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August Dev Round Table Recording - Crafting and Harvesting

    • 9115 posts
    September 6, 2019 4:32 PM PDT

    Community and Web Manager Ben "Kilsin" Walters sits down with Senior Game Designer Corey "Ceythos" LeFever to talk all things Crafting and Harvesting!

    https://youtu.be/9nrWGuE0hjk

     

    • 12 posts
    September 6, 2019 5:07 PM PDT

    Nailed it! Very nice.

    • 1785 posts
    September 6, 2019 5:27 PM PDT

    For those interested, the Pantheon Crafters summary for this roundtable is here:  https://www.pantheoncrafters.com/threads/what-we-learned-in-the-crafting-developer-roundtable.295/

    The roundtable has  a TON of information and there is a lot to unpack in it.

    I will try to get it cross-posted into the crafting section, but wanted to get the link to the original out asap :)

    • 429 posts
    September 6, 2019 6:18 PM PDT

    Really  enjoyed this , Listening to Corey speak about crafting and the buffs one could give (love diplomacy ) Might make me want to craft . LOL maybe !

     The harvesting sounded great as well , different climates for different nodes .  In fact For someone who dislikes crafting ( Vanguards As *so called best * ) I might take a another gander at Crafting :) . 

    Really sounds like the team is doing a awesome job and making it great . Lots of teriffic ideas ! 


    This post was edited by Shea at September 6, 2019 6:25 PM PDT
    • 470 posts
    September 7, 2019 8:44 AM PDT

    Been waiting to hear more about this one and I'm quite happy with most of what I heard. Vanguard was by far one of my favorite crafting systems. So taking a nod from that makes me happy. The only thing that gave me pause was the possibility of a "point buy" type system with crafting for multiple professions. I need to hear more about this as the first thing that came to mind was a WoW type talent tree but for crafting. I dislike stuff like that generally because you get pigeon holed into just a couple of viable builds or you're doing it wrong. I'm also curious to know how that might impact the crafting interdependency. So I'll have to take the wai and see with this one. As for the rest, sounds promising.

    One question I do have as it wasn't addressed (I don't think) is how leveling in crafting will be done? Will you gather your resources and gradually earn points through making items or will it be more like a system akin to Vanguard's where you can get crafting writs in town where the writ giver provides the materials for you to craft and then turn in the work order for crafting XP?


    This post was edited by Kratuk at September 7, 2019 8:47 AM PDT
    • 1785 posts
    September 7, 2019 10:20 AM PDT

    Kratuk said:

    One question I do have as it wasn't addressed (I don't think) is how leveling in crafting will be done? Will you gather your resources and gradually earn points through making items or will it be more like a system akin to Vanguard's where you can get crafting writs in town where the writ giver provides the materials for you to craft and then turn in the work order for crafting XP?

    Ceythos talked a little bit about it but it was mixed in from other things.  It sounds like there will be multiple ways you can "level" (whatever that will actually mean) as a crafter.  Making items is one way.  Doing writs for NPCs is another - although they won't function like EQ2's writs where it's just an endless chain of boring repeatable things, I think.  And finally participating in crafting "events" is a third way.  He did not go into a lot of detail about how writs or events would work however.  I *think* that he wants to avoid setting up a system where you have to sit and grind the same thing over and over again just to progress and unlock new recipes, like so many other games have done - so it's more likely that each thing we do is going to be tougher and give us more of a challenge, but also be more meaningful as a result.  That's just my impression though.

    Hope it helps.  This is definitely something I want to learn more about too!

     

    • 52 posts
    September 9, 2019 5:00 PM PDT

    I just hope I do not have to make the same thing over and over and just vendor because everyone leveling crafting is making the same thing (sounds like they are going to keep this from happening)  There should always be a chance of a unique blessing of a god even if its .00001 or something.  Also, different geographic locations should produce different but the same item.  Maybe in an area where there are volcanos or a strong fire environment, they use volcanic glass, instead of metal, and they can enhance or protect from fire, in a woodland area, they use special woods and they enhance or protect nature magic, near snow, the use special forms of ice for cold spells etc.  

     

    Can't wait to see where the finally go, but off to a very good start.

     

    Cheers

    • 768 posts
    September 10, 2019 12:25 AM PDT

    Albe said:  Also, different geographic locations should produce different but the same item.  Maybe in an area where there are volcanos or a strong fire environment, they use volcanic glass, instead of metal, and they can enhance or protect from fire, in a woodland area, they use special woods and they enhance or protect nature magic, near snow, the use special forms of ice for cold spells etc.  

    Have a listen at 51.43. They somewhat answer that suggestion there for you. 

    Initially there will be common ground when it comes to crafting recipes, but as you go along things might start to differentiate. The higher you go, the more chance for cultural-bound recipes being unlocked.

     

    • 523 posts
    September 10, 2019 7:35 AM PDT

    Crafting format should be very easy to figure out.

     

    All component creations should be simply "Click to Combine" once you get the materials (ala Classic Warcraft).  This avoids tedium. 

    Actual item creation should be a strategic crafting mini-game with the chance for failure (ala Vanguard).  Difficulty (Amount of complications, fewer action points, etc...) should scale with component rarity and overall item quality.  The actual mini-game should be challenging enough to differentiate crafting skill level between players.  Needs to have critical successes to give a reason to make the same item over and over as a component sink.  Vanguard's mini-game is a truly great template, improve on it if you can, otherwise just mimic it exactly.  

     

     

    In terms of one character being able to learn all professions....No.  Ignore the naysayers.  If you make it so that one character can learn all professions and just put in some artificial time sinks to make each one progressively take longer and be more difficult to level, people will make alts to avoid the penalty.  If you make it so only one character can learn one profession, people will make alts to have access to all professions.  Alts are going to be made for crafting almost no matter what you do unless you wave the white flag and allow every crafter to be all things, which would absolutely destroy crafting individuality and identity.  Even with a plethora of rare recipes, eventually everyone will have everything and nobody will stand out.  That has failed in every MMO whether its adventuring or crafting.  It's a fact that it does not help the long term life of the game.  The most effective route taken by an MMO I've seen is have each character have one main profession that skilling up is also capped by adventuring level.  Meaning, they have to not only skill up by crafting, but if you're level 10 for example, you can't go past level 50 (5 points per level) crafting level.  This avoids low level alts made just to corner all the crafting professions and would require people to actually level up their alts if they want to have more crafting options.  More people continually adventuring in the world is always a good thing for the game and newbies.  Is it more work for those that want to have one of every profession available to essentially avoid the social aspect of trade and barter?  Yes.  Will they complain?  Yes.  Ignore them.  It's better for the game overall, and they still have the ability to max out every crafting profession if they want to put the time in.  

     

    Group harvesting destroys the economy and removes one of the few single player activities (due to efficiency) in a primarily group based game.  Sure, it's fun, but lots of fun things are overall negative in the grand scheme of things to the health of the game.  Avoid like the plague.

    • 52 posts
    September 10, 2019 1:48 PM PDT

    Barin999 said:

    Albe said:  Also, different geographic locations should produce different but the same item.  Maybe in an area where there are volcanos or a strong fire environment, they use volcanic glass, instead of metal, and they can enhance or protect from fire, in a woodland area, they use special woods and they enhance or protect nature magic, near snow, the use special forms of ice for cold spells etc.  

    Have a listen at 51.43. They somewhat answer that suggestion there for you. 

    Initially there will be common ground when it comes to crafting recipes, but as you go along things might start to differentiate. The higher you go, the more chance for cultural-bound recipes being unlocked.

     

    Thanks mate.

     

    • 1315 posts
    September 11, 2019 6:14 AM PDT

    I am still warry of the focus on Iconic Itemization.  This heavily leads down the path of best in slot items and ever increasing mudflation with each expansion needing to jump the item shark to get players enthusiastic.  We have many, many, many examples of what happens to Iconic Itemization over time.  I would much rather see “multiple ways to skin a cat” itemization where each localization and its unique horizontal progression significantly effects what gear is most effective.  This type of itemization more leads to combining key words and attributes for the desired effect rather than hunting down and acquiring a list of specific lore items with the highest magnitude of desired stats for your class.

    If crafting goes down the Iconic Itemization path then you will see a very small subsection of the total number of unique recipes that see actual use.  Those will be those few items who’s stat magnitudes are greater than the many much easier to acquire dropped items.  The rest will only see use through crafting quests and skill grinding.

    If instead of Iconic Item Recipes you have localized subcomponent recipes that must be unlocked through horizontal progression and global base item templates to combine both standard and localized subcomponents created from locally dropped or harvested materials you create a much more robust system.  The amount of UI elements and mini games that need created will be greatly diminished and power creep is much more easily controlled.

    If items can be used at any level then the effect of items should be level dependent and not item stat dependent.  This would make the quality tiers of each template the only true crafting vertical progression with all the localized subcomponent recipes being the horizontal progression.  This will also help future proof crafting to continue to be relevant in future expansions as new localized content is added and new subcomponent recipes must be earned, materials harvested and mastered in order to make the gear needed to complete the horizontal progression.  

    The common, rare and ultra rare materials rather than increasing the magnitude could increase the specialization of the subcomponents made from them.  Common materials would be mostly neutral damage but carry a required attribute, rare items could have bonuses to a subgroup of monsters and a weakness to others, and ultra rare materials could make items that were very powerful against a small subset of creatures and garbage against the rest.  How you mix subcomponents of different rarity materials will effect how specialized an item is.  Down the road you could make a zone that requires combining ultra rare materials from multiple horizontal progression zones into one item to make a very specialized set of gear that is basically only good for that one raid zone.

    At this point we have so little information on how stats and itemization will function within Pantheon so knowing which parts of the crafting system are significant and which are semantics is a bit cloudy.

    Sad face on no crafter tool itemization.  It shows a lack of depth of the mechanics of the system if there is no way other than base skill and the whims of the random number generator to effect the outcome of a mini-game.  Localized subcomponents could all desire a preferred set of tools with different tools giving different bonuses to different aspects of the crafting process as well as favoring one crafting tree specialization over another.


    This post was edited by Trasak at September 11, 2019 6:22 AM PDT
    • 2419 posts
    September 12, 2019 7:53 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    If instead of Iconic Item Recipes you have localized subcomponent recipes that must be unlocked through horizontal progression and global base item templates to combine both standard and localized subcomponents created from locally dropped or harvested materials you create a much more robust system.  The amount of UI elements and mini games that need created will be greatly diminished and power creep is much more easily controlled.

    I've always been a fan of recipes being generic in description and that it is the components you use that create the stats of the resuling item.  A Long Sword blade (just the blade though, not the other parts needed to make the final usable sword) recipe can be as simple as 5 Metal Ingots and 4 Charcoal.  But which metal ingots?  Well, that depends upon the stats you want.  Use 5 Iron Ingots and you get, for example, 5 damage, 25 delay, 5lb weight.  But if you used 3 Steel Ingots and 2 Iron Ingots you would get 7 damage 22 delay with 5lb weight.  Later on when you get access to Mithril or whatever fantasy metals they devise, the resulting stats would be different. Weight could drop, damage increased, speed decreases.

    As a person that gets into crafting foods, A Meat Sandwich recipe could just say 4 Cooked Meat, 2 Bread, 1 Vegetable, 1 Sauce.  Depending up on which meat you use will change the stats of the meal.  The players then decide what outcome they want, not having it dictated by the recipe.

    To accomplish such a system though would necessitate component items themselves having stats we can know.

    • 1479 posts
    September 12, 2019 11:55 AM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Trasak said:

    If instead of Iconic Item Recipes you have localized subcomponent recipes that must be unlocked through horizontal progression and global base item templates to combine both standard and localized subcomponents created from locally dropped or harvested materials you create a much more robust system.  The amount of UI elements and mini games that need created will be greatly diminished and power creep is much more easily controlled.

    I've always been a fan of recipes being generic in description and that it is the components you use that create the stats of the resuling item.  A Long Sword blade (just the blade though, not the other parts needed to make the final usable sword) recipe can be as simple as 5 Metal Ingots and 4 Charcoal.  But which metal ingots?  Well, that depends upon the stats you want.  Use 5 Iron Ingots and you get, for example, 5 damage, 25 delay, 5lb weight.  But if you used 3 Steel Ingots and 2 Iron Ingots you would get 7 damage 22 delay with 5lb weight.  Later on when you get access to Mithril or whatever fantasy metals they devise, the resulting stats would be different. Weight could drop, damage increased, speed decreases.

    As a person that gets into crafting foods, A Meat Sandwich recipe could just say 4 Cooked Meat, 2 Bread, 1 Vegetable, 1 Sauce.  Depending up on which meat you use will change the stats of the meal.  The players then decide what outcome they want, not having it dictated by the recipe.

    To accomplish such a system though would necessitate component items themselves having stats we can know.

     

    I really like this design. Especially if it's not just "best mat best item" but some tweaks in resulting stats making some better for some classes, and other for others.

    • 201 posts
    October 18, 2019 11:55 AM PDT

    No crafting specific gear.  No item customization while crafting.  2 of the best parts of the VG crafting system.  For me, BIG negatives already.  A major part of the game is the crafting and economy for me, and I honestly would be ecstatic with a literal copy of VG system as would many others.  So far, not filled with confidence based on a lot of what I read.  Vjek's post on the other site really touches a LOT of very valid thoughts and concerns (although I disagree with his negativity regarding Silius' early VG crafting.).


    This post was edited by antonius at October 18, 2019 12:02 PM PDT
    • 316 posts
    October 22, 2019 1:09 PM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    I've always been a fan of recipes being generic in description and that it is the components you use that create the stats of the resuling item.  A Long Sword blade (just the blade though, not the other parts needed to make the final usable sword) recipe can be as simple as 5 Metal Ingots and 4 Charcoal.  But which metal ingots?  Well, that depends upon the stats you want.  Use 5 Iron Ingots and you get, for example, 5 damage, 25 delay, 5lb weight.  But if you used 3 Steel Ingots and 2 Iron Ingots you would get 7 damage 22 delay with 5lb weight.  Later on when you get access to Mithril or whatever fantasy metals they devise, the resulting stats would be different. Weight could drop, damage increased, speed decreases.

    As a person that gets into crafting foods, A Meat Sandwich recipe could just say 4 Cooked Meat, 2 Bread, 1 Vegetable, 1 Sauce.  Depending up on which meat you use will change the stats of the meal.  The players then decide what outcome they want, not having it dictated by the recipe.

    To accomplish such a system though would necessitate component items themselves having stats we can know.

    Great idea!