Skills for crafting - Few ideas

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Elrond, Aug 11, 2020.

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  1. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    @Chris

    In the future please add things through the skill trees . We really need more skills in the crafting trees ...all this jack of all trades has brought the economy to its knees .... You need to encourage people to specialise in certain areas . You can do that by properly incentivizing players to go higher in their levels and with alot of variety in skills....short version when you reach 150 in any crafting/gathering skill a ''miracle needs to happen '' ..make it a milestone ....for ep 3-4 we can move on to 200.... you need to double or triple the available skills in the crafting trees ... I witnessed alot of missed opportunities in the last few months to improve the game this way...we have to move away from ''hand outs''.

    Im reffering to stuff like

    - Next release double farm production for everyone - This would have been a great opportunity to add a skill (or some new enchants) for farmers that increase yield production or saves seeds or generates more seed . Why should all farmers produce the same quantity ...should be skill based ...

    - Xp from farming - another missed opportunity to add a skill for farmers that increases their xp gained from farming .

    - Increased XP for gathering , skinning - Another missed opportunity to add at least 5 more skills to help with increased xp gains to each gathering tree .

    - Next release we triple enchants and mw power ( from 5-7 to 15-17 )- missed opportunity to make leveling progression matter .

    - Next release increasing durability for x items for everyone- another missed opportunity to put it through the skill tree.

    - Next release + 50 batch production for everyone ....

    ....so on....

    Just ask yourself ... Can i fix this with the Crafting System ? Or the skill system ? Or the pvp system.... If you just give away stuff like that you take away a huge chunk of progression we the players should go through ... we like to progress in our skills .

    Below a list of possible skill effects that could be added some more then once , the gathering skills especially you can add a ton there.... stuff like increased chance to get a T2 material so on

    swift production - at level 100 2 sec craft time reduction ...can add to 9 crafting skills
    mass production - 10% chance to double output at lvl 100 ...can add to 9 crafting skills
    batch production - at lvl 100 +50 batch ...can add to 9 crafting skills
    increased durability by x amount /10 lvl when crafting items ...can add to 3 crafting skills
    furniture deconstruction - lest get some wood back from furniture ...x1
    artifact deconstruction - for when we will need stuff from artifacts ... x3
    reduced durability loss when failing a masterwork ..x3
    reduced durability loss when failing an enchant ...x1
    chance to extract components when salvaging a dropped item x3
    chance to extract components when salvaging a crafted item x3
    chance to extract materials when salvaging a dropped item x3
    chance to extract materials when salvaging a crafted item x3
    chance to extract more then 1 material when salvaging a dropped item x3
    chance to extract more then 1 material when salvaging a crafted item x3
    Transmutation (Alchemy skill ) - We really need something like this ... Convert Iron or Copper ore into gold or silver ore ...At level 1 ratio 5 to 1 ..at level 100 Ratio 3 to 1 ...at level 150 ratio 2 to 1 .

    Thats 57 skills that can be added easily in the crafting tress ...you just need to code 1/2 templates for most and copy paste it into each tree .

    -------------------------------------------------------

    At the moment we have 4 main proffesions in the crafting tree

    Gathereres
    Refiners
    Crafters
    Enchanters/Masterworkers

    If you check players stats ingame you will find that everyone is a gatherer , refiner, crafter , ench/mwer and when not in the mood for any of these activities they go farm some arties (chaining 100 troll rooms) ..... So how are we suppose to have any economy in these conditions ? If you introduce more scarcity in the resource/gathering chain will just increase the rage meter . ...but if you separate these proffesions in an effective/efficient way ,you will find the conomy will start to move and pretty much everything will sell .

    Like i already said, you have to make it worth to players to go for one tree rather then go after all...someone with lvl 150 skills in wood cutting should gather wood or T2 resources 50% faster (or more) then someone with 120 skills or even 140 . My suggestion would be leave increments as they are for when you have more time and focus on milestones ( or perks) ...at lvl 50 you get something ..at lvl 100 you get something cool , at lvl 150 you get something amazing.

    Im not saying dont allow people to do everything...by all means ... let em do everything , but youll find once they actually have a reason to go for that 150 lvl , many will choose to aim for that instead of aiming for everything.

    Each gathering skills could have skills like
    -Chance to get A gem instead of gem fragments
    - Chance to add extra ore/wood for metic collection
    - Chance to add extra T2 when mining/cutting/gathering
    - Chance to replace an ore with T2 material
    - Iron profficiency, copper profficiency, silver or gold profficiency - at lvl 50 you get 1/node -at lvl 100 you get 2 ore/wood /.....node at lvl 150 you get 3 /per node

    ..also consider this ...you can take all the crafting trees and fit them into 5-6 combat trees ..... imagine opening a combat tree and finding 4 skills in there and you can get a picture of how dull the crafting trees are for crafters .
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2020
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  2. marthos

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    I like the intent of these extra skills but feel that most of these skills just address fundamentally poor design that make actually using crafting system painful. These skills, when at high level, would lessen the pain but I'm still left asking "why is crafting this painful?"

    I'd love for Chris to pick up the challenge and stream the gathering, refining, MW/Enchanting of a decent set of armor on a normal character. He might implement these skills right away, and give everyone 500 levels of each skill as a logon bonus, as soon as he finishes that last piece of armor (sometime in early 2021).
     
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  3. kaeshiva

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    I don't disagree with anything you propose Elrond, but it feels like putting bandaids on a broken leg at this point.
    You're absolutely right about missed opportunities to make progression matter, but I don't think adding dozens of skills that give miniscule benefits is the answer.
    If a crafter has to pour millions of experience into a bunch of things to even be functional, then there's zero demand for the emerging crafter who is working on their skill and, the high level crafters like you and I will simply dump our hundreds of millions of accumulated producer exp into all the new skills as soon as they are added and then we're in same position lol.

    Personally I'd like to see progression result in better predictability.
    It makes sense for a fledgingly newbie crafter to botch some things and end up with a random effect, but a grandmaster crafter who is trying to do something to a sword to make it have a better critical chance really shouldn't be screwing that up. An enchanter harvesting magical energies for the 81235th time should probably have figured out by now, how to put intelligence on a wand instead of strength.

    What about skills that give you a guaranteed choice?
    For example, right now we get 3 choices when we click 'enchant'
    I propose an expensive passive that, at GM, has a 50% chance to give you a 4th choice that is guaranteed.
    You could have a skill for each effect, even.
    So if I grandmaster "major int" (which costs more than "int") and minor int, when I hit craft I'd have 3 options pop up, plus a 50% chance of each of one of these showing up (potentially six options if I got a really good roll). This retains randomness but allows some consistent choices to appear, and the more I invest in it, the more reliable it is.
    It would also encourage specialization in that people who make gear for mages will invest in the int stuff first, and so on.
    Not investing in the skill means it can still come up randomly, so lower levels who get lucky could still compete, but it would be a lot more costly for them to make it.
    This makes sense economically in that the master has refined their trade and is better/more efficient at it.

    Its still a bandaid tho. Imo, the only thing that is going to save crafting is for RNG to go.
     
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  4. Elrond

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    Because the skills we have count very little in what we make ...we need more skills and we need the ones we have to be tweaked a bit make them count bit more then they currently do .

    That would be a waste of his time ( and ours ) , im not advocating dumbing down the craft system or lets make it really easy for everyone to craft the best stuff in just 10 mins ....at that point we dont have a crafting system anymore. Stuff is suppose to be painfull as in take time to do it .... the main thing that adds value to dropped/crafted items ingame is the TIME that it takes to make/loot, once that is gone so is the value of items .

    Lets look at the bandit set - Its the best ingame set for quite a few categories of players - It takes just few hours a skilled player to farm this set and put it on vendor , because of how fast you can farm this set its price dropped at an all time low - around 150k for the FULL SET . 150k for the best damage set ingame that can be farmed in few hours ... on the other hand if you look at Acara plate set ... its a bit more difficult to aquire all the pieces , a full set costs about 500k gold ...why is Acara more expensive ? ( even though it has worse stats then Bandit ) because of the time it takes to be farmed ....

    I dont think the best set ingame ( Bandit ) should be farmed in just a few hours , what kinda of gear progression do we want to offer new players ? Do we want them to wear the best set ingame just after few days of playing or do we want them to progress in their gear ...gradually.... have them work for it ...progression is more satisfying ...

    I think everyone reading will agree that TIME adds value to doing things , i will also agree that it can be appealing to some players if the time invested in making stuff was lessened...some players just want to make their stuff and go do something else...adventuring so on. Thats what these skills are all about ... you can go really high in a proffesion and basically cut time of doing things in half ...but you cant go really high in all skills to craft everything fast .


    So like i said this thread its not about making things easier or faster , by removing core systems...its about each player doing things differently ..some faster , some slower based on the TIME they invest to progress in newly added skills .


    The zero demand for emerging crafters is already ingame.... this system will not change that , what it could change , is everyone being able to do everything with same efficiency , without any regard of skill or time vallue added to their skills . Do you have 100 mil to invest in each of the 100 craft skills ? I dont ... So i would probably need to contact other players to help me out in areas im not as profficient as they are .... The more skills get added the harder would be for players to master everything ...that in turn creates scarcity , demand for goods/services , relations , players depending on one another ...it creates a community .

    I didnt put that on the list because Chris said he will be adding something along those lines ,a skill to increase number of choices or something like that .

    Rng can be fun if done proper ... you and i will just have to agree to disagree on this one .
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2020
  5. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Maybe stealing a bit from ESO would work here. I like their research system for traits, where if you find an item with a trait on it, you can choose to research it. This consumes the item, and starts a research timer for that trait. It takes X hours to learn the trait (this time passes whether you're logged in or not) and once learned, it can be applied to weapons while crafting, if you also have the correct resources. (Each trait has a corresponding material you consume to apply the trait.) You can only research one trait per item type at a time (i.e. the Bloodthirsty trait for swords is a separate research timer from Bloodthirsty for axes, etc.) but you can research multiple item types simultaneously. Each additional trait you research past the first one doubles the timer length. To get all the traits for a particular type takes around four months.

    It probably wouldn't work to use that entire system, but maybe something similar for MW/Enchants. (From here on out, I'm just using MWE to stand in for masterworking and enchanting because I don't want to type that out every time.) Instead of breaking down weapons (given that all MWE are available randomly, it'd be too easy to get items with the MWEs you want to research) maybe skill books are added as drops. Make them only drop in certain zones, with the more desirable ones dropping in harder zones. When you research a book, it starts a timer. Once the timer is up, you can now always select that MWE. You'd still get the random ones, so starting crafters have the chance to make something good, but the more experienced crafters have a route to eliminate the most painful RNG in crafting. I'd probably do the research timers a bit differently, since we have a lot more MWE than ESO has traits, so maybe the doubling of the time required only goes to a certain point, and then each additional one after that uses the "max" time.

    It'd also be nice if being bale to select the MWE you wanted also required a specific material, but that would probably require adding a who knows how many new materials to the game, and that might be asking too much. But between the research books and the materials, it'd be a lot of stuff for gatherers and adventurers to go collect and sell. High end crafters could begin pricing items at their actual cost, rather than the actual cost plus some amount to cover all the mistakes.

    Of course, that's a lot of new tech, and so unlikely. But I think Kaeshiva is right, the time for more bandaids has long passed; and we need a means for high end crafters to reduce (if not eliminate) the RNG.
     
  6. kaeshiva

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    What we have, is in no way whatsoever, "done proper."


    I'm not against some element of RNG, but total emphasis on luck for every single step of the process compounds into the mess we have.
    Passing a single RNG check (say, looting a rare component) would be sufficient.
    Even saying okay, you've got 2 steps of RNG: looting the rare item and rolling well on the salvage.
    That's two steps of RNG and already is incredibly wasteful. But whatever, cope-with-able.
    Four, really, assuming you had to pass RNG checks to get your recipe in the first place, which is RNG to get a supply bag and more RNG to actually get the recipe you want out of it.

    So before we even go to the crafting bench we're already having to get past 4 iterations of RNG.
    This isn't enough?

    More RNG for exceptional or not.
    RNG for success or fail
    RNG for number of rerolls...
    Then lastly the RNG for effects.

    I'm simply suggesting that the very last rung on this ladder of RNG is at this point, unnecessary and counterproductive and completely un-mitigatable in any way other than continuing to throw resources at it and "hope you get lucky." Doesn't matter how much time you've invested in your character, how many years you've spent refining yout trade - its down to blind luck and throwing money at it.

    Its what makes what would be a really good crafting system full of nuance and choice, into one of the most frustrating systems I've experienced in 20 years of mmo-ing.

    Who does RNG benefit?
    Not the crafter - wasteful and expensive
    Not the customer - can't get what they want
    Not the economy - see the mountains of junk piling up

    What we are doing is not working.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2020
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  7. Elrond

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    This we can both agree on ...
    These need to be scaled down a bit..right now the procentage works only if 100 items are crafted /ench...so you can craft 50 items and get 10 exceptionals with 30% chance and get another 20 with another 50 batch.... should be more like 1 of 3 exceptional.... you can ench 54% - 9 times in a row success or failures....same code applies for mw/ench and i suspect for fizzle rates as well .... applying the procentage to lower number of attempts should fix these issues.
     
  8. kaeshiva

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    Having your tradeskill at level 140 and having that mean only 1 out of 3 items you make (roughly) is usable, is an obscene amount of waste right out the gate.
    That's 2/3 of your resources poof from that single RNG step even at absurd experience investment levels.

    I'm not saying that the math doesn't work - statistics are what they are.
    What I'm saying is that the underlying premise is flawed.

    This is just ONE layer of many RNG checks, successfully getting an item through all of them to make what you actually want is some order of magnitude less than 1% chance of success start to finish.

    There needs to either be a viable way to recoup/salvage materials and go again, or a serious redress of the entire process.
     
  9. Elrond

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    Ok...lets not forget waste has its role and its present everywhere ...so port didnt reinvent the wheel with this one ...it just needs to be adressed in proper ways ...if we look at how nature deals with waste in rl, we find that almost everything ( unless man made crap ) pretty much becomes a source of nutrients for something living ..... so i would rather see a system that deals with waste from the crafting proccess that is pleasing/usefull ...rather then seeing the whole concept removed.....
     
  10. Cora Cuz'avich

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    But it should still be reduced. I blew through a hundred beetles last week to make a new helmet, and still didn't get the helmet I wanted. I dislike blowing through a hundred beetles for nothing. I really dislike the waste of the time I spent getting a hundred beetles being for nothing. If I could get a hundred beetles in an hour, I wouldn't mind wasting thousands of them to get gear I wanted. If I only got one beetle a day, but I was sure when I made my helmet I would get the helmet I wanted, I wouldn't mind spending a week farming enough to make that helmet. The problem is our crafting system is made of a bunch of tiny inconveniences that compound until you've spent a hundred hours frustrated and still not being able to make the gear you want to make.
     
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  11. kaeshiva

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    There's been a lot of brainstorming in this area about "what do we do with all the trash."
    The most basic suggestion being "just make salvage give back a reasonable amount of what it took" which would assuage it somewhat,though I admit this is one of the less appealing ideas, as it doesn't address some of the core economic problems.

    Consider salvaging a piece of gear gives 1-3 'metal slag bits' (for example) that can be used to create a kit that restores 1 point of max dura to an item.
    This would give crafters a role in the ongoing repair and maintenance of the "good pieces" and add a value to the "trash" in that it can be used to keep quality pieces in good repair.
    So if you did burn through hundreds of ingots and got nothing to show for it, at least you're stockpiling for tomorrow when you do get something nice you can make it last.
    Higher Salvage skill could affect this rate and the potency of the consumables produced.
    Lower level crafters get a foothold in the market as people might buy some of their products simply to smash them, or they could sell the slag themselves.

    Or consider salvaging gear gives some component not obtainable in any other way, that is required for other things. Now junk gear has a value and isn't total despair.
    You could even add different flavors - salvage to slag, or transmute it magically to something else, the possibilities are numerous.

    If the component gear was tier 2 using rarer components such as beetles, secondary metals, etc., you get something different out of it that can be used for something else.

    We need a system that gives trash a use and keeps it from glutting up vendor after vendor with unwanted fail-pieces.
     
  12. Elrond

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    Much brainstorming indeed ... i like all these idea you posted ..any of them can work ....
     
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  13. aragorn lancermane

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    I am by no means a crafter but I have picked it up and tried it. I would have to agree with this in a heartbeat. We need a crafting system that would appeal to new players and keep them interested.


    This. If we were to blend what we have with this it could be interesting to say the least. My main concern is the balance. The more control the crafting system has the more challenging it will be to make content loot drops more meaningful and we get stuck with this grind even more. Crafting in a MMORPG is supposed to be a well balanced support for PvE content. Having a pure crafter class is appealing and I'm all for it, this is after all a sandbox MMO. I would just like to know which direction we are supposed to go- Sandbox or Themepark?
     
  14. kaeshiva

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    Whatever we decide to do with crafting, I agree with the fundamental points in the opening post that it needs to be skill-gated.

    The problem with the current way the skill systems work is that the diminishing returns are such that I'm better off levelling 100 skills to 120, and being a generalist than levelling 5 skills to 140 - the benefit simply isn't there. This is the reason why "everyone does everything" and there's not really a solution for it - adding more skills to encourage specialization just means the empires of Alts will grow. I think we have to accept that people who want to invest the time to do this are going to do it, regardless if they can do it on one character, or not, and the ultimate conclusion becomes one of everyone levels gathering on the char they run around with and has a bunch of craft toons parked back home. That's just what happens in every game ever that tries to put arbitrary limits. Its worse in Sota because of first time bonus EXP makes it actually easier to diversify across many accounts than to level everything on one character - levelling on one character just saves you the inconvenience of load screens and retyping login credentials lol.

    The best way to encourage variety is to embrace choice.
    Not everyone wants the same stats on gear, and not everyone agrees what is best.
    Crafters would distinguish themselves with their choices, because the choices made in the composition of materials and masterworks/enchants selected are far more important than the minimal potency gained by higher skill level.

    Skill level instead can become an efficiency metric, higher skill = less fail, less random, less waste.
    It means that someone who's only got the crafting at GM but makes quality, well thought out pieces will still have a market (particularly if we add some sort of gear recyclability as mentione dabove).
    It means they could keep a merchant stocked with consistent merchandise availability.
    It means anyone could 'craft for hire' and work to customer specifications.

    Yes, a lot of people will choose to do it all themselves rather than buy. You can't avoid that, no matter what you do.
    But I know a lot of folks that the ONLY reason they fool with crafting at all, is they can't find what they want.
    That's not because there's no crafters out there that know what makes a good piece, its because making a good piece is just a luck game and 99% of the best stuff made never sees a vendor stall.

    Suggestions:
    "Unlock" things at higher levels, (gm, 110, 120, 130, 140) to give a reason to specialize or at least prioritize where they're investing experience.
    By unlock I mean, think of how adventuring glyphs are earned at 10/20/40/80 skill level - same principle but extend into the high end. Its so easy to get things to 100 now we need to look beyond that to where stuff really starts getting expensive.

    Examples of what I mean by this:

    Say enchanting just as a brainstorm - numbers negotiable
    Base enchanting:
    Level 100 = Yay, you're a GM. This already unlocks some things and allows training others.
    Level 110 = add +2 max dura on any successful enchant and reduce cost of failures by -2 dura.
    Level 120 = add +5 max dura on any succesful enchant and reduce cost of failures by -5 dura (supercedes previous, not additive)
    Level 130 = add +8 max dura on any successful enchant and reduce cost of failures by -8 dura (supercedes previous, not additive)
    Level 140 = adds +5 to all attunements to a piece of gear (one time only) on successful enchant
    Level 150 = adds +5 to all resistances to a piece of gear (one time only) on a successful enchant

    You could even call these effects things like
    The level 110-130 dura bonus could be "Enchanter's Resilience 1, 2, 3)
    Level 140 attunement bonus could be "Enchanter's Insight"
    Level 150 resist bonus could be "Enchanter's Elemental Bulwark"
    I dunno, I'm making this all up.

    Enchanting subskills (weapon/armor)
    Level 120 = adds 1 base damage or 1 base damage resist (one time only) to the item (weapon or armor)
    Level 130 = adds +2 to each of the 3 base stats (one time only)
    Level 140 = adds +5 to each of the 3 base stats ...and so on.

    What this means is, going to a high level enchanter who is significantly invested in it gives you better odds of a sturdier piece, less costly failures and at the higher end, bonus stats.
    There's loads of possibilities but this is an example of how skill could matter.

    Try blacksmithing:
    Level 100 - Yay you're a GM
    Level 110 - Created items have +5 dura or +10 on exceptional
    Level 120 - Created items have +10 durability or +20 on exceptional
    "Blacksmith's Resilience I, II, etc.)
    Level 130 - Created items now get +1 gem socket (so 2 on items that get them anyway, and 1 on items that normally dont)
    etc
    Base masterworking:
    Level 120 -
    Spec masterworking:
    Blades? Created items have faster attack speed or higher base crit/parry stats
    Shields/armor could get bonus resists or avoidance at the 130/140 threshold
    and so on

    The idea is that going to a level 140 crafter is going to create something notably better than a level 100 crafter,
    This combined with recyclability of sub-par/lower pieces starts to create a system that encourages time investment in your craft of choice

    You could even make all of the above ^ bonuses subject to the addition of another item to the recipe - and that item is the item only obtainable by smashing stuff.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2020
  15. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I LOVE this. One of the biggest sources of waste is the struggle to get Exceptional items in order to have enough durability. That was where most of my aforementioned beetles went- non exceptional gear that didn't have enough durability for me to use. If there is a system to either significantly increase (as in, not by just 3 or 4%) the number of exceptionals, or (even better) not need exceptionals to begin with, that's about 70% of my frustrations with the system gone.
     
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  16. kaeshiva

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    The idea being that a lower level crafter making exceptionals would still make viable pieces but a higher level crafter makes them better - as they should.
    Combined with recyclability you end up with an item lifecycle that will eliminate trash from the system.
    If something like this existed, its suddenly a lot more attractive for me to push ALL my enchanting to 150 instead of leaving it at 120 or 130 and using that exp to get every other crafting tree to 130. Instead, I'd seek out a 150 blacksmith or a 150 carpenter for their bonuses on the initial combines, and they'd seek me out for the powerenchanting.
    It gives a reason to really push progression to the 150 level and that's about as high as you can reasonably go with current experience rates.
    The beauty is as exp rates increase future expansions of the system could add more bonuses for higher tier, again encouraging(rather than arbitrarily forcing) specialization.

    And if someone really really really wants to grind enough experience to get absolutely everything to 150 to do it all themselves, they could. It would take an insane amount of time, but they could. You can't stop these people, they are insane. However, next crafting update moves the goalposts to 160. The specialist will get there a lot faster than the generalist, as they should.

    As someone who primarily enjoys the crafting playstyle, I hit a dead end about a year ago getting everything enchanting related to 140 (and carp/tailoring stuff to 130 ..Scoffer covers blacksmithing) and it was totally pointless to go any further. I could keep chopping down these trees and making these potions to get more producer exp but it was no longer meaningful. A tiered system such as this gives me intense motivation to log in and start chopping down trees and skinning animals again because it gives a sense of purpose.
     
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  17. Loaffer

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    ELROND,

    Loved you post, XP needs a huge buff, and I love the extraction SKill Idea. I mean if we can pull precision strings out of elven bows, why dont we have the same chance with a bow that is made with it. Just 1 example

    MAybe ATOS have some players Board to introduce ideas to their team
     
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  18. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    Couldnt have put it better myself ....hope Chris will work on the incentive to level part as well .
     
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  19. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    Yeah, I sorta wish the Alchemy tree had more alchemy to it, too. Instead of just being the place to drop the enchanting skills. Not sure how that could really happen in an MMO, since pots with unique stats based on skill would be a nightmare. Chris had mentioned making "Exceptional" versions of potions, so that when you got an exceptional it would actually be a better potion. Which is a start. If implemented, I hope that might be done across the board. It'd be another way to reduce waste, if exceptional components gave a bonus to the chance of crafting an exceptional item. Maybe if all components used are exceptional, it's even guaranteed.
     
  20. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

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    I'd like to see durability cost for crafting decrease as skill level increases. i.e. if all related skills for a enchant/masterwork are at 100, all actions that reduce durability would be at 75% of what they would be if those skills were at 50.

    This would make a 3x3 from a master more valuable than the exact same piece from a non-master just for the extra usage time a customer could get from it. A nice side effect would also be that a master would have a little more room to work an item before it becomes junk.
     
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