Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Unique recips

    • 578 posts
    January 7, 2016 8:29 PM PST

    I was wondering the other day about crafting and what would happen if Pantheon had unique recipes to which there were recipes only one player could obtain and use. It would create a special system for crafters to separate themselves from each other and give them all something more to work towards. Most of the time crafters have umpteen other crafters they compete with selling wares and this would gaurauntee them an item or two that no one else has. There would have to be limitations like a maximum amount of unique recipes each crafter can have so they couldn't corner the market. I'm sure there would have to be other stipulations too but I'd like to believe it is possible.

    The crafter would obtain them by whatever means and would be the only player in the game to be able to make said item. Imagine if there was no auction house? Then players would have to travel the world to find and obtain these unique items. Taking it a step farther to a more 'role playing' experience, or just a more immersive experience, imagine if there were no /auction channels or /ooc channels or what-not then the items would need word-of-mouth to help sell them. This could help give 'housing' a real purpose when it is implemented into game where crafters could sell their unique crafted items via their vendor at their house. Some Crusader hears word of a crafter in the Eastern regions of Terminus who makes powerful Tower Shields, journeys to this players house, and buys one of his unique shields from his vendor. This way the player not only has the ability to craft a unique item, he also doesn't have to be around to sell it. He can be adventuring with friends or he could even be sleeping.

    I'm sure there are reasons why this would NOT be a good idea so I ask what are they? Things such as one crafter getting TOO many of these unique recipes while others get none would obviously be bad. But what else?

    • 133 posts
    January 8, 2016 4:45 AM PST

    While one side of me says "Holy cow what a cool idea!"

    Another more powerful side says "Whoa no, all that does is reward those who live in the grand prarents basement."

     

    My biggest reasons for not wanting this is you have to be careful not penalize those who came after the initial wave of release players.  Unless you are going to constantly add new recipes and make the part of some kind of "trivial loot code" all your doing is create an elite class for little good reason.  The idea of the "trivial loot code" is to stop a newly added unique 12th level crafter recipe quest from being dominated by 50th level players, again what would be the point?

    Imagine starting Pantheon 2 weeks after release, you have a job and wife, 2 kids, and fence needing white paint.  You begin hoping to have a great time, and you love to craft, since most of your play time is broken into smaller chunks, its a great way to relax awaiting those weekend XP times.  You learn of all of these cool quests that give you a unique recipe, but FFS everyone is already done and you are unable to ever get one.  Well maybe its to move to a game that doesn't entirely cater to the 2% that can play 12+ hours 7 days a week.

    Unlike every other quest, level, and acheivment, being first only allows bragging rights.  You can still achieve that epic, master crafter, cool sword what ever quest at your own pace.  However if its unique, and only those few with unlimited gameplay time acheive, you create an air of "why even play?"  And that is bad, bad, bad.

     

    Last thing you want to do is give 98% of your paying players reasons to leave.  Trust me, the self ordained elite cannot sustain a game, you need the entire player base to enjoy and pay to play.

     

    Now having said that, having one or two quests like this isn't bad idea, but to what end are you trying to achieve with this idea?  So the first person to get through all say 50 levels of crafter, and all 24 unique quests for recipes leaves the game....

     

    What was the point?

     


    This post was edited by Exmortis at January 8, 2016 4:46 AM PST
    • 384 posts
    January 8, 2016 7:43 AM PST

    What if you open it up a just little bit (this isn't a new idea, it's been done in other games) and have certain recipes only be craftable by a particular race or crafters from a particular city or continent. So the unique items aren't known to just one person but a limited number of high level crafters from a particular area. Crafting techniques are shared among artisans within a region irl. Perhaps if you you aren't from there but want to work on your faction with that group they might teach you something. But they probably wouldn't share all their secrets. :)

    • 46 posts
    January 8, 2016 7:50 AM PST

    I think unique recipes are a bad idea because it shuts off that content to 99.9% of the server, and if the player with the recipe decides to stop playing, that content is lost. That being said, I am hugely in favor of recipes like what Malsirian said that are restricted to certain race/class. I'm also a big fan of not all recipes being automatically received. I'm fine with your typical common iron armor recipes being available to everyone at minimal cost but another way to give a 'unique' feel to recipes is by making highly desired recipes be ultra-rare drops. That keeps the coolness/prestige factor of a unique recipe for those lucky enough to obtain it but doesn't block out everyone else from ever being able to get it also if they're willing to put in the time to complete whatever quest or farm whatever dungeon or raid the recipe comes from.

    • 2419 posts
    January 9, 2016 2:22 AM PST

    Whenever I hear someone say they want a game to have some 'thing' be unique (especially a thing that can be sold) that only one person can get, I immediately think "Of course he/she does because they want it so they can monopolize the market".  Nobody is so altruistic that they want the inclusion of a unique item which they could not get. The other reason to want a unique item is so you can be in-game famous. Unqiue items do not benefit the game, add nothing to its longevity or marketability nor increases its attractiveness to others.

    • 13 posts
    January 9, 2016 4:59 AM PST

    Recipes based on race is something that ESO does very well. It's not that the Redguard can't make Random Hat #44 but that when Khajiit make it, it has little kitty ears on top of it because...it's for Khajiit. Different races make different styled gear and there are drops you can get called Racial Motifs that you can sell to other players so they can craft their own gear themselves in the style of whatever race it is.  The higher up in level you go the rarer they are and the more they cost to get. I can see something similar in Pantheon since the races are so unique.

    • 308 posts
    January 9, 2016 5:25 PM PST

    making recipes that are "Unique" can be detrimental, that being said i think that it would achieve the same effect if say the race and class had an effect on the final piece. here are some of my ideas.

    Gnome - could instill colored mana into an item, or increase the amount of colored mana on a crafted item.

    halfling - reduces the weight and/or delay time of an item.

    dwarf - increased durability

    Skar - Increase damage

    paladin - includes purification agianst undead in weapons and regeneration in armors

    warrior - increases mitigation in armor and adds bonus damage to weapons.

    ranger - allows the ranger to instill environmental resistances to items

    wizard - increases magic damage and or magic defense

     

     

    doing things this way allows for every weapon or armor to be enhanced by a race/class specific process that makes the product of almost every crafter unique.

    • 578 posts
    January 10, 2016 12:26 AM PST

    Vandraad said:

    Whenever I hear someone say they want a game to have some 'thing' be unique (especially a thing that can be sold) that only one person can get, I immediately think "Of course he/she does because they want it so they can monopolize the market".  Nobody is so altruistic that they want the inclusion of a unique item which they could not get. The other reason to want a unique item is so you can be in-game famous. Unqiue items do not benefit the game, add nothing to its longevity or marketability nor increases its attractiveness to others.



    I really wouldn't mind someone else having a unique recipe that I couldn't get so I must be your unicorn. :D Plus, I'm really not super into crafting so again I'm not really bringing this up so I can get all the loot and monopolize the market. And I specifically stated that there would have to be precautions so that people "couldn't corner the market". I actually specifically said that lol.

    And sure I guess it is a little about being 'in-game famous' but what's wrong with that? I think a lot to maybe all crafters, like people who are REALLY SUPER into crafting, would love to be famous for their goods. What crafter wouldn't want some recognition about what they can make? They spend 100s to 1000s of hours crafting and a lot of the time it is monotonous work and having that 1 item that nobody else can make would feel good to bring home. And it's a RECIPE, so you could make lots of this one item so the item itself isn't actually unique and many people could have it. I think with all this it would add something to the game. If it was a single item that couldn't replicate itself then yeah that wouldn't add much to the game but it's not, it's a recipe that can make multiple items.

    I don't know I think it's a cool idea. Is it a good idea? I don't know, seems the consensus so far is no it's not so good of an idea. But all ideas are bad until someone makes them good so I'm sure it could be done some how.

    • 75 posts
    January 10, 2016 2:52 AM PST

    Anoter chat in the crafting forums attacked the idea of specialised crafting.  I am quoting from one of my posts in the End Game crafting thread:

    The 'should there be only one artifact per server' conversation has made me think.  What if a certain mob, lets call him the Ubah Dragon of Death, spawned randomly throughout the year.  Lets say that in addition to the "Shield of the Ubah Dragon of Death" that will drop once a year (or whatever timeframe considered suitable for such a wonderful item), it was guaranteed to drop artifact quality scales/blood/bone (or other suitable crafting mat).  these mats (dependent on type) could be utilised by an Artifact trained crafter (note above comment regarding how difficult this should be) to create something so special guilds would seek it out.  I am not considering that if in the above example blood dropped from a mob that it would be used to only create the "Sword of ubahness infused with blood of the Ubah Dragon of Death".  I am considering that at such high level crafters could utilise the blood to create an item of signifigance for whoever may obtain it?  Essentially, it would be some form of crafted enhancement.  What this would mean across a server, based on spawn rate and death rate of said mob, you could (lets say monthly spawn and kill rate) have 12 items crafted that utilise the artifact type drop (noting that if there were drop variations, the available items of any type would be reduced).

    In addition, lets say that the Ubah Dragon of Death, dropped items that enahnced or mitigated fire type dmg, or that it was of fire elemental base.  Imagine crafters needed to pursue the ability to use the elemental based item specifically and that to use other elemnetal type items you would have to pursue additional paths.  Perhpas that in addition to an elemental base, crafters needed a beastiary understanding, that would allow them to utilise items from beastkin, dragonkin, giantkin etc...

    Now this conversation ws not about unique recipes (i don't love that idea) what we were focussing on is how artifact/legendary type crafting drops could be used.  You also ned to understand that in my thinking in the above - to be able to utilise such items, a person would almost have to play the game as a crafter as opposed to a raider (my purist ideals are that there is a strong nexus between crafters and raiders and that raiders would NEED high levle crafters in their guild, therefore would love getting items for them).  It would be laborious and it would be challenging.

    What i was hoping to articulate is that by dedicating to crafting, you would be able to craft speciailised items.  If you include low drop rates for particular items you could gate the amount of any specific items that could be made.

    tldr: don't like unique recipes and think crafting can be developed in much deeper sense than that, but i love the idea of unique crafting.  Also - like the racical spin not so big on the class as i believe any race would craft their product with their user in mind.  Crafters are rarely only crafting for themselves so stats should be manipultaed by crafter and the type of goods used.

    • 68 posts
    January 23, 2016 6:17 PM PST

    I love the idea of Unique recipes being out there in the game. Having just one person have it, not so much. I think we all love rare weapons, and armor. Once they become common, we look for something new. I myself, am a crafter, and I love it! I still want to make rare and unique items, that are not so common. How we acheive that, still needs to be worked out.

    1.High enough skill should have some influence.

    2. Rare resources

    3.Unique recipes

    4.Drops

    As much as I love to craft, they still have not gotten it just right yet. I hope it is something they will really look into, for us crafters anyway.

    • 133 posts
    January 28, 2016 12:18 PM PST

    Malsirian said:

    What if you open it up a just little bit (this isn't a new idea, it's been done in other games) and have certain recipes only be craftable by a particular race or crafters from a particular city or continent. So the unique items aren't known to just one person but a limited number of high level crafters from a particular area. Crafting techniques are shared among artisans within a region irl. Perhaps if you you aren't from there but want to work on your faction with that group they might teach you something. But they probably wouldn't share all their secrets. :)

     

    That is a great idea!

    • 133 posts
    January 28, 2016 12:24 PM PST

    Max63 said:

    I love the idea of Unique recipes being out there in the game. Having just one person have it, not so much. I think we all love rare weapons, and armor. Once they become common, we look for something new. I myself, am a crafter, and I love it! I still want to make rare and unique items, that are not so common. How we acheive that, still needs to be worked out.

    1.High enough skill should have some influence.

    2. Rare resources

    3.Unique recipes

    4.Drops

    As much as I love to craft, they still have not gotten it just right yet. I hope it is something they will really look into, for us crafters anyway.

     

    I do have a question:

    How can a recipe be unique, and more than one person have them?

    Reason I ask is this say you like unique recipes but not just one person having them.  But the reference of something being unqiue is usually means its singular.

    • 68 posts
    January 28, 2016 1:49 PM PST

    Exmortis said:

    Max63 said:

    I love the idea of Unique recipes being out there in the game. Having just one person have it, not so much. I think we all love rare weapons, and armor. Once they become common, we look for something new. I myself, am a crafter, and I love it! I still want to make rare and unique items, that are not so common. How we acheive that, still needs to be worked out.

    1.High enough skill should have some influence.

    2. Rare resources

    3.Unique recipes

    4.Drops

    As much as I love to craft, they still have not gotten it just right yet. I hope it is something they will really look into, for us crafters anyway.

     

    I do have a question:

    How can a recipe be unique, and more than one person have them?

    Reason I ask is this say you like unique recipes but not just one person having them.  But the reference of something being unqiue is usually means its singular.

     

    You are right it could not be unique, just rare. My mistake. As much as I love making weapons and armor, it has always been a problem when Mobs started dropping better stuff. You want mobs dropping some nice stuff, or you will lose interest going after them. As far as crafting, I think they should not be able to craft armor and weapons.  Some of the others here had some good ideas already what to limit it too. Such as add-on's to armor or weapons. If we have houses, or boats, both of which I love would be great as well.

    • 63 posts
    January 30, 2016 6:28 PM PST

    I'm a huge fan of crafting. I think it offers a break from XP grinding and can really help your character grow in notoriety and wealth. This is coming from a guy who got his Blessed Prayer Shawl (8th) in Velious after what felt like thousands of hours in crafting and mat farming. It was painful to get, but man, what a feeling of accomplishment.

    I personally love the idea of a grizzled old wizard being one of the only known people who can craft item XYZ. Now, he doesn't have to be the only one, but he may not be telling everyone how he learned it. If devs distribute some recipes across various verticals, they can create the opportunity for people who eat, sleep and breathe crafting to carve their name in the server. You could have high-end guild recipe drops, recipes that you come across while crafting, or recipes that are "sensed" by certain classes/races during key events.

    I remember reading that certain classes will interact with Terminus differently, offering up new experiences through perception and other means. I think the same system can be applied to crafting to create some stuff that's really, really rare, but not necessarily unique.

    • 578 posts
    February 1, 2016 5:41 PM PST

    Malsirian said:

    What if you open it up a just little bit (this isn't a new idea, it's been done in other games) and have certain recipes only be craftable by a particular race or crafters from a particular city or continent. So the unique items aren't known to just one person but a limited number of high level crafters from a particular area. Crafting techniques are shared among artisans within a region irl. Perhaps if you you aren't from there but want to work on your faction with that group they might teach you something. But they probably wouldn't share all their secrets. :)



    I like it. I still like the idea of crafters working their tails off and ultimately learning a unique recipe or two that nobody else has but if I had to budge your idea is something I could get on board with. But think of the implications that a unique recipe could give. When the game launches these recipes would only be found at the end of the game's content. Once found and learned they could be so powerful that a crafter could only possess the knowledge of 1 or 2 at a time (to safeguard a single crafter monopolizing the market). Once learned, if they found a new recipe they wanted to learn but couldn't because they possessed the maximum amount or recipes they could unlearn a recipe and trade it to another crafter so they could make room for the new recipe they wanted.

    But this could also be applied to your example as well. But the more people allowed to learn the recipe the more it loses it's flavor. I just really like the idea of having to search the lands for the fabled crafter who can smith the Great Ivory Tower Shield of Blessings. This idea would work better if there were no auction houses and you had to communicate one on one with the crafter themself to obtain the item.

    • 578 posts
    February 1, 2016 5:51 PM PST

    Talvaris said:

    I personally love the idea of a grizzled old wizard being one of the only known people who can craft item XYZ. Now, he doesn't have to be the only one, but he may not be telling everyone how he learned it. If devs distribute some recipes across various verticals, they can create the opportunity for people who eat, sleep and breathe crafting to carve their name in the server. You could have high-end guild recipe drops, recipes that you come across while crafting, or recipes that are "sensed" by certain classes/races during key events.



    I like the idea too. Maybe one player having it, or maybe just a few could learn it, I don't know. As long as it is pretty rare to come by and you have to seek out far and wide the crafter who can make it then I guess I'd be happy. But the concern with acquiring the recipe under secret circumstances is nowadays we have the internet and if a very unique/rare recipe is acquired within game via very tricky and under very rare circumstances people will just go on the internet and explain how to go about finding and learning this recipe. IF the players/crafters could keep a tight lipped circle amongst themelves and agree to not disclose any of the super secret recipes onto the internet AND if there were rules where there were very unique recipes that only a handful of crafters could learn each one then I think this idea would work very nicely. BUT I still like the idea of a single recipe being able to be crafted by a single person.

    • 63 posts
    February 8, 2016 7:30 PM PST

    NoobieDoo said:

    IF the players/crafters could keep a tight lipped circle amongst themelves and agree to not disclose any of the super secret recipes onto the internet AND if there were rules where there were very unique recipes that only a handful of crafters could learn each one then I think this idea would work very nicely.

    A little off-subject, but I think it fits here. One of my absolute favorite nerdy gaming stories came from SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) back before anyone knew how to become a Jedi Knight. A group was attacking a mob and up strolls this quiet hermit looking player wearing dusty old robes. After a few back-and-forths with the group, he indicated that he was going to claim the mob for himself. Naturally they laughed at him and threatened to PK him and camp his corpse for the duration of the group if he didn't scram. He just chuckled and drew his lightsabre...

    A server first. He destroyed the entire group in seconds, then casually strolled off to fight the mob solo.

    As rare as those moments are in gaming, they're ones to cherish. Even if you're one of the dead group members thinking "wtf just happened lol," it's something you'll tell your gaming buddies for a long time. Crafting works much the same way. Eventually, the cool recipes will get out, but you can always have that head start that gives you the rush of being the first to do something notable.

    • 308 posts
    March 5, 2016 8:40 PM PST

    I have a new idea what if there were no real "Recipes"? what if every crafter made thier own recipe because every crafting material had set values and different crafting techniques brought about more or less of the values showing in the final Item? a truly freeform crafting system? could it be possible?

    • 2138 posts
    March 8, 2016 5:30 PM PST

    Like the idea of accidental recipes, I think that is what you are getting at Gawd.

    So if you are crafting, trying out new things, or making old things, and you decide to add something for kicks, and it creates something new! or if you got better pottery skill you found you could make a better pie crust 

    • 1618 posts
    December 26, 2016 2:49 PM PST

    Someone achieves a unique recipe for the server. Then, moves onto another game. Recipe lost.

    Or her guild is the only one that she makes the spell for. Wasted.

    • 556 posts
    December 29, 2016 2:34 PM PST

    Unique recipes/spells/anything is just wrong. I am completely with you on wanting things to be rare but never unique. I would advocate for an extremely long quest line involving groups, raids, crafting, hell even soloing just to get 1 rare recipe. That way if someone has it they put in a lot of time and effort. But that same one should still be something that any one can go get if they put in the work. 

    • 31 posts
    January 18, 2017 8:47 AM PST

    Gawd said:

    I have a new idea what if there were no real "Recipes"? what if every crafter made thier own recipe because every crafting material had set values and different crafting techniques brought about more or less of the values showing in the final Item? a truly freeform crafting system? could it be possible?

     

    I think thats what the guys at camelot unchained are aiming for.

    As a side note, in addition to rare drops/rare materials/ race/class combos etc, id suggest reciepes that must be discovered. E.g. read some random in-game lore books that tell a tale of a mythological weapon of great epeen that was made by accidentally spilling super siren blood into a forge, this tale is indirectly telling a discerning player go find that siren kill it and add it to whatever you are forging. This means exploration, reading of lore and killing epic mobs, plus the need for some guts to experiment with rare drops for potentially zero gain. persoanlly its the 4th factor i like the most, i just love it when a game mechanic intentionall d***s on the player (May SAO be real one day)!

    With all that said if ROTF has any of what you described above in it, i'll be thrilled.

    • 521 posts
    January 18, 2017 10:38 AM PST

    I don’t like the idea of having “unique” recipes, meaning stuff that once discovered is locked to one player, But having recipes that must be earned though experimentation would be cool. The only problem would be the people who love to share on the wiki, but I guess if the system was complex enough, say you need X,Y,Z as the base Mats, but many, many,many other materials could alter the end product, it could still leave room for a crafter to discover a unique version of the item while not artificially blocking it from others or having some Wiki Guru copying you.

    • 84 posts
    February 4, 2017 7:46 AM PST

    There was a lot to really like about the crafting systems in both Everquest I and Star Wars Galaxies.  For Everquest I, I liked how each skill-up was more rare than the prior one.  I also enjoyed how you would need to go back to some of the lower level zones through-out your career, hunting for basic recipes materials such as spider silk.  In Star Wars Galaxies, the fact that essentially no two items crafted were the same, provided for a lot of incentive to obtain the best raw materials you could find and to use your skill to craft those materials into items that had very compelling statistics.

    In general, I have always thought that an interdependence of the adventure and crafting spheres was important.  As an example, if an adventurer is low on coin and is thinking about ways to increase their wealth, well then perhaps instead of camping a rare named for an equipment upgrade, they instead decide to invest some time in gathering aviak eggs to sell to a Baker.  Or maybe the adventurer cannot find a group or is burned out on dungeon crawls, well there too, having the incentive and ability to go out and just solo some mobs for raw materials provides for something useful for the adventurer to work on until other avenues of gameplay become desirable again.  For the crafter, this provides a choice of paying for the materials and thereby reducing their profit margins or instead, taking a break from crafting and venturing out into the world to obtain some materials on their own.

    As for unique recipes, I do not believe that would work.  But what would likely work very well, would be having recipies that are difficult to obtain.   That difficulty could be offered up in a variety of ways, including rare drops from mobs, lots of coin to purchase, long and challenging quests, and also, a discovery/eperimentation system, whereby, from time to time, based on your skill and effort, you would discover a way to improve upon a recipe, making it all the more desirable and rare.  I believe a combination of all of the above ways for recipe acqusition, would provide an interesting and entertaining challenge and thereby offer up an immense sense of achievement for crafters.  On a side note, given that spells and recipes rely on similar concepts, a similar scheme of spell acqusition would also likely be challenging and therefore satisfying.

    So for Pantheon, if they can come up with interesting and challenging systems that reward those who choose to invest their time and efforts into crafting, then I believe they will have a very vibrant and successful crafting community as well as a robust in-game economy.

    • 780 posts
    February 4, 2017 7:50 PM PST

    We've been having a discussion about crafting epic quests possibly unlocking a bunch of epic recipes, or possibly different crafting mechanics. Right over here.