expertise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The counter I'd have here is that, if resource prices are too high, we could have the situation of "train crafting until level 10, then start using it. If you use it before that point it becomes a net loss." I don't think such a scenario is likely to happen too often (would likely involve somebody trying to manipulate the market by flooding with low-level items) but it'd be kinda lame for a low-level crafter to not be able to turn a profit until months into their game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"train crafting until level 10, then start using it. If you use it before that point it becomes a net loss."
This has been a risk for every MMO I have ever played. Raw resource prices tend to be higher because they have a "training value" associated with them. In PFO, resources will not have the intrinsic training value, as you do not grind through craftable items just to get better at crafting. If the value of nails is less than the value of the materials to make them, then that is the result of market manipulation. Nobody is crafting nails with the intent of gaining skill levels. They are doing so with the intent of using them personally or making a profit through selling them.
Additionally, crafting items should take more time than just a couple seconds. If I am crafting nails, that is time I cannot spend crafting horseshoes or daggers. If nails are too cheap, then maybe I should be making some horseshoes instead until the price comes back up a little.
TLDR; Nobody has a reason to make nails if doing so causes a net loss. This means the market price will remain above cost to create unless someone is purposefully manipulating the market.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm a long time lurker but have decided to join the debate now that cooler heads prevail.
Welcome! Crafting discussions are generally safer to enter as they tend to stay away from alignment and pvp topics :-)
...the blacksmith may need to spend a significant amount of time and resource creating items (buckets of nails etc) that may not have any particular use in game; the same happens in all of the games that I have played.
Since this was already answered above, I will repeat it...
You don't skill up by making items. You make items only because you think someone needs them. The "No grinding" mantra extends to crafting.A possible exception may be qualifying for 'merit badges' (what are they called now?): you don't get the title 'master swordsmith' without actually making a masterwork sword. But it may well be enough to make a single one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We ran into the problem in Darkfall (only mentioning this in DF because it came up in clan chat) where the raw materials are far more valuable than the end products, so certain products are only made to gain skill points/levels (at a financial loss), and the goods produced are never sold on the public market as they can't be sold for anywhere close to the cost to produce. The end result is everyone in game makes their own cloth bags, leather packs, and gathering tools or purchases them from the vendor (in the case of tools).
This is the dilemma of having ANY items available for sale from NPC vendors at a permanently fixed price (or a cash shop, since that is being discussed in a different thread). With "natural"* inflation the price of raw and refined materials always goes up, while the fixed vendor prices stay the same (forever in most cases). So it is far cheaper to never craft the items you can purchase from the NPC vendor. If there is to be ANY items for sale from an NPC vendor, those items should not be craftable. Following that logic, there should be little to nothing available for sale from NPC vendors except for vendors hired by players characters to sell the player wares, not GW NPC wares.
Players should craft 99.99% of everything, and the 0.01% remaining should be the Kickstarter goodies given to backers as starter gear.
*Go back to any game you have played that has NPC vendor items for sale with the universal currency and see the difference between what it takes to buy the item, versus what it costs in materials to craft the same item. The crafted item is (I would bet) always more expensive than the NPC sold item, so crafting is a loss in order to gain skill. Nothing more. (Even though skill advancement will be different in PFO, crafting items at a loss is still a loss and should be avoided whenever possible.) This is a mechanic all game designers and developers claim they can control (including Ryan if I have read his previous posts correctly) since they control the faucets and drains of the universal currency, but never seen to get the flow right, or give up trying completely and let the economy run amok.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Players should craft 99.99% of everything, and the 0.01% remaining should be the Kickstarter goodies given to backers as starter gear.
I would not mind Starter Gear being sold by NPCs near bind points. Though that would necessitate that even the most basic crafted gear should be slightly more superior to 'NPC wares'. The goal of this is so that newly dead guy doesn't need to wander naked through the wilderness punching his way to whatever his chosen player market is. Unless he's a monk... man, I hope they find a way to balance monk against the frequency of losing gear.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Additionally, crafting items should take more time than just a couple seconds. If I am crafting nails, that is time I cannot spend crafting horseshoes or daggers. If nails are too cheap, then maybe I should be making some horseshoes instead until the price comes back up a little.
The relevant blog on crafting [Iron and Coke, Chromium Steel] also hints at processing and crafting queues, where there is limited space to make everything. If your settlement is making too many nails, maybe the master smith in charge of the metal works needs a wake-up call.
I would offer that there could be a risk of craft glut and resource shortage, though, on those settlements that most appeal to crafters. Being in the LN/LG/NG quadrant may draw in crafters, but if the settlement doesn't have facilities and resources to work them they'll go to waste.
I foresee harvesting drafts, myself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A safehaven oriented settlement is indeed likely to draw many craftsmen. A key to success will be ensuring that trade routes are well patrolled and easily traveled to make sure those necessary resources can make it into town.
Any town, regardless of alignment, that wishes to boast a large number of craftsmen will have the resource concerns. And any town without the huge craftsmen base will in turn be needing to import finished goods. Trade is going to be a major concern regardless of your public population unless your settlement becomes extremely generic. But if that ends up being the case, the players at the pinnacle of their careers are going to leave for specialized cities that cater to their needs. No silver bullet in sight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I remain hopeful things that brand new crafters can make, like nails, horseshoes, frying pans, etc, are always in demand by other players due to their own crafting skills and needs. A well thought out and planned crafting system will not leave unwanted piles of supplies in the storeroom. Everything a player can make should be needed in some way by other players eventually. Even if it IS kegs of nails. Maybe ESPECIALLY if it is kegs of nails.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I remain hopeful things that brand new crafters can make, like nails, horseshoes, frying pans, etc, are always in demand by other players due to their own crafting skills and needs. A well thought out and planned crafting system will not leave unwanted piles of supplies in the storeroom. Everything a player can make should be needed in some way by other players eventually. Even if it IS kegs of nails. Maybe ESPECIALLY if it is kegs of nails.
Seconded. I hate systems where Iron Ore and items made with it occupy a level range between x and y and is never useful outside of that range.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hm. Except there are players wishing to focus exclusively on crafting. I don't think artificial breadth and depth limitations should be imposed, but rather how much time they can invest and spend on skills. I think it would be more fair to such characters to offer such a wide variety of skills and give them interlocking requirements and tiers that the challenge of the game for them will be to acquire a masterful body of knowledge and gain wide fame as a master of his or her craft.
I wasn't talking about dedicated crafters spending the time to be good in several crafts or specializations. I just want to see if they want to go this route, skill progression is equivalent to the class system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You could think of the smithing skills as learning a series of processes. Assuming that the smelters have brought you metal which they got for the ore that miners brought. First you need to learn how to heat it evenly so when you separate chunks off an ingot, you get as much as you need, and can hammer it out pretty evenly. Hey, now you can make things like nails and crude prison-shanks. Then you might learn about shaping metal into a slightly more complex shape, so you can make horseshoes, meathooks, etc. then maybe you learn how to hammer iron into a flat, even sheet and use punches or a press to shear it. Punch a few holes in flat rectangle of iron and you have a reinforcement plate for spots where rafters join. eventually you go one to learn about turning iron into steels of various types from rigid to springy, and you learn about working with alloys where rare things like mithral have been added to the steel. You learn about keeping the core of a blade flexible but the edge more rigid so it can be sharpened. You learn about adding a fuller to a blade to reduce its weight while still keeping it strong, and you can make various types of hilts.
You pick up a collection of skills needed to turn processed materials into goods, and the various goods you can create have a list of skills needed to make them. Maybe you become a generalist who can make a wide variety of low-to-mid complexity goods, or you specialize with your eyes on a very complex end-product that requires a list of 20 sub-skills to make.
Maybe those elven swords require secrets like folding in layers of high-quality steel, mithral, and adamatine, heated with a fire mephit in the coals and a water mephit to quench it properly. The minor elementals enjoy doing their thing, but you must be able to command their respect by displaying your mastery of reshaping matter. The prospect of having to deal with such things might be why some crafters decide to stop at lower branches and diversify from there, rather than continuing to specialize.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Abstracting from Keovar's training example, I like the idea that not only the quality of your crafted goods improves but also the efficiency with which you can have them made. Perhaps a level 10 weaponsmith can make their weapons 5% faster and with 5% less materials than they were able to do at level 5.