Author Topic: Faster Crafting  (Read 4854 times)

Khornite

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Faster Crafting
« on: December 18, 2019, 04:43:41 PM »
So as not to bog down another thread, I figured to just make this one to discuss this topic.

One of the lesser enjoyable parts of the crafting system is just how long it takes you at a crafting station. Crafts like Herbalism and parts of Alchemy can make items in bulk. You just throw all the herbs or monster bits in the pot and brew. But pretty much everything else is done on a one-by-one basis for the sake of realism and some times it doesn't make as much sense. Alchemy for example, turning each essence into a varnish is done on a one-by-one basis when you could just as easily pour all the essence into a pot with all the resin and just scoop it into the containers.

While it's not exactly as realistic as it could be, setting other crafts like woodworking, leather working, or smithing to make items in bulk would get players out of the crafting hall and back to roleplay a lot faster. We're already waving away the amount of time a lot of these crafts take as is for the sake of enjoyment. It can take weeks to construct a suit of fullplate as opposed to the time it takes in game. And while each individual item takes seconds to craft, when people are leveling their skill and doing cram sessions where they're making 100s of items in one sitting just to turn around and go make hundreds more, it can take all day.

Would it perhaps be possible to make it so that you make maybe 2 or 3 items per craft instead of the one-by-one basis and to allow for bulk crafting for things like making varnishes?

In general, what other ideas can be offered to streamline/improve crafting but not make it easier to level? The challenge is generally about where it should be, but it would be nice to remove some of the needless steps like with gilding. You have to buy both mercury and acid when it could easily just be one item called "gilding substances" or something.
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SardineTheAncestor

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2019, 04:59:17 PM »
Much agreement from me.

As far as the other streamlining on the side of items: stackable reagents? I understand why herb pouches, bundles of wood, etc. exist (and do not particularly mind them that much), so not stackable herbs, horns, ore... but potion bottles, mercury, acid, those alchemist beaker things, all of that stuff you fill your inventory with, if those were stackable, that would be really nice.

I am assuming some kind of bug might occur that's stopping that -- maybe someone puts in 1 "minor" reagent, and 19 "major" reagents, and it just turns them all into "minor" final products... stuff like that, I can understand if that'll hold us back, but just a thought.
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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2019, 05:32:03 PM »
Please, this. There is no need to slog down the craft more than it is necessary while you could be RP'ing elsewhere.
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Legion XXI

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2019, 05:42:15 PM »
Another suggestion - Roll in the parallel crafts like hide curing and smelting into the main craft that actually yeilds items and make the xp all lend toward the same progression. 

Anything to make this faster gets a yes from me.  I'd also suggest a straight up 2x or more progression rate for things like Smithing and Leatherworking.  It's just tortuously slow with very little use until you reach endgame stuff.  They also require you to grind up parallel crafts that don't even yield anything usable.

I started playing back here in 2012.  Many times during that period I have tried to take up some of the crafts that would allow me to make gear, so I could supply it for groups like the underworld, or a radical druid circle, or a bounty hunting team.  People that are largely not regarded as super cool guys by the general public (and master crafters who tend to play generally friendly, middle of the road PCs), therefore making it harder to actually go out to the local crafter walmart in the mist camp and put in an order for the things we needed.  Every single time, I just give up before I make it anywhere close to where I could make the gear that's worth a crap because the grind is SO unfun and long that I was missing out on large chunks of time that I could spend RPing to just try and blow through the "hard part" (read:95%) of the craft.

It's frustrating that starter and middling crafted gear is often WORSE than default store bought gear that you enter the game world with in some cases.  As it stands, everyone is at the mercy of the very small percentage of players who have the iron will required to squeeze a single drop of fun out of this crafting system.  If only a small percentage of players are able to sink the time in required to master a craft, I'd say that's probably a good indicator that progression is too slow.

A good way to make the craft more challenging and less about spamming seven thousand daggers is to make gathering special components for endgame tier stuff become the "challenge".  Like how you need to kill an ancient dire croc for its hide, and they are only in certain places/too hard to a low level to accomplish.  Put rare reagents at the top of a mountain or somewhere remote.  Make the best stuff require a hunt that you can round up friends and go do, rather than something you attain through long nights of forsaking RP to submit to the great grind.  Then make the grind itself progress faster so that people get to a level that's worth it quicker without flooding the market.  I just want stuff that my character can do with other characters.  I don't like how the current system rewards mindlessly slaughtering a thousand woodland creatures to then click a basin 600 times to go from level 2 to 3.  No part of that is challenging or mentally engaging, and there's no return on your time investment until you reach a VERY large amount of hours.  Like it was said in the other thread - it's like leveling from 2-19 and getting no abilities, just to get them all once you hit 20.

APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2019, 07:13:02 PM »
+1

One further point:

On a server that actively encourages players to embrace closure on characters when their story reaches a natural conclusion, having crafting be an unfun chore contributes to the phenomenon of players not wanting to let go.  Giving up a character that represents a year of telling stories is one thing; giving up a character that represents 40 - 80 hours of hard boring grind is another.

As to potential solutions:

The current crafting system does little to encourage PotM's core values in general; only herbalism does much, because there's a market on both "ends" (i.e. herbalists buy herbs and sell potions).  Markets are good, because they encourage RP.  For other crafts, there's usually only a market for the end products (and, as Legion points out, usually only the high craft level end products).

In theory, PCs could hire other PCs to go do mining or whatever -- this does happen, but it's rare, because:

a) The opportunity cost of being a miner is actually fairly high -- in other words, I could probably be making more money dungeoning or doing something else rather than go mine.

b) This is because the smith PC can't usually afford to pay miner PCs well enough, because most smithing is done at a loss anyway.

c) While storage has gotten easier for some crafts, this is not true of all crafts.


To create more markets and drive more RP, you need to solve problem (a); but to solve problem (a), you need to address problem (b) and (c) more comprehensively by making it easier to make money off crafts even when they're not producing top level gear.

I'm aware that there are some places (e.g. the Vallaki warehouse) that do pay crafters for some crafted goods. (IIRC you can sell barrels, armor, bags, etc.) I think the dev team should re-evaluate and expand the rewards that such places give out: I'll wager they were usually designed with the view that the crafter would also be the one doing the resource-collecting (e.g. wood chopping, mining, deer-killing) and thus the rewards are quite low.

If such rewards are boosted so that my smith or carpenter can use the gold earned to hire other PCs to mine/chop wood at a reasonable wage, then this may well address several of the complaints.



One final observation:

I think in the past, the high cost of crafting has been defended on the grounds that it is a necessary gold sink, on a server where rich PCs will have millions of gold coins and inflation is a real problem.

This makes sense for top grade gear (adamantium or gilded weapons, exotic leather or wood, demon/devil horns, etc.), and I agree that inflation is a problem.  But it is negative to make low craft levels pay for this issue.

So if a concern with making low level crafting pay more is that crafting ceases to be an effective gold sink, then I think it would be better to make high level crafting cost more to balance it out, rather than continue with the current climate where smithing won't pay out until you reach steel full plate lined with exotic leathers or silver-gilded steel.
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BraveSirRobin

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2019, 08:54:47 PM »
+1 all around. Investments like this make people want to cling on for longer, especially given it is nothing but blood, sweat and sacrifice.

PrimetheGrime

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2019, 08:55:01 PM »
+1

One further point:

On a server that actively encourages players to embrace closure on characters when their story reaches a natural conclusion, having crafting be an unfun chore contributes to the phenomenon of players not wanting to let go.  Giving up a character that represents a year of telling stories is one thing; giving up a character that represents 40 - 80 hours of hard boring grind is another.

As to potential solutions:

The current crafting system does little to encourage PotM's core values in general; only herbalism does much, because there's a market on both "ends" (i.e. herbalists buy herbs and sell potions).  Markets are good, because they encourage RP.  For other crafts, there's usually only a market for the end products (and, as Legion points out, usually only the high craft level end products).

In theory, PCs could hire other PCs to go do mining or whatever -- this does happen, but it's rare, because:

a) The opportunity cost of being a miner is actually fairly high -- in other words, I could probably be making more money dungeoning or doing something else rather than go mine.

b) This is because the smith PC can't usually afford to pay miner PCs well enough, because most smithing is done at a loss anyway.

c) While storage has gotten easier for some crafts, this is not true of all crafts.


To create more markets and drive more RP, you need to solve problem (a); but to solve problem (a), you need to address problem (b) and (c) more comprehensively by making it easier to make money off crafts even when they're not producing top level gear.

I'm aware that there are some places (e.g. the Vallaki warehouse) that do pay crafters for some crafted goods. (IIRC you can sell barrels, armor, bags, etc.) I think the dev team should re-evaluate and expand the rewards that such places give out: I'll wager they were usually designed with the view that the crafter would also be the one doing the resource-collecting (e.g. wood chopping, mining, deer-killing) and thus the rewards are quite low.

If such rewards are boosted so that my smith or carpenter can use the gold earned to hire other PCs to mine/chop wood at a reasonable wage, then this may well address several of the complaints.



One final observation:

I think in the past, the high cost of crafting has been defended on the grounds that it is a necessary gold sink, on a server where rich PCs will have millions of gold coins and inflation is a real problem.

This makes sense for top grade gear (adamantium or gilded weapons, exotic leather or wood, demon/devil horns, etc.), and I agree that inflation is a problem.  But it is negative to make low craft levels pay for this issue.

So if a concern with making low level crafting pay more is that crafting ceases to be an effective gold sink, then I think it would be better to make high level crafting cost more to balance it out, rather than continue with the current climate where smithing won't pay out until you reach steel full plate lined with exotic leathers or silver-gilded steel.

+1 to this and all the above

herkles

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2019, 07:01:40 PM »
Please allow us to smelt more than one ore at a time. When you have a page of ore it becomes rather tedious to go through it.


Arawn

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2019, 07:06:12 PM »
Please allow us to smelt more than one ore at a time. When you have a page of ore it becomes rather tedious to go through it.

Uh... it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure you can.
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herkles

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2019, 07:11:24 PM »
Please allow us to smelt more than one ore at a time. When you have a page of ore it becomes rather tedious to go through it.

Uh... it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure you can.

Oh. don't mind me. I swear you couldn't and just tested it and you can :P I thought you had to do it 1 by 1


APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2019, 01:56:09 PM »
One final observation:

I think in the past, the high cost of crafting has been defended on the grounds that it is a necessary gold sink, on a server where rich PCs will have millions of gold coins and inflation is a real problem.

This makes sense for top grade gear (adamantium or gilded weapons, exotic leather or wood, demon/devil horns, etc.), and I agree that inflation is a problem.  But it is negative to make low craft levels pay for this issue.

So if a concern with making low level crafting pay more is that crafting ceases to be an effective gold sink, then I think it would be better to make high level crafting cost more to balance it out, rather than continue with the current climate where smithing won't pay out until you reach steel full plate lined with exotic leathers or silver-gilded steel.


To expand further upon this idea (and to continue using Smithing as the main example):

Currently, there are two costs to crafting: the cost of templates and the effort required to acquire the resources.

The "effort to acquire the base resources" is what I mean when I think crafting can benefit from measures to extend and expand PC markets. (i.e. create a market where PCs can mine iron ore and sell it for profit.)

The cost of templates is, AFAIK, the main "gold sink" aspect of crafting.  But all templates cost the same; the difference between crafting a copper full plate and an adamantium full plate is (a) the effort referred to above; and (b) the crafting DC. If you ignore these, however, the main effect of this gold sink is to be a flat tax across all craft levels.

I would propose that one way to shift the "gold sink" towards taxing higher craft levels would be to lower the cost of templates and instead make the crafting cost variable by material by introducing a "tooling cost".  This tooling cost would be paid either by purchasing further "tool" craft components or simply making the craft recipe require a certain amount of gold to produce.

In other words:

CURRENTLY:

If I want to create a copper full plate and an adamantium full plate, the difference in cost would be:

Copper full plate = one full plate template + copper ingots
Adamantium full plate = one full plate template + adamantium ingots

I forget how much a full plate template actually costs; but I hope this demonstrates what I mean as it being a "flat" tax, or cost.

SUGGESTION (numbers are purely illustrative, I've not done any calculations to check that this is balanced)

* Lower full plate templates cost significantly so that the template itself is no longer such a flat cost; for the sake of argument, I'm going to use a flat cost of 1g for templates here.

* Copper is easy and cheap to work.  So copper working tools would cost 30gp each per ingot.

* Steel is expensive to work, since it is an advanced metal to produce; so steel working tools cost 300gp to produce per ingot.

* Adamantium is expensive to work, so adamantium working tools cost 3000gp (or whatever)  each per ingot.

So:

copper full plate = 1 full plate template (now very cheap) + copper ingots + 30 gp per copper ingot (so 180gp effective "gold sink" cost)
steel full plate = 1 full plate template + steel ingots + 300 gp per ingot (so 1,800 gp gold sink)
adamantium full plate = 1 full plate template + adamantium ingots + 3000 gp per ingot (so 18,000 gp gold sink)

In terms of "tool" costing relative to the current cost of templates, again just spitballing here, but I would rank the balancing so:

- Copper weapons and armour, being the "starter level" of the craft, would be much cheaper to craft than currently (e.g. reduce cost to between 1/5 to 1/10)
- Bronze would be cheaper than currently (1/2 to 1/3 the current cost)
- Iron weapons would be the same cost (cost as per current templates)
- Steel would be more expensive (2 to 3 times more expensive than currently)
- Adamantium would be 10 to 50 times more expensive than currently.

Gilding is already pretty expensive due to mercury so I don't know where this would sit.


The main effect of all this is that it would make copper and bronze more accessible and cheaper to make. (Ok, I know IRL bronze was more expensive than iron, but that horse already bolted with the ready availability of tin on PotM.)  Compared to currently, Smiths would find it easier and cheaper to get to the point where they can start making stuff that people will actually buy; but making the stuff that people actually buy would be more expensive.

I realise this is potentially a complicated solution to implement in coding terms, just throwing the idea out there.
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Khornite

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2019, 03:25:37 PM »
* Lower full plate templates cost significantly so that the template itself is no longer such a flat cost; for the sake of argument, I'm going to use a flat cost of 1g for templates here.

* Copper is easy and cheap to work.  So copper working tools would cost 30gp each per ingot.

* Steel is expensive to work, since it is an advanced metal to produce; so steel working tools cost 300gp to produce per ingot.

* Adamantium is expensive to work, so adamantium working tools cost 3000gp (or whatever)  each per ingot.

So:

copper full plate = 1 full plate template (now very cheap) + copper ingots + 30 gp per copper ingot (so 180gp effective "gold sink" cost)
steel full plate = 1 full plate template + steel ingots + 300 gp per ingot (so 1,800 gp gold sink)
adamantium full plate = 1 full plate template + adamantium ingots + 3000 gp per ingot (so 18,000 gp gold sink)


I think this would just result in even more crafting tools being thrown all over the ground. Acquiring adamantine is already expensive enough on the crafters. I'm not a mage, and each trip can cost me at MINIMUM 5k and a lot of those trips, I get nothing. The gold sink aspect on crafting is fine. The real that I have personally seen with getting people to hire others to go get materials for them is that with things like ore, it's just not worth it. The characters stand to make more by hitting up a dungeon and getting some EXP along the way. Then there's the chore of carting back all the ore. And then there's been many times where I've hired people to gather ore or hides and they've just never got around to it after I waited around for them to do just that. Then factor in that a lot of the higher level craftsmen would have to go to Vallaki for a lot of this stuff, they'd probably rather be off in other domains. For things like ore, it's just faster and easier to do it on your own.
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Iridni Ren

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #12 on: December 22, 2019, 03:57:04 PM »
Spoiler: show
One final observation:

I think in the past, the high cost of crafting has been defended on the grounds that it is a necessary gold sink, on a server where rich PCs will have millions of gold coins and inflation is a real problem.

This makes sense for top grade gear (adamantium or gilded weapons, exotic leather or wood, demon/devil horns, etc.), and I agree that inflation is a problem.  But it is negative to make low craft levels pay for this issue.

So if a concern with making low level crafting pay more is that crafting ceases to be an effective gold sink, then I think it would be better to make high level crafting cost more to balance it out, rather than continue with the current climate where smithing won't pay out until you reach steel full plate lined with exotic leathers or silver-gilded steel.


To expand further upon this idea (and to continue using Smithing as the main example):

Currently, there are two costs to crafting: the cost of templates and the effort required to acquire the resources.

The "effort to acquire the base resources" is what I mean when I think crafting can benefit from measures to extend and expand PC markets. (i.e. create a market where PCs can mine iron ore and sell it for profit.)

The cost of templates is, AFAIK, the main "gold sink" aspect of crafting.  But all templates cost the same; the difference between crafting a copper full plate and an adamantium full plate is (a) the effort referred to above; and (b) the crafting DC. If you ignore these, however, the main effect of this gold sink is to be a flat tax across all craft levels.

I would propose that one way to shift the "gold sink" towards taxing higher craft levels would be to lower the cost of templates and instead make the crafting cost variable by material by introducing a "tooling cost".  This tooling cost would be paid either by purchasing further "tool" craft components or simply making the craft recipe require a certain amount of gold to produce.

In other words:

CURRENTLY:

If I want to create a copper full plate and an adamantium full plate, the difference in cost would be:

Copper full plate = one full plate template + copper ingots
Adamantium full plate = one full plate template + adamantium ingots

I forget how much a full plate template actually costs; but I hope this demonstrates what I mean as it being a "flat" tax, or cost.

SUGGESTION (numbers are purely illustrative, I've not done any calculations to check that this is balanced)

* Lower full plate templates cost significantly so that the template itself is no longer such a flat cost; for the sake of argument, I'm going to use a flat cost of 1g for templates here.

* Copper is easy and cheap to work.  So copper working tools would cost 30gp each per ingot.

* Steel is expensive to work, since it is an advanced metal to produce; so steel working tools cost 300gp to produce per ingot.

* Adamantium is expensive to work, so adamantium working tools cost 3000gp (or whatever)  each per ingot.

So:

copper full plate = 1 full plate template (now very cheap) + copper ingots + 30 gp per copper ingot (so 180gp effective "gold sink" cost)
steel full plate = 1 full plate template + steel ingots + 300 gp per ingot (so 1,800 gp gold sink)
adamantium full plate = 1 full plate template + adamantium ingots + 3000 gp per ingot (so 18,000 gp gold sink)

In terms of "tool" costing relative to the current cost of templates, again just spitballing here, but I would rank the balancing so:

- Copper weapons and armour, being the "starter level" of the craft, would be much cheaper to craft than currently (e.g. reduce cost to between 1/5 to 1/10)
- Bronze would be cheaper than currently (1/2 to 1/3 the current cost)
- Iron weapons would be the same cost (cost as per current templates)
- Steel would be more expensive (2 to 3 times more expensive than currently)
- Adamantium would be 10 to 50 times more expensive than currently.

Gilding is already pretty expensive due to mercury so I don't know where this would sit.


The main effect of all this is that it would make copper and bronze more accessible and cheaper to make. (Ok, I know IRL bronze was more expensive than iron, but that horse already bolted with the ready availability of tin on PotM.)  Compared to currently, Smiths would find it easier and cheaper to get to the point where they can start making stuff that people will actually buy; but making the stuff that people actually buy would be more expensive.


I realise this is potentially a complicated solution to implement in coding terms, just throwing the idea out there.

Crafting is already immensely complex--so much so that video tutorials for it have been created. Moreover, I haven't seen anyone argue it's broken at the top tier.

A much simpler solution to the non-profitability at lower levels is what I proposed here:

https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=52792.msg638225#msg638225

Use a single formula based on the DC of the item and (perhaps) adjust for the seller's appraise skill. This would work across all crafts and all levels, and the single formula would be easy to finetune as its impact became clear.

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APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #13 on: December 22, 2019, 04:01:59 PM »
On the first point, re: gold sinks -- please don't take my number suggestions too literally, I'm just trying to get across an illustration of what smithing might look like if the gold sinks affected people in proportion to how useful the gear actually is.  (I mean, does anyone actually ever use copper, bronze, or even iron crafting?...)

I think this is a core frustration of crafting: I have to slog through the boring, unrewarding gold sink of early stuff before I get to the rewarding stuff.

Okay, maybe adamantium is already expensive and difficult enough to get.  But steel isn't that difficult to obtain anymore, it's not like the days when coal was a hard-to-obtain resource.  Steel is harder to work than copper, so I think representing this through a higher "tooling" cost is legitimate, both from an IC perspective and OOC game balance, given that steel is actually useful and copper is not.

On the second point, re: PCs hiring PCs.  Yeah.  This is kind of what I was getting at in my earlier post. The core of the issue is that there isn't a market for ore the way there is for herbs.

If my PC goes herb-picking, I know I can go to the Outskirts and eventually find a herbalist who will buy it.  The herbalist makes something of value and will sell it to other PCs. A market exists on both "sides" of the herbalist.

The reasons why there is no copper ore market is because copper goods are largely worthless; if I show up at the Outskirts with an ox laden with copper ore, I might eventually find a buyer who'll buy the ore just to practice, but it would probably be much quicker for me to make money doing deliveries (in economic terms, the opportunity cost of being a copper miner is high).

If it were possible to sell, for example, copper daggers to a NPC in such a way as a smith would make a little profit over crafting/supply costs, then you might have smiths going to the Outskirts to see if any copper miner has shown up, the same way that you currently will have herbalists going to the Outskirts to buy herbs.

So far the devs have been reluctant to simulate much of a market for copper goods, etc. beyond a very limited manner (as I mentioned earlier, there are places where you can sell certain crafted goods to NPCs, last I checked), largely because they are afraid of making crafting too profitable and solo-able.  (i.e. people who go mine their own copper, turn it into copper daggers, then turn this into profit, without actually hiring people and thus creating a PC economy).  I'm just trying to think a space where we _can_ use NPC trade to stimulate the low craft level economy and make it less painful; while making the levels of the craft that are _actually_ useful pay for it.
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APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #14 on: December 22, 2019, 04:23:26 PM »
Crafting is already immensely complex--so much so that video tutorials for it have been created.

What I'm suggesting is more complex to code but in practice, the differences to the player's experience may not be that much different at all. The price for how much of a tooling cost is can appear be displayed as part of the crafting process.

Quote
Moreover, I haven't seen anyone argue it's broken at the top tier.

If you had actually read my suggestion, you'd know that neither did I.

I don't really wish to discuss either my idea or yours with you, Iridni.
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Khornite

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #15 on: December 22, 2019, 05:25:25 PM »
On the second point, re: PCs hiring PCs.  Yeah.  This is kind of what I was getting at in my earlier post. The core of the issue is that there isn't a market for ore the way there is for herbs.

If my PC goes herb-picking, I know I can go to the Outskirts and eventually find a herbalist who will buy it.  The herbalist makes something of value and will sell it to other PCs. A market exists on both "sides" of the herbalist.

The reasons why there is no copper ore market is because copper goods are largely worthless; if I show up at the Outskirts with an ox laden with copper ore, I might eventually find a buyer who'll buy the ore just to practice, but it would probably be much quicker for me to make money doing deliveries (in economic terms, the opportunity cost of being a copper miner is high).

Consider the fact also that herbs have a market the way they do because potions are single-use items. Weapons and armor are not and are needed in much smaller quantities. Herbs also are tied down to the seasons, so you need to get a lot of them when they're around. Ore is always available. The only way to make there be a market like this for ore is to either make it so that ore can only be mined once per rest (A really bad idea) or a weapon decay system (which has literally never improved even one game and is the worst possible idea that could be included).
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herkles

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #16 on: December 22, 2019, 05:30:25 PM »
On the second point, re: PCs hiring PCs.  Yeah.  This is kind of what I was getting at in my earlier post. The core of the issue is that there isn't a market for ore the way there is for herbs.

If my PC goes herb-picking, I know I can go to the Outskirts and eventually find a herbalist who will buy it.  The herbalist makes something of value and will sell it to other PCs. A market exists on both "sides" of the herbalist.

The reasons why there is no copper ore market is because copper goods are largely worthless; if I show up at the Outskirts with an ox laden with copper ore, I might eventually find a buyer who'll buy the ore just to practice, but it would probably be much quicker for me to make money doing deliveries (in economic terms, the opportunity cost of being a copper miner is high).

Consider the fact also that herbs have a market the way they do because potions are single-use items. Weapons and armor are not and are needed in much smaller quantities. Herbs also are tied down to the seasons, so you need to get a lot of them when they're around. Ore is always available. The only way to make there be a market like this for ore is to either make it so that ore can only be mined once per rest (A really bad idea) or a weapon decay system (which has literally never improved even one game and is the worst possible idea that could be included).

In addition to this. there is the fact that Ore is far heavier than herbs and with few exceptions requires going out of your way to get them. Where as if someone did delivers between Krezk, Vallaki and Krofburg they can gather plenty of Herbs.


APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #17 on: December 22, 2019, 05:31:43 PM »
Consider the fact also that herbs have a market the way they do because potions are single-use items. Weapons and armor are not and are needed in much smaller quantities.

Ah, but consider: the unique purchase market is almost solely for the higher tier goods -- steel, gilded items, etc. These are not the goods that would need NPC purchasers to stimulate a market economy!

From the perspective of a copper/tin/iron market, these would effectively be "one off" goods insofar as the PC smith is merely making copper/tin/iron goods to sell them on to NPC merchants.  (Which would be necessary for a market to exist at all, since PCs won't buy them.)

Edit note: changed wording to be clearer

« Last Edit: December 22, 2019, 05:34:05 PM by aprogressivist »
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Khornite

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #18 on: December 22, 2019, 05:56:47 PM »
Consider the fact also that herbs have a market the way they do because potions are single-use items. Weapons and armor are not and are needed in much smaller quantities.

Ah, but consider: the unique purchase market is almost solely for the higher tier goods -- steel, gilded items, etc. These are not the goods that would need NPC purchasers to stimulate a market economy!

From the perspective of a copper/tin/iron market, these would effectively be "one off" goods insofar as the PC smith is merely making copper/tin/iron goods to sell them on to NPC merchants.  (Which would be necessary for a market to exist at all, since PCs won't buy them.)

Edit note: changed wording to be clearer

Even then, purchases are not frequent enough to keep items on hand. It's just easier to go out and get the materials when you get an order. Especially considering how big the claim items can be and how limited inventory space is. I don't think there's one smith on the server who keeps an inventory and instead operates on commission.
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APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #19 on: December 22, 2019, 06:01:46 PM »
In addition to this. there is the fact that Ore is far heavier than herbs and with few exceptions requires going out of your way to get them. Where as if someone did delivers between Krezk, Vallaki and Krofburg they can gather plenty of Herbs.

Yeah, this is the issue. You can make, what, 400 gp on a round trip from Vallaki to Krofburg? That's probably on the low end if you include the herbs.

I have a hard time imagining mining copper being worth it if a PC miner were paid much less than 10gp per copper ore.  Even if it's less risky than a Krofburg run.   That means an ox with one inventory screen full of ore (60 ore) would net you 600gp, which sounds reasonable to me.

But for that to work, the smith has to be able to make something worth 10gp per copper ore in order to pay a PC to break even.  (Or mine himself and make a 10gp profit per ore.)  I've not checked the warehouse tasks in months, but I suspect they pay less.  So the dev team would have to be happy with upping those rewards, which may not happen.

I don't think these numbers are a million miles apart, though.
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MAB77

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2019, 06:06:10 PM »
There are some good suggestions in this thread. Not all are feasible though. Do consider that the crafting system script is a massive and complex beast with tens of thousands of lines of codes. Rewriting it from scratch is not an option. Whatever form the crafting system may take in the future will have to keep the current structure. There are however many parameters on which we can act: Crafting XP, DC tiers, the properties of materials, costs of templates, etc. We are seriously looking at revamping it all on a large scale.

My own thoughts about the crafting system is that crafting XP should be more generous, but dynamically capped as it is for RPXP. You'd need to pass less time at the crafting tables to learn the trade, but it would roughly take the same span of time as now to master the craft. This has both the desired effects of allowing more time to crafters to adventure, while still requiring regular dedication to the craft to master it. Other things we could adjust with relative ease are the properties of materials themselves and the division of DC tiers by trades.

Keep your thoughts and suggestions coming. As always, please remain excellent to each other.
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APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #21 on: December 22, 2019, 06:19:38 PM »
Even then, purchases are not frequent enough to keep items on hand. It's just easier to go out and get the materials when you get an order. Especially considering how big the claim items can be and how limited inventory space is.

To be clear, the idea is to always have a market for copper, bronze, and iron goods -- NPCs would buy them, cheaply.  So there would always be potential throughput for those; ideally not very profitable but enough to break even grinding XP.

Steel is just derived from iron.

And low level miners aren't going to be mining silver and gold....
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Khornite

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #22 on: December 22, 2019, 07:00:56 PM »
My own thoughts about the crafting system is that crafting XP should be more generous, but dynamically capped as it is for RPXP. You'd need to pass less time at the crafting tables to learn the trade, but it would roughly take the same span of time as now to master the craft. This has both the desired effects of allowing more time to crafters to adventure, while still requiring regular dedication to the craft to master it. Other things we could adjust with relative ease are the properties of materials themselves and the division of DC tiers by trades.

Have the EXP be capped how? it's kind of already capped given how the EXP decreases as you advance in level and have to constantly be making harder and harder things. The EXP completely cuts off once your level is equal to the DC as is. I think how the EXP is now is fine for most crafts. I've heard people say that leatherworking is too slow to bother attempting to learn and it does seem a LOT slower than other crafts in my experience but I am still low level in it. Alchemy at the high end is slow just because there's so few ingredients to work with. Even then, Id just rather see the actual time at the table sped up, make more things in bulk. One of the fun part about crafting is trying to find the way to level it that works best for you, talking to other crafters to learn what you should be making to progress, etc.
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APorg

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #23 on: December 22, 2019, 07:05:42 PM »
I think he means capped over time, but I thought RPXP was separate from the cap...
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Dante101

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Re: Faster Crafting
« Reply #24 on: December 22, 2019, 07:41:45 PM »
I'm personally wholeheartedly against the idea. We already have an XP cap applied to normal experience gain progression; which occasionally is the driver for people to slow down and... Pick up a craft.