Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Crafter's Roundtable: NPC Hirelings

    • 1785 posts
    September 11, 2018 7:17 AM PDT

    Hi everyone! It's time for another Crafter's Roundtable! Each week, Pantheon Crafters posts a topic for discussion, to learn more about how all of you think things should work in Pantheon. This is all about voicing your opinions, so don't be shy in posting them!

    This week's question is about NPC hirelings. Several games allow you to use NPC characters to slowly gather resources or handle trivial crafting tasks. In your opinion, is this a good thing, or a bad thing, and would you want to see this concept leveraged in Pantheon at any point?

    • 2 posts
    September 11, 2018 7:30 AM PDT

    I am completely against this.  If there are "trivial" crafting tasks, those tasks should be removed from the crafting system altogether.  Make every step of the process meaningful(and player involved).

    • 206 posts
    September 11, 2018 9:10 AM PDT

    Zaqqin said:

    I am completely against this.  If there are "trivial" crafting tasks, those tasks should be removed from the crafting system altogether.  Make every step of the process meaningful(and player involved).

     

    I am in complete aggreement with Zaqqin.

    I do not think the game should be cluttered with such things. I'll reference EQ, I played eq off and on and would miss an expansion or two and come back to find that there was just too much extra(nonsense) incorportated that made me just skip it. This is just my opinion of coarse, others probably loved it, but I have also played WoW for 14 years, and using the KISS(keep it simple stupid) system is very nice for "older" and "newer" players. 

    • 768 posts
    September 11, 2018 11:58 AM PDT

    It's on of those alleys, where ones you go in you can't turn back.

    This game is primarly about sustaining that community envolvement and the sense of a REAL PLAYERbased economy. The last one would already be jeopardized with the ability for hired NPC.
    This does not only relate to harvesting resources, but indeed to the crafting and auction actions in game.
    It is such a big difference and a huge shift on player impact and on the game itself if you compare NPC vs purely player organisation of that economy.
    I'm not saying it can not be done. I'm merely pointing at what Pantheon said concerning what their primary targets are for the game. And providing players with hired NPC's is quite contradictive to their statements.

    That being said. If after certain time has passed and the game reveals the dire need for hired npc's to keep to game running fluently or whatever. Then they can Always have that option to install such a feature. But again, they should really think hard and long about the consequences and how this (if at all) aligns with their vision of the game. Not only at that point in time but also in the long run. If you open up that door... many more present themselves, but none of them can be closed again after opening.

    Personally, I'ld say; "No, thank you." Let's work with players and see how we manage there to install an economy and maintain a steady stream of incoming resources and outgoing expenses.

    • 168 posts
    September 12, 2018 9:27 AM PDT

    I only recall one game that I have played that had hirelings (SWTOR). There were many things there that cause that game to be just a short term mmo fix for me; crafter helpers were a fair portion of why I left and never looked back.

    I cetainly don't view crafter helpers/hirelings in any form of a positive light.

    Many other posts on various other subjects on this forums seem to indicate that nothing that "plays the game for you" should be a part of the game. I agree to that sentiment on the subjects of mobile device access, add-ons, and macros (perhaps more I have left out) and I agree to that sentiment on crafter helpers as well. The system should not be trivial nor do I feel the crafting system should be simple (KISS is fine in certain other cases). Crafting should be in-depth, involved, and entirely player interaction with the environment based.

    I guess what I am saying is that helpers/hirelings make things easier. Easier crafting means everyone maxxes at least one craft out. I don't want to see the crafting system marginalized because a bot did the work for a player even if its just getting mats. I don't want to see more than maybe 5% of the server population maxxing out any given craft because it was challenging and difficult and dare I say extremely time consuming.

    • 29 posts
    September 12, 2018 7:24 PM PDT
    I vote no for many of the reasons stated above. The less automation, the better. Just tweak the gathering process so it is sustainable by players, not bots.
    • 128 posts
    October 5, 2018 10:43 AM PDT

    I also would vote no.

    • 510 posts
    October 11, 2018 8:16 AM PDT

    I think before we could actually comment on this, there would need to be a definition of a hireling.  Gather resources?  No.  Perform specific trivial crafting?  Define "trivial crafting".  Someone that can add a small boost of some sort to what you are doing?  You bet!  The biggest problem here is that we have no idea what a hireling actually does.  I would like to see hirelings with specific craft stats.  Say Bob the Builder is a woodworking hireling.  He has +2% to success and +1% to quality.  He also costs 5 silver per use.  Would you use him?  Let's say Bob is a hireling with +4% to success and -1% to quality.  How about now?  I mentioned in another post that maybe the number of hirelings you can use is determined opn the quality of the crafting node and your level.  Let's say your a max crafter using the best fogrge in the game and you can have 4 hirelings helping you.  Which ones do you use?  Do you go with 4 guys that will boost the quality?  Do you pick someone that can imbue a proc?  Again - the OP does not provide enough info on the particulars to make a decision.  Let's design the hireling and THEN ask the question.  Repeatedly if we need too.

    • 2 posts
    October 12, 2018 8:24 AM PDT
    NPC hirelings? Yes.
    • 239 posts
    October 16, 2018 11:39 AM PDT
    I agreee with most on here. Anything that makes the game easier for you to do stuff solo and not need other players or the economy is a deal breaker. If you don’t want to spend time harvesting yourself instead of paying an NPC pay a person who spent time harvesting. Crafting should take time. I hope VR makes it worth our time though, so many times I spend weeks crafting, then get a better drop item. But yes crafting is one of the biggest economic tools in the game, do not make it easier for a player to do it himself.
    Hireling for stat bonus? I do not understand.... what does he do stand there and cheer you on? I can see items you can equip for crafting stat bonus.
    I vote NO hirelings at all.
    • 1479 posts
    October 16, 2018 11:44 AM PDT

    No. No one should play the game for us, even if it's coded in the game, it's still removing the hassle for the sake of beeing speed efficient.