Trade-Skills - Are they too set in stone?

[Red Ropes]

This is part feedback but it is kind of a question. I am also asking this as a player rather than to my fellow developers/contributors.

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I have felt for a while now, especially over the last few years, and with the removal of the ability for us to delevel to lose our trade points that there's been some issue with dealing with things. Arelith is an active server with active development and we've seen relevels and resets for several of our classes to accommodate change.

However there has been a lot of updates to our base crafts which have sort of been divorced from our ability update to changes. Craft skills are often important either as a secondary function of repair or maintenance. But in some cases those who were "masters" of the craft in earlier days with a character may in the current era completely inferior.

Though one can be like "yes, please, roll characters and make new ones" sometimes our plans for characters go on hold. Life gets in the way or maybe we're just not feeling it and we're left with pcs that have outmoded craftskills. Smithing for instance has seen its DCs creep higher and higher.

Or more recipes have been added to previously empty crafts and oft at higher frequencies.

So my general feedback is this:

I don't think there's an effective way currently settle your trade skill. However I also think the old system of "remove your xp and levels to regain tradeskills" was a bit too punishing for something that doesn't hyper advantage you.

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My two cents in lieu of the suggestion forum is basically this: I think it'd be neat if we could get a VERY HIGH cooldown respec of our craftskill on a PC in lieu of flagging down a DM so it can be autonomous - but done in a way we don't have people flipping between crafts every month. Even something like a "real life year or six months" cooldown between resets would be nice.

Or anytime craft recipes are updated.

Does anyone else have similar ideas? Opposition. I am just curious.

[Beard Master Flex]

I think they are.

One of the things I was most excited about for this little holiday of re-levels was getting to fix my horrid spread of Trade Skill Points.

I was disappointed to discover that was not the case and I am indeed stuck with a plethora of points that are doing nothing for me.

Its not the end of the world but I'm unable to interact with a fairly significant mechanic that has otherwise been improved dramatically since when my character first went applied said points.

If there is an easy way for a server wide 'reset' button on Trade Skills like we've had for XP I'd very much be in favor of pushing it.

[Kuma]

pls

[Party in the forest at midnight]

That would be great. Often what I end up doing with tradeskills turns out to be a lot different than what I think I'll be doing with them. Especially if I go into crafts expecting to be doing things with friends, and then friends roll their chars.

[Salasker]

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I've had the chance to redo my skill points and not taken it. The reason is that the mistakes I made have reasons that came up in game. Not being the best at certain things also means that if I need such, it is a prime way to start interactions with other characters.

To change now would be to invalidate the history of the character, warts and all. I realize this might be a minority viewpoint (possibly a minority of one), but having a few points in a trade I rarely use because of something that occurred early in the characters' life makes him feel more 'alive' to me. If I changed it, that story, the small anecdote he occasionally tosses out, would be gone and (I think) he'd be just a little less interesting for it. Then too, those ten points have come in surprisingly handy at times...

I'm willing to sacrifice not being the 'best' at the other things for that. (If more and more recipes with higher and higher DCs get added, though, I reserve the right to change my opinion. )

[Drowboy]

pls

[Floral Shoppe]

Could be an opportunity for a gold sink?

"Master craftsmen" NPC trainers IG that will "unlearn" and retrain you but it costs 10,000 a point the first time, 20,000 a point the second...

[Kessarin]

I also wish that there were a way to reset trade skills.

[Kuma]

Could be an opportunity for a gold sink?

"Master craftsmen" NPC trainers IG that will "unlearn" and retrain you but it costs 10,000 a point the first time, 20,000 a point the second...

Not everything has to be a gold sink. This is also just another bonus to factions able to churn out heaps of cash that could then easily "pivot" their business model without much drawback.

Just make it a thing you can do once per character.

[Dreams]

I'd like a once-per-character function: -midlifecrisis

Use twice to confirm. It removes all of your skill points and allows you to respec.

[Glowing Mushroom]

It would be nice to reassign your trades on an extended CD. However, a lot of the crafting system needs to be rebalanced.

Crafting an Ashwood Longbow requires 600 crafting points.

In order to even begin crafting the bow itself however, you first need to craft a multitude of other items that total over 500 CPs, and over 110 individual materials.

So for ONE bow you are looking at 1100+ crafting points across 3 separate trade skills. Not only that, but your individual character would not be able to maximize carpentry and also have enough CPs in the two additional trades to craft everything you need. This means the individual is forced to seek help from other sources, even as a master carpenter/archer. In the end, you produce a bow that gives a MINIMAL boost over its next most powerful variant.

Meanwhile, one of the best weapons in the game - The Dwarven Rune Axe - Requires only 284 CPs with about an additional 21 materials (one of which is just a scroll you can buy anywhere) and THREE additional crafting points to make 287.

This is almost SIX TIMES LESS effort required, all of which can be done by the smith alone.

As another example, a masterly damask longsword requires 543 CPs + 11 from just 41 extra materials. So again, we are looking at less than half the required compared to an Ashwood bow, all of which can be done by one smith without sourcing outside assistance.

This seems unbalanced to me. And the Ashwood bow requirements are totally excessive.

[Kuma]

This means the individual is forced to seek help from other sources, even as a master carpenter/archer.

This is by design. A 'rebalance' may well take the form of making other items harder to craft individually instead.

[Glowing Mushroom]

This means the individual is forced to seek help from other sources, even as a master carpenter/archer.

This is by design. A 'rebalance' may well take the form of making other items harder to craft individually instead.

Right, but by comparison making a melee weapon does NOT require seeking others to help them, even for some of the best ones you can make. How come it's so easy for a smith to make some of the best weapons without seeking help, but an archer has to do more work multiple times over and seek outside sources?

[Skarain]

I would too be in favour.

It doesn't even need to be a complete, full reset. Being able to shift 2, 5 or 10 spent tradeskill points to another craft every week would do the trick, to signify the slow process of retraining.

A full reset obviously makes it faster. 6 month CD sounds fair. Once-in-a-lifetime... not so much. Sometimes we shelve characters and come back to them later. Would suck if your only opportunity was already spent.

[Eira]

Please.

I have so many trade points regrets.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I'd rather have the current system rather than a once per character system.

[TooManyPotatoes]

I think this pain is especially felt by the aussies. You cant just find a crafter when one simply doesnt exist during your playtime. More than once myself or others i know specced a character based on the crafters commonly seen around at the time only to find they roll shortly after!

[Irongron]

While certainly there are individual recipes that could be improved, there are no plans for any kind of optional crafting point reset, which is something I would only consider in response to a significant change in the system.

[Skald Haldi]

Not looking for a reset at all.
Instead, some way in-game to alter your craft points.
The only other choice right now is to make a new character.
Even if it's slow (one point per day), that's much more RP-centric.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I get the premise behind this suggestion/thought process. I just don't think anything that gives an incentive to keep playing level 30s for years and years is a good thing. It's not that all long term characters are bad, there are those that keep pushing stories and help others along with theirs and those characters are great. But no one cares that Timmy who got rich off selling us metalworks for the last two years is now making bows, save maybe Timmy's player. I don't want to pick on people who like playing their character they made back in 2016 or anything, because on one level my thought process is do what's fun for you. But you doing you does have an effect on the replayability of the game, since if I make a Cordorian 2 years after my last Cordorian to use an easy example, and you are still thereas a major force to be dealt with as a Cordorian, it does make the game seem like a been there done that more then what should be normal. That never happens in Cordor, but I picked it for that reason so no one feels singled out .

Anyways, now that my tangent is over, while I don't hate the idea in theory I think in practice anything that might keep players who might otherwise get bored keeping to the characters that makes everyone else bored is a bad thing.

[Good Character]

The only two things I see reasonable are taking a "Cursed" attribute at character creation similar to a gift that suspends an X amount of languages available to be learned for a Y amount of crafting points, or pairing up similar trade crafts which allow 1/4 of the points placed into a craft to be added to carpentry seeing as it's usually solely taken to make fixtures.