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Producer XP since R27

Discussion in 'Release 27 Feedback Forum' started by kateonline1, Mar 9, 2016.

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  1. kateonline1

    kateonline1 Avatar

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    I play SOTA since R16 and main goal in the game is to be a crafter but I also want to play the storyline. I played the game with great enthusiasm … until today …

    Before R27 I have had the feeling that producer xp is overrated - I produced good cloth and leather armor and had always more than 600k xp to spend whereas I could sell good armor and be also equipped for a good fight at the same time.

    Since R27 this has changed dramatically in the opposite direction …

    - I do not gain any producer xp on refining (e.g. smelting, tanning,…) or salvaging

    - producing something like gems, armor … costs a lot of xp even on failure

    - the only way to gain producer xp seems to be gathering - but only on success

    … and there is the big issue for me:

    - gathering in high levels (e.g. mysterious swamp - skull 5) gives me 500 xp … ONLY ON SUCCESS (failure gives zero) but as my gathering skills on Field Dressing/Foraging are around 50, I have a gathering chance of 37 - 41% … and while trying to gather the 3rd time the newly spawned enemy attacks
    - gathering in lower levels (e.g. kings road - skull 2 / north valley - skull 1) gives me 200 xp … also on success, but as my gathering skills are high enough its 100%

    The conclusion for me is, when I want to be a good crafter, I have to hang around the boring 1st lvl areas, where I don’t have the chance to get rare materials like suet, beetle carapace, tin, nickel,…
    or I just have to decide whether I want to gather rare materials or just the basic ones.
    It also brings up the question why it should be interesting to explore new areas?

    My previous experience showed that I need also higher adventuring skills, when I want to follow the storyline (e.g. Necropolis) … but now it seems as I have to decide to follow a fourth path … the one of production ;-)

    It would be nice if I could do both, the story and being a crafter as well.

    As in the previous releases I saw always a goal … I’m now at a status that the game is no longer interesting for me. I don’t want to do 1st lvl areas 100times more just that I can produce anything to sell …

    I experienced this where all my skills where set to maintain at the following levels:

    Adventurer Level: 53
    Producer Level: 50

    Gathering:
    • Field Dressing: 51
    • Foraging: 53
    • Mining: 78

    Refining:
    • Smelting: 53
    • Tanning: 81
    • Textiles: 32
    Production:
    • Blacksmithing: 62
    • Tailoring: 41
    • Alchemy: 52
     
  2. agra

    agra Avatar

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    I don't understand where they're taking crafting either. It's.. very confusing, to me. If it's confusing and depressing to players that have been around for the past 10+ releases, it's not going be better and more positive for new players after July 28th, 2016. :(
     
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  3. Black Tortoise

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    Gotta mostly disagree, I love the changes to gathering and crafting so far, though I understand its very far from complete. Its had some major improvements. I liked having nearly unlimited crafting exp pool in the past, and understood even then that this was the result of imbalance due to incompleteness.

    I dont feel the exp gains should only come from gathering, and I do agree that salvaging and repairing should produce some exp (or something that doesnt force crafters to be producers and adventurers and vice versa).
     
  4. StrangerDiamond

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    So you mostly agree :p
     
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  5. Shield

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    I've only played in R26 and R27.

    The Producer XP system as it exists forces every crafter to go out and gather their materials. This will have a significant hit on the economy as the demand for raw materials is going to be far less.


    Also, the more XP you have in your pool the more XP is applied to skills. So as you do more gathering to increase your pooled XP the faster you will learn your crafting skills and the less materials you will use leveling crafting.

    The whole system just pushes you into doing excessive amounts of gathering. It's not fun, it's not stick and carrot, it just feels dull and punishing.



    edit : And meticulous collection is just annoying. It gives no extra XP over collecting a single resource. It's just more resource I don't need which makes me wait multiple times longer for the same XP. I won't be prioritizing this going forward, to say the least. Sucks that the Tools of Prosperity now add +3% to Meticulous Collection instead of the useful collect skill it used to give a bonus to.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2016
  6. Tiina Onir

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    @kateonline1 : you've got a few misconceptions here. you do get experience, but it's not enough to cover the conversion to skill experience, so it APPEARS "lose experience," when in reality it's just that it's getting used to raise your skill level. If you don't want this to happen, you can disable training on that skill by going to the skills menu, and clicking the little green arrow until it turns orange-brown. While in maintaining you can build up the pool, even in high-level areas.

    That said, as @Magosa points out, the experience growth from pure crafting needs addressed to make this viable. If for no other reason then to make sure we can have an economy at all.

    Where you kinda go off the rails, @Magosa, is that anti-meticulous collection comment. If you aren't trying to level, and just need the resources to sell or craft, getting more from a single node is very nice. The only reason it's not useful is because of the problems with comparatively emaciated experience from refining and crafting.
     
  7. Black Tortoise

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    No, I totally disagree with the "emotionall terrorism" that many forum users attempt to inflict on the masses, mainly the Port devs. Like many topics in this forum, its just charged with emotional baggage and threats to the tune of "me no likey!!!" rather than having any real substance. So I would always like to distance myself from such things first before finding the points at which I concur.

    Also the blatant speculation in may threads, such as this, always generate mass eye rolls on my behalf. "Since I dont like clicking this button / fighting this mob / going to this zone, the economy will crumble! Everyone will hate this game! Social media will tear it apart." That sort of thing... kind of makes me think I am watching pres debates on here sometimes :p

    BTW I just found a totally clutch way to collect Ectoplasmic Residue therefore the economy will crumble and no one will craft ever!!!111one

    Interesting, I love the change to the prosperity tools, and love Meticulous Collection even more. When its high level, and you gather a lower-level resource, you get a ton of return. Ive chopped a single pine tree and got like 8 wood from it before (though thats not too common, more like 3-4 per resource).

    You can always just not use Meticulous Collection, or downlevel it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2016
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  8. StrangerDiamond

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    Hehe you should know better, you've been around a while haven't you ? Devs have also gained Gm in that skill I'm pretty sure, discernment I think is the name.

    A proper formulation of your wish to distance yourself shouldn't include negatives, because we know alot of players well, expected a Lord British game and to most of them that means UO before EA turned it into a nuclear mutant.

    A hybrid of two mutants dosen't usually create a balanced being, thats a given :p
     
  9. Black Tortoise

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    I once more disagree, and find this game to be very Lord Britishy. I dont think this game carries any characteristic of a big brand production like EA-nuclear-mutants. I think for most of these views, its not exactly what each person was expecting, therefore they take a polar opposite or otherwise extremist stance against it.

    Now Tabula Rasa on the other hand... :p

    ...actually, after dropping that comment, I gotta be fair - the corporate mongerers ruined that game, seems like another usurpation of LB's intentions.

    SORRY BACK ON TOPIC - yeah ehrm uhm so yeah producer XP... its a work in progress.
     
  10. Black Tortoise

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    ...and now that I spent an afternoon Tanning, I am out of EXP (well, almost). I had between 7-8 full bars of pooled crafting exp, and it drained down to none surprisingly fast, and only one skill is training (Tanning). This was way faster than having many passive/innate combat skills training simultaneously.

    Its similar to combat skills now. You have to turn off/on some skills so you dont drain it all too fast. It requires some management. I do think the exp drains way too fast, though. So I had to turn off training Tanning as I want some exp left over for Textiles and Tailoring.

    Since my character roleplays a "woodsman" (not exactly a ranger, but a "nature person"), its fine that I have to gather resources to craft. My character's personality is "radically self reliant" and mostly gathers his own crafting materials. However, this is a big limitation right now for anyone playing a different character. The game most certainly needs to support pure blacksmiths, pure tailorers; the pure civillian, non-adventuring, non-combative type crafter. If I had unlimited time and IRL resources, Id roleplay one of those type characters too. So with R27, not only is everyone forced to adventure/combat to get into crafting, but you have to do quite a lot of combat and adventuring to get enough exp to devote to crafting. It limits roleplay possibilities, let alone play style preferences.

    + repairing should provide some crafting exp (its ok if gathering provides more exp, but repairing should provide enough exp)
    + salvaging should provide some crafting exp (ditto to above)
    + less pooled crafting exp should be consumed when using the refining/production skills (except, perhaps, when achieving mastery - but up to like level 70-80, it should drain slower)

    Ultimately, players should be able to choose to roleplay/play-style a pure Producer, a pure Refiner, a pure Gatherer, or any combination thereof. Im sure this will be fine tuned in future releases, and Im sure they wont leave it in this current state for the final wipe.
     
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  11. Jefe

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    So be aware that I have shut off experience gain for refining and production and gained 0 producer XP for successes on refining a product or producing a finished good.

    I assume that is a bug that has just not gotten addressed yet. There is a bug report already on the R27 forum regarding this.

    Granted the dev team may just be holding off on adjustments until after the wipe, but this appears to be having a detrimental effect on the morale of some people who appear to be in this for the 2nd and 3rd order crafting. I.E. negating what they want their way of life to be.
     
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  12. StrangerDiamond

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    You say you disagree stratigos, but again you mostly agree... thats exactly what I'm talking about.

    Perhaps I met a different Lord British in a different dimention*meh*, that gave me the impression *back on topic* that he was a gentleman and very conscious person that knows that people like the freedom to be what they are, for real, without the overarching artificial modern MMO rules.

    It really pains me that people don't get why I have this opinion and admiration.
     
  13. Daxxe Diggler

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    The refining / producer xp issue is a serious one that needs to be fixed ASAP. That is definitely causing a problem with people who want to just be a crafter (or mostly be a crafter) and don't like to adventure or gather.

    However, I look at it from a different perspective in that I like to gather my own materials. In order for anyone to make stuff, you need materials. So I plan to be an extremely efficient one. This way, if I want anything crafted (or want to craft it myself) I don't have to rely on others to get it for me. I just go out and get it lickity split. The "economy" doesn't have as big an impact on a person who gather's their own resources, because they don't rely on buying it from others.

    So, since gathering is the only way to gain producer xp at the moment, I accumulated quite a lot of it since the last wipe and will continue to do so. When I want to refine or produce stuff, even during R27, I always have some producer xp built up to skill up those skills. I admit, it has been dropping much faster as of late. But I'm at a point where I can just spend a few hours gathering to build it back up enough to level up producer skills again.

    Yes, gathering can be boring and repetitive, and slow early on, but it's also profitable once you invest the time to train up the skills... both in gaining xp and in gaining materials that have value. The key is to learn how to become as efficient as possible, as fast as possible. Once you get your gathering skills high enough to be successful (and fast) on almost every attempt, you can set them to "maintain". At that point, gathering becomes even more profitable as you gain 100% of the producer xp to build up your pool to spend on other crafting skills.

    My advice for a new player starting to gather:
    • Start in a low-level area and gather until your "Proficiency" skill hits 10.
    • Go and purchase the "Swift Gathering" first, and if you have enough gold, get "Survey" too.
    • Go back to the same area and manage your new skills: Leave the Proficiency on (until your % chance is 100), turn on Survey (until you get it to 10... then set it to "not training"), and turn on Swift Gathering (leave this one training until you GM it, or until you are happy with the gathering time).
    • Once you have 100% success chance (regardless of proficiency skill) turn off everything except Swift Gathering. Continue to gather and watch this skill quickly climb to an acceptable gathering speed. Faster gathering speed = faster skill ups (whether it's a success or not, you still gain skill).
    • Once you get your speed so that it's almost an instant collection, you are ready for a higher area.
    • But, first, you want to see a trainer and purchase the "Meticulous Collection" skill.
    • Find a higher level area and manage your skill again: Leave survey off, leave the new Meticulous skill off too (for now), leave Swift Gathering on (you will be slower again now so you need to raise this more), and turn Proficiency back on too (your % chance will have dropped in the higher area too).
    • So you are now working on raising Proficiency and Swift only... and raising them until you get 100% chance and acceptable speed.
    • At this point, you can either turn off everything except meticulous (and raise that to about 50 or so)... or, you can go find a higher level area again to rinse/repeat the process. Alternatively, you could stay there, keep Proficiency and Swift on and raise them at a faster rate than if you went to find a higher level area. Then, when you do go to a higher area, you are ahead of the curve there. The latter is what I usually do. ;)
    The key is to always skill up as high as you can on the faster/easier nodes so that your skills increase faster. At some point, the lower level areas seem to not level you up as fast. This is usually a good sign to move on to a harder spot where each node gives more xp per attempt/success.

    Your goal is to get to a point where you can "farm" a harder level area where the nodes are in abundance and in close proximity so you can quickly gather a lot of materials in a short period of time. This can be difficult with some professions (like foraging for instance) but for mining, forestry, and field dressing, there are some very good areas like this to be found.

    One final note: Most gathering skills will continue to build up your producer xp pool until you raise them to 75. At that point on, raising that skill will cost you more than you earn from the attempt/success. Before 75, you should see your pool increasing as you gather unless you have a lot of them turned on at the same time. So, if you see your producer xp pool dropping, you will need to consider which skills you want to turn off training to build it back up again.
     
  14. Bluefire

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    I think they want crafting to be only for those who love extreme punishment as a game play mechanic.
     
  15. Roycestein Kaelstrom

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    "50 shades of the Avatars"
     
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  16. Draedloth

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    Hello, first board post. I feel pretty strongly about crafting though, so I thought it was time to stop lurking.

    Why should gathering and production crafting be connected at all though?

    It seems uncommon for cooks to farm or raise livestock. It seems uncommon for blacksmiths to mine ore. Etc., etc.

    I think in the crafting there would be a split between a cottage crafter, doing the gathering and producing, and a, let's say, industrialist who is focused on procuring through a bill of sale for the sole purpose of production. The game doesn't seem to want you to sit home and craft. My guess is to curb having a crafting kindred alt at home who never ventures out of the house. I think this would be much more hurtful to the economy in the long run that to make resources less expensive.

    How to balance this though for a crafter without forcing them to have to go out to be able to get anything done? That is where the answers needs to focus I think. If you want to sit home and make stuff all day and never go adventuring or gathering, then this should be an option right? What if crafting had a glyph called something like "<crafting skill> practice" (Turn on/set to train to go into practice mode and off/set not to train to exit it)? It allows crafting to be done to generate xp for the pool, consumes resources, uses known recipes, but does not produce a usable final product (maybe a small resource refund on failure, but no xp)? It effectively creates a time and resource funnel for a crafter to use that allows for a split between crafting for profit and crafting for xp, without forcing them to leave wherever they are if they do not want to. When you are done "practicing" then you can make create actual items again and consume that pool.

    The advantages here allow for wealthy main characters to create an alt for crafting and spend money into the community through buying resources for the alt to use to gain and grow. It also taxes that as a money sink since you are turning the money into xp and not an actual item. Success or failure would be treated like the same as gathering currently is. Higher difficulty crafting and against your skill level. This still leaves a niche for gatherers and opens up the possibility for bulk orders of materials to be needed as well. It also still allows for a time-sink for the crafter that equates nicely to the gathering or combat time-sinks seen elsewhere.

    Just spit balling, but I fall into the category of loving crafting, but not wanting to be forced out to do it. If I can find a way to buy resources, make something, and build a character like that, then why not?

    Thanks.
     
  17. Free Moonshadow

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    My own two penneth .. gathering, refining and crafting need to be balanced. At present with only gathering providing producer XP at all its not. With all skills turned off crafting newly discovered items gives no producer xp gain at all in either refining or crafting.

    I'd also like to point out this quote from RG from the Crafting Hangout of the Avartar in 2013

    "
    GD: Ok, last question comes from King Krispy and he wants to know: "Are you planning on making crafting and vendoring economically self sufficient to make it a standalone style of play for some people?"

    RG: Absolutely! In fact, very good point, thank you for asking that King Krispy. Yes, we hope very sincerely .. we'll balance it until that statement is true. I think it's one of the things that I was so happy about with Ultima Online and one of the things that I know Starr Long's efforts here on this team will help ensure is to make sure there are lifestyles beyond adventuring which are complete and interconnected. They're interconnected with Adventurers, they're interconnected with the other activities of a village, that will make Shroud of the Avatar a living and breathing world, a fully realized world with all of your help. In any case, thank you so much, thank you Gina, thank you Scott, and thank you our wonderful community. As we get these recipes up online, and we get more of it out to you, once we give you the basics, of what ingredients are around, I look forward to hearing more feedback from you not only about the base system but how we could enhance it to better serve your desires and your needs, so thank you and goodbye from me, I'll pass it over to Scott and Gina you can get the last word."

    Cheers

    Free Moonshadow
     
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