The "no need of bad crafters" issue

Hello,

today i thought about an issue from ultima online and many other mmo's after some time of existance. Or sometimes even in the beginning.

Thats the issue that you often have problems to make money with your crafting profession when you are not good in it. For example in UO noone bought equipment under GM made. So you need to level your smith to gm and invest tons of gold in it before you can make a living out of it.

Are there at this point any ideas how to design the crafting system that even completely new smithes for example can earn money for their work? I think it is important that every player in every skill region needs equipment from verry different levels of crafting skill. For example that even a "maxed out" player needs refreshing potions wich ar craftable by unexpirienced Alchemists.

In uo everything got replaced by something better in higher regions. Noone used lesser cure for example

 

They have talked about how crafter's items will be unique so I'm sure that'll play a role in fixing this issue but I think from my experience usually you just sold stuff to NPC venders to buy more supplies as you leveled up but i think the leveling and skill system will be a lot different in SotA.

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Maybe if "young crafters" could produce basic parts for more advanced items reciving an increase of xp and then most experienced crafters, that only get xp by better items, can buy basics from other "young"crafters, but it is only a matter IF they do it or not.

 

Yea I think this need fixed.
I'm not sure how many other MMO's do this but in UO most of the low level items made were junk.
And you hardly had anyone who was not GM repair your armor.
So I'm all for some ideas to craft some items at low levels that are much needed in the game.
Even like nails or something.

 

1) I don't think higher skill gear should be statistically better. (Perhaps durability, weight but nothing that affects combat). It should look way cooler.
2) All crafting should be throttled. Whether it takes real time or something of the sort. This means that you cannot have a whole guild of 50 people get one person to craft all their gear. The crafter won't have time.
3) They've already suggested an upgrade system where say 3 lower quality swords can get turned into a higher quality one. (It doesn't actually matter whether this consumes 3 swords or is a 33% RNG for the upgrade.) This produces demand for goods anyone can craft. Low skilled crafters make mass amounts of swords, high skilled ones are more useful for higher tiers of upgrades.

 

Wow, I was about to make this exact thread. I 100% agree this needs to be considered.

My suggestion:

• All crafters whether GM or novice will create the same combat usable weapons meaning the damage/attack speed will be the same. Novice crafter weapons may suffer from lower durability but would still be marketable.
• It would be great if one of the main perks of being GM in crafting is to add custom designs to the items. This would be similar to UO's way of having GM items named after the creator.
• Novice crafters would not be able to or be limited to repairs on weapons and armor whereas GM's would be the ones sought out for full repairs.

 

I like where your going with this, maybe even allow GMs to have a chance at making a certain % quality, the higher the %, the better the weapon/armor stats and visual effects. However, not so much better that it makes 0% quality items of the same type undesirable.

 

Low skilled labor results in low quality goods, which is why the lower tiers of UO skills had titles like 'neophyte', 'novice', and 'apprentice'. If you were to be a novice furniture maker scratching out pine footstools, do you think you should compete with a master craftsman creating things of beauty out of rare and wondrous woods? You can go to any flea market and see paintings by beginning artists that you can get cheap. Things that wind up in the Louvre are more expensive.

UO accurately simulated that kind of skill progression. I guess I'm old school, but I prefer that kind of system over one where everyone gets an award just for participating. If it were easy, everyone would do it, and if everyone can do it, why should I buy something from you?

 

I guess there just needs to be a way to "fund" the progression of that crafting skill other than going off to fight monsters or creating another character to fight monsters and bring home money for the crafter. A smith should be able to advance his skill AND acquire the money needed to advance this skill. Maybe he could put in a few extra hours a week in at Mcdonalds!! Or maybe he could get a loan for the training, or "ingots" he needs. I guess what the OP really wants is just a way to advance in his trade without having to depend on some completely different skill like swordsmanship or magery for slaying monsters. Or to have to create a new character to do this(And if you have to buy a new account to create another character, then this could mean every crafter will require 2 accounts unless their able to fund their advancement on their own).

 

To advance his trade he'd just need gathering and harvesting skills. If he doesn't want to go get his own resources then yeah, he's gonna have a tough time. I think he is wanting to make money right off the bat, which you would, NPC vendor (sell) the items that way. YOu just wont get rich that way. I am support that all the way, no reason for a newbie to make items that are just as functional as someone who spent 100 hours on his skills. The simply shouldn't be as good. If they are just as good with only a durability difference then I would just make my own equipment all the time durability so no big deal as long as I can slay a dragon with a newbie weapon even if I throw it away afterwords.

 

There is a phrase that covers that. "Don't quit your day job", meaning that if you want to do something that isn't yet paying for itself, you'd better have an additional source of income.

If nothing else, you can sell some of the raw materials you gather for cash, and use the rest to advance your skill. Assuming that NPC shopkeepers will buy what you make, that is also a source of income.

 

I can't agree with your first point, but I sorta agree with the second, and the system you tell about at point 3 sounds good.
I agree that low level crafting should have some use, but many higher level crafts should be better when it comes to stats in my opinion, not everyone will craft for the looks of the items (especially things that you don't equip or otherwise won't see anyway, such as potions and rings etc.), so having other good reasons to get better at a skills is important.

 

The biggest utility of beginner crafting gear in other games I've played was that it was essentially free (other than time involved to gather materials), so it was a cheap way to equip yourself or your main if uber quality wasn't a priority (and with PvE, it usually wasn't a priority). So starting out, you were typically your best (and maybe only) customer.

In SotA, with one character per account, depending on how the skill system fleshes out, I imagine I will just buy the gear I need from crafters, and to start, everything will be of equal (maybe low) quality.

 

Maybe it's possible to make experienced players buy at high price from experienced crafters, and same for newcomers at lower prices.

The question also is "how to make GMs rare?" If it's very long to become, and then production of high-end items takes longer too, maybe prices of top stuff would skyrocket and leave room for cheaper items.

It could go this way: you begin your smithing career by advancing your "general smithing" skill. Like in EVE online, it's passive, it takes 10 days to reach say level 10 and you can't speed it up so bots are useless.
Then you develop a "axe smithing" skill that will take 1 month to reach lvl 10, then the "steel axe" speciality who takes 3 monthes.

You're now making top steel axes that you are going to sell at very high prices because you are, if not unique, at least a rare bird. Your clients will be rich experienced players.
But your neighbour who just suscribed and is beginning his smithing carreer will sell cheaper to other beginners.

Maybe this is naive, I'm nothing like an economist, but that's my wish.

 

I can think of few ideas worse than this one. Far worse than the problem it seeks to correct.

 

Why can't it just be like a real economy? In that, for those who can only afford or need low quality items, new crafters will suffice. As both sides of that equation progress they would move up a chain where there is demand and supply for a certain level of item.

Problems:
It takes a regular stream of new players. Maybe not as big a problem since if there's not, demand for low quality items will continue to match supply, meaning it will go down.
It takes a way for new crafters to be able to survive without the "big guys" pushing them out.
It also takes removing a lot of the weapon/armor/consumable loot drops from monsters. If you can get a decent sword from every goblin, there's no point in crafting one.
There also needs to be a real way that upgrading your items takes time. If you can buy the best after 1 week of play, forget it.
NPC purchases/sales can wreck this with bad pricing.

This is part of the whole balancing of a sustainable economy. For which, they need some real thought and design... game economist, stat!

 

This behavior would be ideal, and could be encouraged if the recipes and production rates were tuned to favor it. Perhaps there are things like, say, bolts. They take a long time to make individually (hand carved threading?) but are relatively easy. The GM crafter doesn't want to spend huge amounts of time or materials making them, so he buys them. Saves him time. The price is driven down to a certain minimum by the number of low skill level crafters all trying to sell their bolts.

The problem with running it like a real economy is threefold.

First, unlike a real economy, there is a PROBLEM with 90% of the success and wealth winding up in the hands of 5% of the participants. We do enough of that driving to our 9-5 jobs every day. The unreal video game economy should allow all players to thrive, to an extent mediated by their effort.

Secondly, the price gaps on gear. They wouldn't be big enough. If I'm playing a new melee warrior type, and I have a selection of weapons ranging from most to least effective, priced accordingly, I'm going to jump to the best I can afford, and then go use it to make money, so that I can hock it and buy something way better (skipping as many intermediate steps as I can) until I have the best I can get. Then I'll do the same for armor. I will, if able, buy the best gear in the game LONG before I'm a max level character, long before I've finished the story.

Third, unlike a real economy, players will not automatically want to specialize and put up with other people charging a fair rate (assuming they do) for their work. Every player will want to create as much as they can themselves, and rely on friends and guilds for what they cannot make, and use strangers as little as possible. This kind of "small village" mentality is very bad for outsiders, and stifles the growth of the economy.

In order for the natural forces that drive market economics in the real world to "automatically" fix the economy in the game, each would have to be programmed. All the annoying things that influence where you put your hard earned cash in the real world would show up in the game. While realism would rise, the FUN of getting away to play a video game would diminish.

This would make the programmers work super hard, trying to model real economic pressures just so they could make something we wouldn't enjoy.

 

Yea, I agree with others here who've said that a lot of the problem could be solved in two ways, if people wished this kind of solution: 1. have crafting take time, or at the least, throttle it in some way by doing a max/hr. Note, having it take time wouldn't be the end of the world - it works in The Sims without getting tedious - although I'm not sure everyone here would like that. 2. Not making normal, non-magic weapons so remarkably superior to one another, so much so that a low skill crafter produces something useless compared to a high skill crafter.

In addition, it might help if crafters could consign their goods to the city guild, and then have the NPC merchants sell the wares for them in the booths and stalls in the market square. That way they wouldn't rely on player-to-player interactions, and their goods will find their way to beginning players.

 

Well, in the medieval world, the way commercial privilege worked is through power given to guilds, and then the guilds had control over who got the profit. If the game makes guilds an open and democratic thing, rather than hierarchical, then that alone will nullify the problems you'd see in real-life economies.

I think being able to consign their goods to NPCs merchants in the guild would help with a lot of the problems you're talking about. And remember, you could always flat sell to NPCs and get a reduced payout.

 

The "reduced payout" is baseline to the problem described in the beginning of this thread. Everything I craft before GM, or the SotA equivalent, will be vendortrash. Even if it's balanced towards that happening in terms of material consumption and vendor pricing, it's still pretty much a downer to find that every skill point below max is merely the path towards STARTING to participate in the player economy.

As for the player driven guilds, IF the devs institute guilds that regulate and control the creation and distribution of products, stock them with NPC's who vendor the player's goods, and let the players in charge (by whatever system of government works) set pricing, (this would be awesome, btw, and I hope it happens) the problem of 95% or better of the things you make while skilling up towards GM being vendortrash is still not resolved. Are the player driven guilds going to offer better prices for the apprentice level crafting than the NPC vendors do? Are they going to force people to use the low end equipment even when GM's capable of producing better equipment abound?