Author Topic: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?  (Read 21002 times)

Rex

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #25 on: July 09, 2008, 11:08:10 PM »
Quote
A stronger blacksmith won't necessarily make better goods than a weaker one though.

but right now the system makes it so a stronger smith is better. Buffs or not.

And that's a good thing, since now the guy that can swing a hammer all day, pump bellows, stand in the heat, haul material, and maybe after 15 hours of that, pause to drink a beer, Is going to start off with a better chance then a poindexter?

Must be a reason why the burly guys good with metal get into smithery, while the poindexters good with metal get into making jewlery, or doing the detail work.

Maybe gilding would be better served as a skill, by making it more independent of the physical stats.  After all, pounding an anvil is one thing, dealing with Acid washes and platings, that takes brains and dexterity.  Got the scars to prove both.  :D

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ethinos

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #26 on: July 10, 2008, 02:48:20 PM »
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A stronger blacksmith won't necessarily make better goods than a weaker one though.

but right now the system makes it so a stronger smith is better. Buffs or not.

But only in the beginning. Like natural talent, your stat modifiers only take you so far. Remember, a master smith has 40+ levels in smithing, so the bonus's from the two stats does little compared to experience at that point, which I think is quite reasonable.
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Rex

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #27 on: July 10, 2008, 07:14:56 PM »
Quote
A stronger blacksmith won't necessarily make better goods than a weaker one though.

but right now the system makes it so a stronger smith is better. Buffs or not.

But only in the beginning. Like natural talent, your stat modifiers only take you so far. Remember, a master smith has 40+ levels in smithing, so the bonus's from the two stats does little compared to experience at that point, which I think is quite reasonable.

Yeah but the Detractors want it EASY and they want it NOW.

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ethinos

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #28 on: July 10, 2008, 07:26:41 PM »
"Easy Buttons" are for Staples, not crafting. :lol:
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DM Shadowspawn

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #29 on: July 10, 2008, 07:40:59 PM »
DC for Steel Full Plate is 50. If you want to be a master smith you require 49 ranks not including stat buffs. This will take you many months OOC to achieve. Few are willing to put in the longterm effort to achieve being a master smith or fletecher/bowman.

ethinos

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #30 on: July 10, 2008, 07:51:14 PM »
DC for Steel Full Plate is 50. If you want to be a master smith you require 49 ranks not including stat buffs.

Don't forget about the d20, so you can actually hit full plate once you hit level 30. Granted, the chances aren't good but its possible. I consider someone a master crafter once they've hit 40, because even masters still have some room to grow.

Quote
This will take you many months OOC to achieve. Few are willing to put in the longterm effort to achieve being a master smith or fletecher/bowman.

And maybe few should make it to that kind of level. Being a master crafter is something to be proud of and not something that should be easily earned.
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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #31 on: July 10, 2008, 09:37:47 PM »
And maybe few should make it to that kind of level. Being a master crafter is something to be proud of and not something that should be easily earned.

That is exactly the reason the system is not setup to allow a person to powercraft to lvl 50 in smithing overnight. ;)

as for the 49, it will mean the crafter will never fail at crafting. 40 or 49 matters little. It's getting there that is the challenge.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #32 on: July 10, 2008, 09:42:43 PM »
So far the old crafters with all their levels are happy of the new system, aint that precious.

What about the  new crafters that CANT get a lvl, save off of failure?

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #33 on: July 10, 2008, 09:53:38 PM »
It was harder before than it is now to level in smithing. I'm sure the old crafters like Torgan and Dorin remember how much of a pain it was when you needed to make a bazillion weapons to get a single level, and that was a bazillion successes.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #34 on: July 10, 2008, 10:03:29 PM »
So far the old crafters with all their levels are happy of the new system, ain't that precious.

What about the  new crafters that CANT get a lvl, save off of failure?

Six months OOC time to get to lvl 40. The rest was gravy. Admittedly the char was a powercrafter to boot. failure meant lost resource and template with no cxp. New crafters lvl so incredibly fast in comparison that if it's hard to get started perhaps they are not meant to perform the craft. ;)

Recent changes in the market have change IC with undercutting of costs to make some coin. The old crafters set reasonable prices based upon the effort required to get to that point and recover the start up costs to become a smith/guilder.

To make one silver guilded axe having to get all of the materials will take a few hours OOC just to collect the materials. Not including risking your chars existence by having to head into the Wagner Silver Mines or into the deep recesses of Dverghiem to get coal and Iron. Add that you require an Handle and you've spent a ton of time.

http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=10547.msg120261#msg120261

When the Red Vardo believed the prices listed above were reasonable and worked within that framework of pricing you should know there is a reason. ;)

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #35 on: July 10, 2008, 10:10:06 PM »
It was harder before than it is now to level in smithing. I'm sure the old crafters like Torgan and Dorin remember how much of a pain it was when you needed to make a bazillion weapons to get a single level, and that was a bazillion successes.

Add Yoshinaka, Daev (and Karine) and a dwarf named Toli to the list. All became master crafters in the old system which was 10 times harder to level each lvl. Feel like making 500 daggers? There is your first level in smithing. Wash and repeat.

Crafting is a challenge specifically for the reason that if it wasn't then everyone would be doing it. Right now it seems Herbalism is to simple since everyone is a herbalist.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #36 on: July 10, 2008, 10:29:26 PM »
None of the above plays on a regular basic, i cant find anyone online at any hours to gild anything. That shows how right now the system is poor for new crafters. Everyone i've talked to told me they gave up since they cant get enough silver and dont feel like farming 60k to gain ONE level off failures.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #37 on: July 11, 2008, 01:59:52 AM »
Costs. Copper smithing sell at 1 fang per item to merchant to recover costs.
~500 Dagger templates @ 5 fang a piece. - 2500
2 lvls - 5000
~300 Shortword templates @ 7 fang a piece - 2100
2 lvls - 4200
~100 Chain Shirts - 25 a piece 2500
2 lvls - 5000
~80 Chain Mail - 30 a piece -2400
2 lvls - 4800
25 banded - 80 a piece 2000
2 lvls - 4000
10 lvls in smithing costing 23,000 all sunk costs since you still cannot make anything which a PC will pay for.

Bronze, repeat costs above.
Iron you can start to make some steel items with a DC of 25 to recover costs and sell to PC's.

By the time you can make most steel items you have sunk far more then the mystical 60k you are referring to. It's closer to 150k. If you turn around and sell an item which costs 350 fang to make at 700 when it costs 60k - 150k in start up costs how long will it take to recover your costs?

Think in terms of business and start pricing goods according to supply and demand. Since no supply demand is high. Ask for 5k for a silver guilded longsword. Someone will pay it if the demand is great enough. If supply is to readily available many selling and cutting costs to underbid others just to make a sale at 700 fang I'm far from surprised the guilder gave up and closed shop. The market forces were at work. One less crafter prices can go up.

From what I see, the cost is of start up is far from the issue. It's the expectation of the market set by some middlemen merchants whom are not following the rules of business. Recover your start up costs, price to manufacture, time, effort and cost of skill to make and set a price higher and if need be offer a slight discount if someone is hedging. If anything the prices listed in the post from Dorin are to low given the benefit of steel and silver guilded steel weapons.

The reason the lady in blue was created is b/c their were crafters  whom could not get ahead because the master crafters cornered the market. Now the master crafters are no longer around and start up costs are to great when in comparison to smithing they are roughly equal. The master crafters had reasonable costs set and agreed to so that supply and demand would work reasonably well. IMHO if anything with the prices they charged, they were to low.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #38 on: July 11, 2008, 04:25:22 AM »
I'm sorry, but this thread was meant for gilding only, I didn't really want to get into the nitty gritty of the -entire- smithing system. The purpose of this thread was to indicate that, currently, guilding difficulty is (In my opinion) out of sync with the other crafting systems.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #39 on: July 11, 2008, 06:02:59 AM »
    The thing is we Vardo took the pricing of the old Master Crafters you are pointing to, specially Dorin, who is the one who you linked to. I know this is because originally I am the one who made our prices as I didn't want to undercut the other crafters

     And yes I know I have had it easy compared to most crafters being a lvl 15 War cleric with more ability buffs than most have access to. The fact is the buffs are only good to tip the balance in your favour, at my current level it was only usefull to guarantee finishing a Full Plate so as not to lose a template, and to guarantee gilding.

What really helped was the fact Escher had a 6 digit bank account to help me get started

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #40 on: July 11, 2008, 08:26:38 AM »
...man this is like arguing with a wall. The price i charge people for thing isnt the problem, the problem is that it makes no sens to gain experience off of XYZ amount of failure. Without someone online to DO the gilding that already can, NOBODY new is learning it because it makes no sense to do so.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #41 on: July 11, 2008, 11:36:36 AM »
...man this is like arguing with a wall. The price i charge people for thing isnt the problem, the problem is that it makes no sens to gain experience off of XYZ amount of failure. Without someone online to DO the gilding that already can, NOBODY new is learning it because it makes no sense to do so.
Then the reward in selling goods to others is not seen as worth it. Guilding for any item is a straight 20 DC. Dagger, Two Handed Sword, Great Axe, Mace. Makes no difference. The system IMHO is set up to show the challenge it takes to get started. After a character has his first success he's laughing all the way to the bank. 60k will mean nothing if he's charging a reasonable price for the item. But if the middleman is pricing the goods at such a ridiculously low price so as to make the investment unworthy of time. 60k selling 24 items at 2500 is a quick return on investment. 60k selling 85 items at 700 a piece is a fools task given the number of players on the server. So, I ask once the initial investment is completed and they can mint money, should the start up costs be lower?
I think not.

I'm sorry, but this thread was meant for gilding only, I didn't really want to get into the nitty gritty of the -entire- smithing system. The purpose of this thread was to indicate that, currently, guilding difficulty is (In my opinion) out of sync with the other crafting systems.
Smithing and guilding are closely linked. Since a guilder cannot do so unless they have 30 ranks in smithing. It IMHO is not out of sink given the smithing system to master is 2.5 times the levels. There is significantly more challenge to start in guilding but once you do level it becomes humorously easier to lvl up and you can laugh all the way to the bank.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #42 on: July 11, 2008, 12:50:00 PM »
Okay, let's look at it another way.  Here are a bunch of different factors that go into a smith making his/her first silver-gilded steel weapon:
availability of iron ore
availability of silver ore
stats
gilding roll
time and opportunity cost

That's quite a lot right there that has to work in balance.  Two months ago the way things worked was such that a new gilder stood a decent chance of doing well in the craft if he or she had already put in the time to become a smith.  It still wasn't attractive enough that everyone and his brother became a gilder, though.  The problem is, the rapid changes that have been made in the past two months have each had a negative impact on gilding.  The change in encumbrance (even the revised version) has effectively reduced the amount of iron and silver ore available, since it has reduced the amount that a smith can haul back to the nearest forge.   Removing the effect from stat buffs effectively drops every prospective gilder's abilities by two points or so.  The addition of the -5 penalty effectively raises the DC of the gilding roll out of the "I can just get lucky" range.  Each of these things is a great idea (or not, depending on who you ask) on its own, but they have a cumulative effect.  Especially on an apex craft like gilding, which requires two additional crafting skills plus an agonizingly slow resource haul even to attempt -- in that case it's more like multiplicative.  (The three other factors I could think of, availability of coal, cost of weapon pattern, and cost of mercury haven't changed that I'm aware of.)

And ultimately it comes down to time.  Each of these changes has made smelting take longer to master.  When smelting takes longer to master, smithing takes longer still.  When smithing takes longer, then so does gilding.  The gold cost isn't (in my mind) the main complaint.  It's just the odometer that tells you how much time you're spending.  It also sends up a flare about the opportunity cost, since each coin you flush down the gilding basin is 1) one that you could've spent elsewhere, 2) one that you could be out re-earning through a dungeon run or three, and 3) a reminder that while you're working on the craft you probably aren't getting much RP in.  Mastering a craft is a major sacrifice of scarce free time.

Frankly, I don't think silver gilding should be cheaper or easier than it was.  It would be silly if it were possible to flood the market with enough silver-gilded daggers new characters could consistently buy one along with their worn winter cloak from Petre.  But it's also silly to act as if these changes had no major negative effects.  What had been a craft that was very challenging to become good at has now become a craft that is absurdly uneconomical and impractical to get into at all.  A functional PC-driven economy requires competition, not virtual market protection for the few who've already mastered the craft.

That's why upthread I suggested having some gilding variations.  My favorite example is copper onto iron, to create a light-weight version of the standard copper weapon.  Not something game-changing by any stretch, but an interesting practice item.  Right now gilding is (almost*) the only craft that doesn't require you to grind through RL days of making useless items before you even stand a chance of making the good stuff.  Irritating as that process is, it's the model the other crafts are built on to make you earn your crafting levels.  Gilding doesn't give that opportunity at all, and it suffers for it.

* Herbalism on the other hand gives you useful stuff right away, and is overall almost too easy.  I still maintain that the DCs of all the recipes except the cure n wounds potions should be 5 higher, considering how powerful they are.  But that's a topic for another thread.

Edited:  Me fail English?  That's unpossible.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2008, 04:36:26 PM by KoopaFanatic »

ethinos

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #43 on: July 11, 2008, 07:16:09 PM »
None of the above plays on a regular basic, i cant find anyone online at any hours to gild anything. That shows how right now the system is poor for new crafters. Everyone i've talked to told me they gave up since they cant get enough silver and dont feel like farming 60k to gain ONE level off failures.

I've been a bit absent in game recently, I do admit, but if you need something crafted/gilded, send me a PM and I'll try and meet up in game to handle your (or any others) requests.


As far as smelting taking longer, because of the new encumberance rules, smelting always leveled far faster than smithing anyways... And don't forget to hire some PC pack mules. Those big burly guys can be useful in more ways than just swinging a heavy instrument of carnage.
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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #44 on: July 11, 2008, 07:36:11 PM »
None of the above plays on a regular basic, i cant find anyone online at any hours to gild anything. That shows how right now the system is poor for new crafters. Everyone i've talked to told me they gave up since they cant get enough silver and dont feel like farming 60k to gain ONE level off failures.

I've been a bit absent in game recently, I do admit, but if you need something crafted/gilded, send me a PM and I'll try and meet up in game to handle your (or any others) requests.


As far as smelting taking longer, because of the new encumberance rules, smelting always leveled far faster than smithing anyways... And don't forget to hire some PC pack mules. Those big burly guys can be useful in more ways than just swinging a heavy instrument of carnage.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #45 on: July 13, 2008, 09:19:33 PM »
the dc and the silver is mainly the problem costs can be compensated in more ways then 1.   

as for iron you need to be lvl 7 to go into the mines (mostly)  and a higher lvl if you want to beat certain spawns, means your a higher lvl higher lvls can pack more stuff and go on loot trips now and then, thats one way to compensate beside selling.


but yes the dc could be lowered for gilding or take the -5 out for it.   makes no sense to simply make a char with stats so he can just gild
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ethinos

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #46 on: July 13, 2008, 09:28:25 PM »
Right now, gilding is DC 20 for everything. Maybe if instead it was changed to DC 15, plus the weapon modifier, similar to how smithing works, it may be easier to at least start gilding.

Still, gilding should never be easy, and maybe you should have to make a character with certain stats to be a gilder. After all, some classes require the same thing, so why not.
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Rex

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #47 on: July 13, 2008, 09:30:51 PM »
IS it really that needed.  Seriously all it gives you is a +1 vs shape shifters.  Once enchanting kicks in, I see guilding vanishing from the interests of most of the gilders.

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #48 on: July 13, 2008, 09:33:43 PM »
Hard to say. Given how challenging Silver gilding is, will enchanting be harder? Only Soren knows.

Rex

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Re: Gilding, could we please look at a revamp of this system?
« Reply #49 on: July 13, 2008, 09:35:45 PM »
Hard to say. Given how challenging Silver gilding is, will enchanting be harder? Only Soren knows.

I have nightmares of Enchanting being as easy as Herbalisim, and a server over run with elemental damage having weaponry in about a week.

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