Everybody's a crafter !!!

[flamesse]

hello everyone, this just came back to my mind, and just want to put it out there for discussion. i think the arelith crafting system is way too accesible to anyone, whether they like it or not... basically, any character in their 20's can craft more or less any equipment in their desired craft, given they've maxed that craft to that level. i much more like,a and think is more balanced the crafting system of the "Amphillia" server. is any of you familiar to it? (so i dont have to describe it in detail ) what do you think about it?

[JustMonika]

From what I remember when this was all first introduced, oh so many years ago, the design vision was thus;

A crafting system that anyone can do things with if they want, allowing you all to have fun.
But a crafting system that to do _good_ things with, requires components created by another player, forcing people to interact and creating some semblence of trade.

For example, you're quite right, as a high level smith, I can make almost any blade I want. However, I can't also put a +4 essence on it. I could instead have been a master alchemist, but then I'd need to buy the blade off someone else.

As a result while I can do the craft that is most fun to me, I can't do 'Everything'.

You're right of course, that it does mean there's no such thing as a crafter (Everyone has one or more trade skills) but it's conciously ditching realism in order to try to give people fun. There is after all, no grind to the Arelith system.

[Ravenhart]

hello everyone, this just came back to my mind, and just want to put it out there for discussion. i think the arelith crafting system is way too accesible to anyone, whether they like it or not... basically, any character in their 20's can craft more or less any equipment in their desired craft, given they've maxed that craft to that level. i much more like,a and think is more balanced the crafting system of the "Amphillia" server. is any of you familiar to it? (so i dont have to describe it in detail ) what do you think about it?

So here is my take on this. My character is an herbalist, all her points go to that. There are various components that she needs at times that she cannot make that she needs. So, I search out someone who has taken the skill set in that trade skill to do business with them. Sometimes I trade a component that only I can make that they might need to be able to make something, sometimes I pay gold. Just depends on the character and what they are asking. It encourages player interaction. The way it is set up, you can theoretically put points in each category but its tedious and time consuming and imo not worth it honestly since you can only do two points at a time after a level up. It just makes sense to pick one or two paths to split your time into and then barter with others who will require your skills and then market them accordingly.
Personally, I think that it is balanced pretty decently the way that it is, though I would like to see more recipes added under the food category for the herbalism.

[Amateur Hour]

You're right of course, that it does mean there's no such thing as a crafter (Everyone has one or more trade skills) but it's conciously ditching realism in order to try to give people fun. There is after all, no grind to the Arelith system.

So, I play a commoner, which is the closest thing to a crafter that the server has. Frankly, I am glad that we've ditched realism to make stuff more accessible to people in general, because I know most people would rather tear their hair out than have to put in the time required to get a commoner up to level 30 (roughly 290 active hours for a 'classic commoner' if you're RPR 20), which is completely understandable. Everyone still does eventually have to team up with other crafters, gatherers, etc. to make high-end items because of how interlinked the higher-level recipes are, which helps build roleplay opportunity.

[Shadowy Reality]

I would love to see the crafting detached from levels. Ideally any character would be able to tackle as many crafts as they wanted. Crafting level would instead be tied to the work you have put into that craft. You craft something simple you get exp, you craft something complex, you get more exp.

This would have the side effect of common materials suddenly being useful, as people will always need them to progress at first. Disadvantage would be that eventually a single character could become entirely autonomous, and one could also consider that people would need to spend time interacting with the system to be able to craft things a disadvantage in itself.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I would love to see the crafting detached from levels. Ideally any character would be able to tackle as many crafts as they wanted. Crafting level would instead be tied to the work you have put into that craft. You craft something simple you get exp, you craft something complex, you get more exp.

This would have the side effect of common materials suddenly being useful, as people will always need them to progress at first. Disadvantage would be that eventually a single character could become entirely autonomous, and one could also consider that people would need to spend time interacting with the system to be able to craft things a disadvantage in itself.

PotM has this. I recommend going and trying out their crafting system to discover why this is not a fun idea.

I think Arelith's system is great. There's a lot of bits and pieces so everyone can craft things that other people need. I like that a lot of crafts have consumables, so people can make things other players need.

Also, Arelith is built around crafting for gear rather than relying on random dungeon loot, and I think it is a really good system. Players interact with other players to gear themselves rather than it being a competition for ninja looting. Honestly I don't think Arelith could support a dungeon drop best in slot system with how many players it has, without adding a whole lot more dungeons or chests. But even then you'd get people chain clearing a certain path, going in loops for optimal loot gains. You already see the issue with addy and runic chests.

If you suddenly made crafting gear inaccessible, people would have a hard time equipping themselves. As it is it feels like whenever I need a smith, suddenly nobody is playing a smith. If people couldn't level tradeskills as they do now, it would be even worse. Trying to get racial equipment crafted would be horrible. Being in a less played timezone would be even worse than it already is.

That problem would amplify if crafting was suddenly inaccessible. Even worse would be race restricted crafting items.

[Paint]

Making crafting less accessible would only increase the already incredibly high power-gap between dedicated groups and casual and/or new charaters.

[Spriggan Bride]

I don't enjoy the crafting part of the game at all so I'd just as soon it was less accessible but also less necessary. I don't know how that would happen but I'd rather be able to do without it and still get by while letting others who enjoy it go crazy with the stuff they can make.

[AstralUniverse]

I used to love crafting. I used to play heavy crafter RP and invest a lot of time into crafting focused groups who help one another etc etc. But Arelith's crafting system has become SO FREAKIN HUGE that I'm completely lost. I want to make some item for my character and I need to consult with two different characters of different trades just to understand what it is I even need to find and crafting focused groups are just not a thing anymore as far as I can see. When leveling to 30 is this fast and character's lifespan is generally within the 2-3 months I just start to hate crafting and try to avoid it more and more. So I dare say that everybody being a crafter in Arelith is nothing short of a godsend for me and I too max a trade and offer help to others purely for solidarity at this point. Cheers.

[-XXX-]

But Arelith's crafting system has become SO FREAKIN HUGE that I'm completely lost.

C'mon, crafting's never been easier : http://craft.nwnarelith.com/

[AstralUniverse]

But Arelith's crafting system has become SO FREAKIN HUGE that I'm completely lost.

C'mon, crafting's never been easier : http://craft.nwnarelith.com/

Lemme know when you need greater shaped obsidians for stuff and you look for a druid who can scribe inferno for a month but no luck.

[-XXX-]

Lemme know when you need greater shaped obsidians for stuff and you look for a druid who can scribe inferno for a month but no luck.

Some products are class/alignment/race specific. Adding scrolls to recepies is just a softer version of that.
Or would you have preferred if only a cleric/druid/elementalist/shaman could craft your maca?

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I agree that recipe is a bit rough. I've been trying to find someone who can scribe inferno too. It's not a maca that's the problem, there's caster gear reliant on it now. And you can't convince me that hemomancers should be druid locked. That should be in its own feedback thread though.

[Rei_Jin]

Just need to do what I did in that respect; find a druid scroll-maker, and pay them to make you a tonne of Inferno scrolls, then bank them for when they're needed.

Ironically, I've only had to make the one item requiring the super-duper obsidian since then...

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I would love to see the crafting detached from levels. Ideally any character would be able to tackle as many crafts as they wanted. Crafting level would instead be tied to the work you have put into that craft. You craft something simple you get exp, you craft something complex, you get more exp.

This would have the side effect of common materials suddenly being useful, as people will always need them to progress at first. Disadvantage would be that eventually a single character could become entirely autonomous, and one could also consider that people would need to spend time interacting with the system to be able to craft things a disadvantage in itself.

Yeah, this discourages character rotation so badly. I rather just continue to see commoner more for people who want to master craft a lot because you actaully need to craft stuff to get adv exp to lvl as a commoner and need to sell products to advance in life.

Anemoie has system you described and I think it kills player motivation to make new characters after they maxed out their main character.

[AstralUniverse]

I've played in servers where the crafting system progression was detached from character level and it always results in mass production of iron daggers for exp. There's no way around it except adding billions of scripts of 'if X happens then bla bla bla" to address every possible way to game it.

[Martoc]

PotM has this. I recommend going and trying out their crafting system to discover why this is not a fun idea.

Agreed, the craft grind on PotM is insane. I much prefer the Arelith system where you allocate skill points at level up instead of grinding literally thousands of junk items to increase your skills.

[stoneheart-]

hello everyone, this just came back to my mind, and just want to put it out there for discussion. i think the arelith crafting system is way too accesible to anyone, whether they like it or not... basically, any character in their 20's can craft more or less any equipment in their desired craft, given they've maxed that craft to that level. i much more like,a and think is more balanced the crafting system of the "Amphillia" server. is any of you familiar to it? (so i dont have to describe it in detail ) what do you think about it?

You are wrong. Almost every craft has DC 50+ stuff with material requirements that a level 20 would be hard-pressed to collect themselves, even if they could hit that DC.

[Cagus]

Lemme know when you need greater shaped obsidians for stuff and you look for a druid who can scribe inferno for a month but no luck.

Bad luck, took me 1,5 hour to get everything for athame (except onyx). Not a single character or player interacted with known before.


But to the topic. From all the servers I played (and can remember), crafting system on arelith is most plain and simple and least engaging and demanding. I am struggling even call it system. In this world, there are no masters crafters, because it is accessible to anyone with 30 levels. Which is the first point: it is directly connected to the character level. (From RP point of view, the better you can hit some thing with the club, the better you can cook poison; the better spell you can cast, the better you can hit the anvil and so on).
I know craft will not change, so this is not suggestion or anything, but just for those interested in other approaches, the first server where I played had like this:
There were 3 levels of crafts: Gatherer(skin animal for hide, mine ore etc.), processer (hide->leather, string), manufacturer (leather -> cloak)
There was like 6 types of hide, wood etc. and 10 ores, gems etc.
You got 1000 points you can learn. To master(100%) manufacturer(end-products) you need like 800 points. So you could still do some gathering or processing, but not master it anymore. You could do gathering and processing of one type (e.g. skin+tanning), but then you were unable to make end-products but some basic. On the other you could be basic alchemist to make tanning acid and so on). Usually a processing needed some other materials from other processing craft or end-product (consumable dagger for skinning et sim.).
So you really needed to cooperate and buy materials from others.
And now the master point. There was something like catalysators. By products when processing (hide had strings, ore had essences, gem had dust etc.). You didn't need catalysators for 0-3 items, but you need one for 4. level items and 2 for 5. level items (end-game gear).
For 6 types materials, it was 1-3 (so 18 combinations), for 10 types materials 1-2 (20 combinations), and you had to add the catalyst to be able to create the product. And every character had seed, which means that you couldn't ask anyone, which catalyst to use, you had to find your own. This took effort and materials, but then you found the recipe and could create that particular item. This means, that you had "master crafters" who could make particular items, and those masters were sought after and respected for being masters of that particular weapon or so.
I liked this system, for you were specialized in something particular and not everyone on the server could push out that item but you, or few. It also hold the price of items high, because not everyone could do everything. To compare to arelith, it is like paying half a mil. on materials to learn to craft the item, which can only few people on the server create. Something like that.
And this was on server, where was 20-30 players in peak (primetime).
And by the way, if you thing, that everyone would do the manufacturer, actually the richest people were those making leathers and selling those to tailors.
And again, this is not suggestion, just different concept.

[Cagus]

I've played in servers where the crafting system progression was detached from character level and it always results in mass production of iron daggers for exp. There's no way around it except adding billions of scripts of 'if X happens then bla bla bla" to address every possible way to game it.

Could be solved by getting a lot of exp for the item first time created. Then you would prefer to make one dagger, one hatchet, one sword, one hammer, one axe and so on.
Which is one script+table.

[AstralUniverse]

I've played in servers where the crafting system progression was detached from character level and it always results in mass production of iron daggers for exp. There's no way around it except adding billions of scripts of 'if X happens then bla bla bla" to address every possible way to game it.

Could be solved by getting a lot of exp for the item first time created. Then you would prefer to make one dagger, one hatchet, one sword, one hammer, one axe and so on.
Which is one script+table.

eh.... it's still flawed in so many ways and easy to game, but if we do this (and fine tune it for months/years until it makes sense) and also remove commoner from the game, I'm on board.