Increasing Crafting XP Gained

[Iolantir]

Based on a post by MAB77 in the Systems Wishlist:

... I still am in favor of multiplying by 10 crafting XP assorted with a soft cap to reduce grinding. Less time to learn the crafts, more time time to dungeons, still months to master.

Just taking this at face value and seeing what everyone thinks about this idea to generate discussion on it.

[Devil's Moon]

please god please

[EO]

Keep in mind the cap part which means a maximum daily amount of XP.

[Dardonas]

I'm not a fan of a cap.  If I'm blind drive on dungeon experience, moving to crafting as a way to fill my time is fun to me.  Putting a daily cap on experience gains for crafting puts this MMO type of system where I feel like I'm obligated to get on and do my daily crafting and maybe by day 30 I'll have my crafting skill high enough to make adamantine. 

I think crafting experience could be increased in general just as a QoL change.  I also think that crafting in of itself could have some potential for offering experience ticks towards character progression, much like roleplay experience, to reward those who could be interested in merchant guild RP without making them feel like they're losing out on progression by the enormous time commitment crafting is currently.

[Iolantir]

What would be the expected gain with a soft cap?  I suppose it may be different per craft if they have different ranges in end-game. But take Herbalism for example. Roughly speaking, would 5 levels in herbalism/week be feasible?

I'm also not a fan of a soft cap in general, but I'd like to know what the details of that would be.

[Hathor]

Against a daily or other soft cap for the same reason as Dardonas stated. The server doesn't benefit from MMO systems, it is a roleplaying server.

[MAB77]

Right now it is just an idea, not a plan. And to be frank there is so much more to do before that this comes to fruition that it is unlikely to happen. No harm in debating it though. It's not the first time we're having this debate and it was massively rejected last time.

The gist of it is simple.

The current system relies on the grind to keep master crafters on the rarer side, but the grind is boring. We can reduce it. That's what increasing the crafting XP is for, thus allowing crafters to pass more time roleplaying and dungeonning, with the added bonus of requiring far less material on the long run and sparing us from heavy carpal tunnel syndromes. It however needs to be balanced by a different deterrent. Something else to ensure not everyone becomes a mastercrafter in matters of days. Enters the soft cap. While learning the craft is made easier, it would still required a 6 months or so time investment to master. Progression would not be linear, and reaching a competent level enough to produce useful items that can be sold would still be achieved quickly.

[Bad_Bud]

Speaking as a player, I'd rather not see a soft cap for the same reason Dardonas stated. Crafting progression is generally restrained by ingredient availability and gold, but mostly ingredient availability. I think it's fine as it is, if not a little inconvenient. Certain improvements like better mass crafting would be wonderful, but if we want to limit crafting progression in an organic way while still maintaining convenience, we'd need to implement a component spawn level system, similar to dungeons, where an overly harvested area of trees, for instance would spawn back as saplings rather than a full set of trees every 12 minutes. This already is in place somewhat for chitinous creatures and tree sap, though those creatures are fairly abundant.

[MAB77]

I'm not a fan of a cap.  If I'm blind drive on dungeon experience, moving to crafting as a way to fill my time is fun to me. [...]

I do not subscribe to the idea that doing anything should always be granting XPs. Reselling the items produced by crafting are rewards enough come a certain point. The XP blind drive also aims precisely to remind people to take it slow and roleplay instead of rushing for the next level. You're in the wrong game/server if you prefer Diablo leveling style. What I propose is a definitive quality of life improvement, though it seems you do not like the very essential server balance part of it.

Now, I'm perfectly fine with the idea that a soft cap may not be wanted. I absolutely am willing to consider any other options that would reduce the grind. Though remember the following points:
- It has to take time.
- It must be significative enough that only a minority will wish to persist to become a master crafter.
- It cannot be regulated through feats or regular skills. This would otherwise be exploited and players would remake their characters with different skills/feats once the crafting ones are no longer required.
- The fact that crafting script is a massive beast unyieldy to change. So the general way of how it works cannot change.

[Iolantir]

One thing that might help is massively increasing crafting XP from new recipes. Perhaps by 10 fold. It would encourage players to craft things other than "the most efficient item" per level, as that efficiency would likely change.  That increased XP would also represent a wider knowledge in character.

Someone that, for example, crafts a dagger, a short sword, a long sword, arrowheads, and then a sai would have more 'knowledge' of smithing than someone that just bangs away at greatswords and greatswords alone, theoretically.

[Dardonas]

I'm not a fan of a cap.  If I'm blind drive on dungeon experience, moving to crafting as a way to fill my time is fun to me. [...]

I do not subscribe to the idea that doing anything should always be granting XPs. Reselling the items produced by crafting are rewards enough come a certain point. The XP blind drive also aims precisely to remind people to take it slow and roleplay instead of rushing for the next level. You're in the wrong game/server if you prefer Diablo leveling style. What I propose is a definitive quality of life improvement, though it seems you do not like the very essential server balance part of it.

Now, I'm perfectly fine with the idea that a soft cap may not be wanted. I absolutely am willing to consider any other options that would reduce the grind. Though remember the following points:
- It has to take time.
- It must be significative enough that only a minority will wish to persist to become a master crafter.
- It cannot be regulated through feats or regular skills. This would otherwise be exploited and players would reake their characters with different skills/feats once the crafting ones are no longer required.
- The fact that crafting script is a massive beast unyieldy to change. So the general way of how it works cannot change.

The worst part of crafting I have experienced is the initial start of it. The experience gain to start makes the initial investment take the longest because of the -5 malus. When one of my characters began smithing I spent about 3-4 days on the initial 1-10 levels.  Afterwards, it became pretty easy to get 2-3 levels in a few hours of investment.  If it is possible, those earlier levels should be brought to speed.  I find this the same way with both alchemy and herbalism.  It's just extremely hard to get into it and takes a lot of grinding to get past those first few levels.  Perhaps more experienced crafters can attest to other issues, but I think perhaps learning a new recipe can grant a little bonus spurt of crafting experience.  Additionally, make it so that the lower tier crafting materials -- so in the case of smithing, copper/bronze -- grant a tad more experience and have lower DCs.  This will make it so that entry into the craft isn't so bad, but you can't sustain learning through copper forever.

Hide boiling and hide curing - One of my biggest gripes is how cumbersome it is to grind this because getting leathers is rather hard in my experience, then you have to divide both of those leathers and the experience you get into two skills.  I think these two crafts should be combined to alleviate the grind, much like alchemy consists of both distilling and varnish making.  Additionally, I feel as if furs should yield more patches of leather. 

Gilding - It's a daunting process to get into gilding.  I think the requirement to get into it should be brought lower, to level 20 smithing.  20 smithing is a substantial investment as it is, 30 is a bit overkill and you've basically mastered steel if you get that high.  With gilding (I haven't made it that far) you still have to level up on basic gilding metals (copper, I believe?) and if there is a way you can mix that practice in with your steel practice it makes it far easier and alleviates the grind.  Otherwise you're making steel for no reason to train your gilding up.

[MAB77]

Massive improvements were already done to alleviate the early crafting levels with the last crafting update.

Where you once had to pass from copper to bronze to iron before working on steel. The adjusted DCs brought both bronze and iron down to the copper entry level, with steel being already the second tier of metal items that can be crafted.

Curing DCs were adjusted and now provide more options in the DC 25 range to make the progression smoother between tiers. Boiling DCs passed from 10/20/30, to 10/15/20, that's a humongous increase in the amount of hides that are now successfully boiled.

DC adjustments have similarly been done to herbalism, woodworking and carpentry. All the reports I received are clear they made it way easier to enter into a craft. Which doesn't mean it should not require some efforts. This part isn't an issue.

Gilding is meant to be a high end craft and is in a good place. From the moment you mastered gilding with copper, you can already succeed gilding with all gilding metals, albeit with a risk of failure. It was also improved already when we changed the price of acid vials. Making the craft cost only a third of what it used to be.

[Kaninchen]

I've only dabbled in herbalism, and alchemy in the crafting for the module. I don't have any comment on herbalism, since it has had changed since I was last doing it.

For alchemy, and making varnishes, I will say the latter stages working towards "mastery," isn't particularly fun. As I touched upon in the other thread, not being able to bulk turning essence into varnish is dumb. In my experience, the DCs for refining are lower than working the raw materials, so you stop getting exp for making the finished product. Therefor, being able to bulk them, or not, does nothing to effect the speed towards mastery, the limiting factor is the scarcity of raw resources.

I would say either allow players the ability to bulk the finished product, or adjust the essence to varnish DCs to give crafting exp in order to justify the intentional single clicking.
Sure, varnish are useful, but the return on gold isn't great, especially for players who are at a point where they can obtain the later raw reagents. Odds are they can make better money doing other things. At times, I have let 30 + essence go to waste simply because the time it takes to refine wasn't fun, and how I wished to spend my time.  I'd say that's not good design.

Not many people wish to sit, and observe you make varnish either, so there isn't much RP to be had, to help the time go by quicker.  Plus there is so much clicking while doing it, due to the one at a time way of things, the responses I feel I can give are not the most...descriptive, enlightening, or creative.

[Syl]

Keep in mind the cap part which means a maximum daily amount of XP.

I'll take crafting levels as it is now. If crafting had a cap limits a day would be frustrating especially if you're playing someone that is just a crafter not someone that dungeons.

[Derek Jeter]

Sounds mmoish
Gonna have to say no

[JustMonika]

My biggest issue with the crafting system is how ooc it feels.

I wanna get good at tailoring so what I have to do is make hundreds of worthless items that no-one wants - Far more than any possible demand and... Put them in the bin? There's no value to selling the low end stuff, you can't make a business out of it. You're spending your time and your characters time on future relevence. You're logged in doing something with the sole purpose of being able to log in and do what you actually want days/weeks into the future. That isn't much fun, and it also doesn't generate any roleplay.

[MAB77]

My biggest issue with the crafting system is how ooc it feels.

I wanna get good at tailoring so what I have to do is make hundreds of worthless items that no-one wants - Far more than any possible demand and... Put them in the bin? There's no value to selling the low end stuff, you can't make a business out of it. You're spending your time and your characters time on future relevence. You're logged in doing something with the sole purpose of being able to log in and do what you actually want days/weeks into the future. That isn't much fun, and it also doesn't generate any roleplay.

Tailoring will be changed entirely soon (I hope) and provide useful items much sooner.

[Wilkins1952]

My issues with crafting are similar to what monika said I can invest hours of time but because people only want the best items 99.9% of the stuff I make at least in regards to crafts other than Herbology and Alchemey just end up being trashed. That means as a time investment I get nothing out of doing that that either helps my char or leads to more RP.

What I would love to see is lower DCs for the high end stuff and perhaps a removal of the -5 crafting Malus to again speed things up. Progression will still remain the same just for something with a DC of 25 you now only need level 5 rather than level 10 in the craft.

As for XP I think a soft cap just limits things too much for no reason and makes it so you are going to spend more time just AFK cause "Better not waste those resources until the OOC XP cap resets." A boost to XP Gained would be nice but unlitmatly I think just making it so there are more useful items early on in the crafts would be nice. Perhaps even make some consumables that can be crafted this essentially acting as the "I make this to get better." That way you are not making 1000s of the same item just to trash it.

[EO]

As for XP I think a soft cap just limits things too much for no reason and makes it so you are going to spend more time just AFK cause "Better not waste those resources until the OOC XP cap resets." A boost to XP Gained would be nice but unlitmatly I think just making it so there are more useful items early on in the crafts would be nice. Perhaps even make some consumables that can be crafted this essentially acting as the "I make this to get better." That way you are not making 1000s of the same item just to trash it.

I'm not sure I follow your logic. On one hand you complain that you have to trash countless items to level up but given the prospect of having a cap with greatly increased XP, meaning you'd need to trash less items for the same gain, you're against it?

What I would love to see is lower DCs for the high end stuff and perhaps a removal of the -5 crafting Malus to again speed things up. Progression will still remain the same just for something with a DC of 25 you now only need level 5 rather than level 10 in the craft.

I may again be missing something here, but these changes would affect progression. If DCs are lowered and the penalty removed, logically progression will be faster, which isn't our goal or intent.

[Vissy]

QoL is the most important thing that should change regardless, in my opinion. If that takes soft caps - as long as the soft caps are reasonable and won't be maxed out by an hour or two of crafting per day in a week - then it seems like a good solution if it means less clicking and less tedium.

[Wilkins1952]

As for XP I think a soft cap just limits things too much for no reason and makes it so you are going to spend more time just AFK cause "Better not waste those resources until the OOC XP cap resets." A boost to XP Gained would be nice but unlitmatly I think just making it so there are more useful items early on in the crafts would be nice. Perhaps even make some consumables that can be crafted this essentially acting as the "I make this to get better." That way you are not making 1000s of the same item just to trash it.

I'm not sure I follow your logic. On one hand you complain that you have to trash countless items to level up but given the prospect of having a cap with greatly increased XP, meaning you'd need to trash less items for the same gain, you're against it?

More so that the cap would lead to people hording crafting materials waiting for that cap to reset. So say I have 2 hours to play but I am at my cap, I suspect most players would not want to 'Waste' the resources whereas now time is not a factor in the sense that I have to wait for some arbitrary reset to learn more. I just feel given most people do crafts during downtime on the server a cap makes it so I might not want to do that and instead just go AFK

What I would love to see is lower DCs for the high end stuff and perhaps a removal of the -5 crafting Malus to again speed things up. Progression will still remain the same just for something with a DC of 25 you now only need level 5 rather than level 10 in the craft.

I may again be missing something here, but these changes would affect progression. If DCs are lowered and the penalty removed, logically progression will be faster, which isn't our goal or intent.

True it would speed it up, I was more reffering to progression would still be 1-2-3 and I personally I think cutting the time needed by 5 levels would be a good alternative to increased XP gain. you get to the good stuff faster yet still need to invest time in it. Not to mention less clicking overall. Perhaps even only have the -5 malus to things over DC 30?

[EO]

True it would speed it up, I was more reffering to progression would still be 1-2-3 and I personally I think cutting the time needed by 5 levels would be a good alternative to increased XP gain. you get to the good stuff faster yet still need to invest time in it. Not to mention less clicking overall. Perhaps even only have the -5 malus to things over DC 30?

However we still want it to take time, otherwise everyone can become their own self-crafted like in many MMOs, and there's no more crafting economy.

More so that the cap would lead to people hording crafting materials waiting for that cap to reset. So say I have 2 hours to play but I am at my cap, I suspect most players would not want to 'Waste' the resources whereas now time is not a factor in the sense that I have to wait for some arbitrary reset to learn more. I just feel given most people do crafts during downtime on the server a cap makes it so I might not want to do that and instead just go AFK

Here's an example; right now let's say producing an iron full plate gives 1XP, without a cap. You need 100 to get 100XP. Now let's say we add a cap of 100XP a day, but producing such armor gives 10XP; you only need to craft 10 to get the same result. You don't need to hoard as many materials as you do now, and it still takes a long time to level up but with less grinding. You can still make armors for others, after all, crafting is also a source of income. It's much like dungeons; you can dungeon on blind drive to get loot; you're not wasting your time doing so, though it's less rewarding.

[JustMonika]

There may be some merit to some of Arelith's approch here in preventing people from being self sufficent.

If you scatter items everyone wants across the different crafting areas [which we've already done to an extent] and then cap the max crafting levels you're allowed, you can only be a little bit good at a few crafts or really good at one - Either situation will leave you reliant on other PCs, thus ensuring the continuance of the econamy.

[Bouquet of Lotuses]

There may be some merit to some of Arelith's approch here in preventing people from being self sufficent.

If you scatter items everyone wants across the different crafting areas [which we've already done to an extent] and then cap the max crafting levels you're allowed, you can only be a little bit good at a few crafts or really good at one - Either situation will leave you reliant on other PCs, thus ensuring the continuance of the econamy.

I like the sound of this, personally.

[LeSidhe]

Here's an example; right now let's say producing an iron full plate gives 1XP, without a cap. You need 100 to get 100XP. Now let's say we add a cap of 100XP a day, but producing such armor gives 10XP; you only need to craft 10 to get the same result. You don't need to hoard as many materials as you do now, and it still takes a long time to level up but with less grinding. You can still make armors for others, after all, crafting is also a source of income. It's much like dungeons; you can dungeon on blind drive to get loot; you're not wasting your time doing so, though it's less rewarding.

While I totally get where the devs are coming from with this idea, I kinda feel like this route will just ensure that in 6 months there are definitely 10x + more grand masters running around. Still, pluses and minuses, I'll admit, but I'm a little reticent that this will solve issues. I also wonder if it might actually stick people in the low-end longer than they need to be as opposed to now -- where they can trudge through it quickly enough if they set their nose down.

There may be some merit to some of Arelith's approch here in preventing people from being self sufficent.

If you scatter items everyone wants across the different crafting areas [which we've already done to an extent] and then cap the max crafting levels you're allowed, you can only be a little bit good at a few crafts or really good at one - Either situation will leave you reliant on other PCs, thus ensuring the continuance of the econamy.

I dunno about a hard cap of max crafting levels at all (which I think is your suggestion, JM?)  1.) There is a LOT of experimentation in the current system to figure out what you even want to do, and I think a lot of people would accidentally level themselves out of any ability to be a grandmaster at all because they tried a lot of different things out in the early game. 2.) Not all skills are equal in this regard: Leatherwork requires three skills, woodworking two; don't even get me into smithing, wherein I've had to dabble with or build into like 7 skills, with a sixth on the horizon, to be able to make relevant items.

One thing I have been thinking of on my recent grind, and I'm not sure if this is immediately relevant to the discussion, is the potential of adding some benefit to putting upper-tier crafters in a given skill in the room with the newbs. i.e. If you have 20+ in a given craft, much like a muse you can bestow some benefit to someone that is <10 in that craft at the station. Either a muse-like benefit or some xp-share as in group dungeoning.