Should there be perks to having a crafting main?

There are 3 types of artisan classes:
• Gathering
• Processing
• Crafting

There are a great deal of advantages to having a gatherer main in MMORPGs. Picking up materials everywhere you go is pretty useful. A lot of games allow you to send all of your gathered items to an alternative character and reap the benefits of having a crafting and processing alt. Should this allow for players to obtain all of the benefits of crafting and processing or should there be benefits to having a main character that crafts/processes? If you would like to see mains have a benefit to being crafters/processors, what would it be?

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Jahlon

The perk to having a crafter main is that you get to make the items that you can sell for lots of gold.

Don't need a bigger perk than that.

Jamation

I don't really understand what's being asked, but a character will gain bonuses for mastering one of the paths:

Wandering Mist

I remember back in the day WoW used to give special perks to crafters. Blacksmiths for example had access to extra gem sockets that increased the stats on your gear. The problem with this is that it made crafting mandatory for competitive raiding, which just added to the amount of filler fluff that raiders needed to do that, chances are, they didn't want to. It also devalued the people who were dedicated to crafting since literally everyone made max level crafting.

Tam Hawkins

He means that people have to specialize as gatherer, crafter or refiner and gatherers as main with crafter/refiner as alt have and advantage over crafter/refiner main with gatherer as alt.

Your main character is the one that travels around the world as such you came across all kind of gathering spots and materials -> can gather while doing other things, then send it to the crafter alt.

If your main is a crafter/refiner your ability to gather will be limited which means that you cannot gather everything and switch to your alt if you want more materials instead of switching to your alt to craft with the materials you take out of storage. -> more running around involved.

OPs question seems to be if there should be anything to make up that advantage.

To OP: I'm not sure if that advantage is really all that big seeing that you will need caravans to move ressources around. That makes it somewhat unlikely that you will harvest large amounts of resources as a side activity it seems more likely that you go out in specific planed harvest ventures. The only exceütion for that would be extremly rare materials that you can only harvest in limited amounts to beginn with, that might be an advantage.

*Edit: there migth be one advantage of a gatherer alt. If you do not level up your alt and leave your gatherer as a lvl 1 non combatant a end lvl player would get much more corruption. Of course you could just have one main that is a gatherer and 3 alts that are crafter/refiner/gatherer.

Hartwell

I do think that there are going to be some level of benefits to specific crafts on main characters. There are things such as armor and weapon repairing for yourself, guildies, and party members. Other than that, it would be pretty productive to trickle in some resources every time a character ventures out. I'm a bit worried for refiners, alchemists, etc. What would be the advantage to making furniture out in the world? There are some things that just feel like they must be on alternative characters, which is completely doable for a lot of people. I would just be kind of bummed out if I wanted to main that kind of artisan. It would be a lot more productive to go another route if everything was within reach of an alternative character for a certain profession.

Jamation wrote: »

I don't really understand what's being asked, but a character will gain bonuses for mastering one of the paths:

I don't believe that I remember this. Thank you for sharing. I hope there are some meaningful things for crafting and processing mains that Steven has planned.

Hartwell

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I remember back in the day WoW used to give special perks to crafters. Blacksmiths for example had access to extra gem sockets that increased the stats on your gear. The problem with this is that it made crafting mandatory for competitive raiding, which just added to the amount of filler fluff that raiders needed to do that, chances are, they didn't want to. It also devalued the people who were dedicated to crafting since literally everyone made max level crafting.

Yeah, the Burning Crusade went kind of ham with direct combat bonuses to professions. They even later put some abilities and stat boosts in for gatherers, to keep things even. I hope that doesn't become a thing. It creates more issues that it solves, although I do understand it in WoW's case with how the engineering profession is basically peak combat advantages.

Wandering Mist

Hartwell wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I remember back in the day WoW used to give special perks to crafters. Blacksmiths for example had access to extra gem sockets that increased the stats on your gear. The problem with this is that it made crafting mandatory for competitive raiding, which just added to the amount of filler fluff that raiders needed to do that, chances are, they didn't want to. It also devalued the people who were dedicated to crafting since literally everyone made max level crafting.

Yeah, the Burning Crusade went kind of ham with direct combat bonuses to professions. They even later put some abilities and stat boosts in for gatherers, to keep things even. I hope that doesn't become a thing. It creates more issues that it solves, although I do understand it in WoW's case with how the engineering profession is basically peak combat advantages.

WoW has flip-flopped back and forth between crafting being absolutely useless and being mandatory with no middleground. It doesn't help that even when it was mandatory, crafting in WoW was boring and 99% pointless. Aside from the crafter-specific bonuses, everything you could make from crafting was outright worse than anything gained from quests or dungeons.

darthaden

Crafting is something I haven't really followed to close so maybe they've already touched on this but I'd love to see a system that rewards diversity in your crafting. Most games I've played people just spam the cheapest items to level. To combat this I'd like to see diminishing returns on xps. For instance you craft a iron dagger and you gain 10 exp, craft a second one and you get 9 exp, a third one you get 8exp and so on.

Wandering Mist

darthaden wrote: »

Crafting is something I haven't really followed to close so maybe they've already touched on this but I'd love to see a system that rewards diversity in your crafting. Most games I've played people just spam the cheapest items to level. To combat this I'd like to see diminishing returns on xps. For instance you craft a iron dagger and you gain 10 exp, craft a second one and you get 9 exp, a third one you get 8exp and so on.

The way you combat that is to give people a reason to craft the items for the items themselves, not just as a means to level up their crafting.

GW2 sort of has a system like you describe, where the first of an item you craft gives you lots of exp because you are "discovering" the recipe for it. Crafting an item after you've discovered the recipe gives significantly less exp.

Of course, this just means that instead of mindlessly spamming a single item, players mindlessly spam lots of different items to level up fast, but the problem remains the same - players crafting just to max out their crafting skill. In the case of GW2, the only crafted items of any real worth are max level items, so anything below that is meaningless.

ssweet

Yes, if I create a main character that is only focus's on Artisan (Gather, Process, Craft) I definitely would want abilities or gear that a adventurer would not have. One issue with many other MMO’s is when gathering you do not have enough space for random monster loot and the materials you are gathering. Having a ‘gathering satchel’ which can carry a LARGE number of raw materials would be needed. A ‘crafting chest/satchel’ would also be needed in holding manufactured goods to allow a processor or crafter to focus on crafting and NOT having to run between a crafting area and the bank. Another option is a ‘crafting bin’ which holds these materials that the player can place items that ‘they’ made (prevent using a bin as a warehouse) along with raw materials. Having to swap materials to/from inventory is a PITA.

It is hard enough gathering all the materials for crafting let alone having to spend time running to the bank swapping inventory out and/or having to run to an action house to purchase it. Some might say that make sure you have everything prepared beforehand, but it is more often that my inventory space is low and I miss something or a guild member needed something made quickly….as I run around for 5 minutes gathering ingredients. Sigh.

Ravudha

Hartwell wrote: »

A lot of games allow you to send all of your gathered items to an alternative character and reap the benefits of having a crafting and processing alt.

Just a note from the wiki about warehouse storage:

"Warehouses may enable a player to transfer non-material goods between alts. This excludes resources, materials or anything that relies on the caravan system."

I don't know if the same rule applies to storage chests (e.g. in your house), but I wouldn't be surprised if it does for the sake of consistency.

@ssweet Check out the info on backpacks - https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Backpacks

Noaani

Ravudha wrote: »

Hartwell wrote: »

A lot of games allow you to send all of your gathered items to an alternative character and reap the benefits of having a crafting and processing alt.

Just a note from the wiki about warehouse storage:

"Warehouses may enable a player to transfer non-material goods between alts. This excludes resources, materials or anything that relies on the caravan system."

I don't know if the same rule applies to storage chests (e.g. in your house), but I wouldn't be surprised if it does for the sake of consistency.

@ssweet Check out the info on backpacks - https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Backpacks

If this is the case, other than by selling them, how does one get materials from the player that gathers them to the player that refines them? I mean, this is a system that absolutely does need to exist in some form - the economy depends on it existing.

If it is a simple character to character trade system, then that surely defeats the point of not allowing access to materials that are placed in storage containers in house.

Ravudha

noaani wrote: »

Ravudha wrote: »

Hartwell wrote: »

A lot of games allow you to send all of your gathered items to an alternative character and reap the benefits of having a crafting and processing alt.

Just a note from the wiki about warehouse storage:

"Warehouses may enable a player to transfer non-material goods between alts. This excludes resources, materials or anything that relies on the caravan system."

I don't know if the same rule applies to storage chests (e.g. in your house), but I wouldn't be surprised if it does for the sake of consistency.

@ssweet Check out the info on backpacks - https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Backpacks

If this is the case, other than by selling them, how does one get materials from the player that gathers them to the player that refines them? I mean, this is a system that absolutely does need to exist in some form - the economy depends on it existing.

If it is a simple character to character trade system, then that surely defeats the point of not allowing access to materials that are placed in storage containers in house.

Yes, I take it the gatherer simply trades materials to the processor.

It makes sense to prohibit this transfer between alts if the goal is to encourage economic/social interaction and create an interdependence between players, particularly those specialising in different artisan professions.

Hartwell

The warehouse sounds like a cool system. I doubt it would stop people from working around it, but it would at least get players working together.

Noaani

Ravudha wrote: »

Yes, I take it the gatherer simply trades materials to the processor.

It makes sense to prohibit this transfer between alts if the goal is to encourage economic/social interaction and create an interdependence between players, particularly those specialising in different artisan professions.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to encourage evonomic interaction - just that preventing a player from transferring material from one character to another on the same account won't actually accomplish that.

I mean, who exactly is it that this would cause to play differently?

Any player with an in game friend won't ever have any issues with this - that should be obvious.

Players that play MMO's but don't have friends are not exactly the kind of people that will go out and interact with others for any reason. The kind of people that don't trust anyone in game enough to be able to transfer some raw materials with are generally the kind of people that will look at this situation and either simply get a second account (which will give them a second freehold as well, meaning they can be even more economically isolationist) or just go to another game.

Basically, I don't see a single situation in which a player will look at the inability to use raw materials in their housing across alts as a means to be more economically interactive. So if that is the point, I would say that it will fail. On the other hand, if that is not the point, then what is?

Literally the only thing I see it resulting in is more individual players with second accounts.

This is the thought process that lead me to take the comments made in that particular live stream as being specific to warehouse type storage, not to all in home storage.

Caeryl

noaani wrote: »

Ravudha wrote: »

Yes, I take it the gatherer simply trades materials to the processor.

It makes sense to prohibit this transfer between alts if the goal is to encourage economic/social interaction and create an interdependence between players, particularly those specialising in different artisan professions.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to encourage evonomic interaction - just that preventing a player from transferring material from one character to another on the same account won't actually accomplish that.

I mean, who exactly is it that this would cause to play differently?

Any player with an in game friend won't ever have any issues with this - that should be obvious.

Players that play MMO's but don't have friends are not exactly the kind of people that will go out and interact with others for any reason. The kind of people that don't trust anyone in game enough to be able to transfer some raw materials with are generally the kind of people that will look at this situation and either simply get a second account (which will give them a second freehold as well, meaning they can be even more economically isolationist) or just go to another game.

Basically, I don't see a single situation in which a player will look at the inability to use raw materials in their housing across alts as a means to be more economically interactive. So if that is the point, I would say that it will fail. On the other hand, if that is not the point, then what is?

Literally the only thing I see it resulting in is more individual players with second accounts.

This is the thought process that lead me to take the comments made in that particular live stream as being specific to warehouse type storage, not to all in home storage.

And those will be second accounts they’re required to pay for each month if they insist on going the hermit route.

It’s not supposed to make player in-trading impossible, it’s there to be a barrier so that the first option someone has to move mats between their own characters will never be the convenient option. It’s discouraging hermit behavior in the general populace, and honestly it’ll probably work alright. Of course some people will find ways around it, but it’s not exactly hard to track proxy transfers with friends or funneling behavior with accounts, so if IS really wants to stop it, they certainly can.

But again, the point mostly seems to be discouraging alt-muling as the convenient option. Still possible, but people using the systems as intended will have more convenience allowed them.

Ravudha

noaani wrote: »

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to encourage evonomic interaction - just that preventing a player from transferring material from one character to another on the same account won't actually accomplish that.

It doesn't need to change the play style of die hard alt-thusiasts. It can serve as a deterrent to the many other types of players who may be considering using alts but for whom that feature is not a deal-breaker in deciding (how) to play the game. This includes veterans and new players whose idea of MMORPG game play is currently being shaped by AoC mechanics.

Noaani

Ravudha wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to encourage evonomic interaction - just that preventing a player from transferring material from one character to another on the same account won't actually accomplish that.

It doesn't need to change the play style of die hard alt-thusiasts. It can serve as a deterrent to the many other types of players who may be considering using alts but for whom that feature is not a deal-breaker in deciding (how) to play the game. This includes veterans and new players whose idea of MMORPG game play is currently being shaped by AoC mechanics.

You seem to be forgetting, the only people this will affect at all are the hermit type.

Any veteran MMO player - or any player that a veteran brings to the game - will have no trouble getting around this restriction, if it does end up as per your understanding.

Players new to the MMO genre are only likely to come to Ashes based on a friend's recommendation, at which point they will have that friend to help them transfer materials.

Again, the people that this kind of thing will have any effect on really are only the hermit type crafters - it will annoy a lot of other players, but it won't stop them playing how they are going to play.

I mean, no one is going to specifically not level a crafting alt just because it is a two step process to get the materials their main gathered to them, all they will do is complain that the two step process is stupid.

Which is it.

Ravudha

noaani wrote: »

Ravudha wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to encourage evonomic interaction - just that preventing a player from transferring material from one character to another on the same account won't actually accomplish that.

It doesn't need to change the play style of die hard alt-thusiasts. It can serve as a deterrent to the many other types of players who may be considering using alts but for whom that feature is not a deal-breaker in deciding (how) to play the game. This includes veterans and new players whose idea of MMORPG game play is currently being shaped by AoC mechanics.

You seem to be forgetting, the only people this will affect at all are the hermit type.

Any veteran MMO player - or any player that a veteran brings to the game - will have no trouble getting around this restriction, if it does end up as per your understanding.

Players new to the MMO genre are only likely to come to Ashes based on a friend's recommendation, at which point they will have that friend to help them transfer materials.

Again, the people that this kind of thing will have any effect on really are only the hermit type crafters - it will annoy a lot of other players, but it won't stop them playing how they are going to play.

I mean, no one is going to specifically not level a crafting alt just because it is a two step process to get the materials their main gathered to them, all they will do is complain that the two step process is stupid.

Which is it.

Sure, players can rely on friends for transfers unless they're not logged in, have different play schedules, are occupied, are half way across the map, or don't want to help that particular day.

When it's too inconvenient, it's possible any player may opt to buy materials from the marketplace to save time. That's not to say they have to do it all the time and abandon their alts; it could just be sporadic, but it's still one way the restriction can affect all player types to interact more with the broader economy.

Will it be annoying for people? In-deed. I'm actually wondering if 2-step transfers will even be possible at this point.

Noaani

Ravudha wrote: »

Will it be annoying for people? In-deed. I'm actually wondering if 2-step transfers will even be possible at this point.

The only way to stop 2 step transfers is to stop 1 step transfers.

This will kill the games economy, not enhance it.

Selling materials on the market isn't player interaction - it is 2 players interacting with NPC's. It is not what should be encouraged.

What should be encouraged is players enlisting other players to supply them with what they need. If I am a crafter that uses a lot of iron, I should be able to talk to someone that smelts ore in to iron bars and ask them to supply me with how ever many I think I will need, at what price we collectively deem to be fair. That player should then be able to enlist someone to collect all of that iron ore, supplying as much as that player thinks they will need to fulfill my order as well as any other orders that they may have.

This is actual economic interaction between players, and makes for a far more interesting game than having go to the marketplace to find materials they may want, and then having to go to a different nodes marketplace if what you want isn't there - then having to physically move those resources to where you want them.

So no, the notion of removing this trade won't work in Ashes.

So, since trading will have to be in place, and since trading will be able to be used to circumvent any restrictions that might possibly be put on storage (which at this point are still conjecture), it would seem the logical thing to do is to not have those restrictions on storage in the first place, as they will serve no pratical purpose.

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