Gold cost for Crafters to make items: thoughts?

In yesterday's live stream, at 39:51, they show the Blacksmithing screen and above the Fast Craft and Manual Craft buttons there is a 'Cost' indicator and another that shows Hours, Minutes, and Seconds.

The idea that it would cost the crafter gold per item at a crafting station seems odd to me.

Isn't the cost in the material and time investment for the Crafter?

They aren't out looting mobs and chests, they are making things with their own hands.

What y'alls thoughts on this?

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Ludullu

Taxes are taxes! Everyone pays and no one can escape. Also, quite a lot of crafters won't be buying mats, they'll be provided them.

Gizban

NiKr wrote: »

Taxes are taxes! Everyone pays and no one can escape. Also, quite a lot of crafters won't be buying mats, they'll be provided them.

Taxes don't generally work that way. A retail business is generally tax exempt when buying inventory (or creating inventory), the buyer gets taxed.
(not getting into inventory tax)

Crafters will be provided mats? You mean a guild crafter will be provided mats to produce an item for the giver of the mats?

Ludullu

pyreal wrote: »

Crafters will be provided mats? You mean a guild crafter will be provided mats to produce an item for the giver of the mats?

Yeah, or just a circle of friends sharing everything with each other. Or crafters helping out their nodemates for no price (I know I will do this).

JamesSunderland

I see crafting gold cost as a good thing, considering there is no RNG in Crafting(there is no chance to fail a craft), creating a direct gold sink in crafting seems perfectly reasonable.

Songcaller

I think I would prefer a gold cost compared to an energy cost or some sort. In my mind, it takes money to make money.

Xenra

Having a high enough gold sink would definitely dissuade many from even dabbling in the crafting system or not invest into it once the costs out weigh the reward. Its bad enough you can't gather all the materials yourself for anything worth while with the cap on gathering skill specialization. Gather materials: get PK'd and robbed. Buy the materials... spend more to craft. It would likely devolve into an incestuous circle of close knit groups doing all the crafting and price setting. To many things like this will unfortunately incentivize gold sellers while at the same time push casual players away.

Songcaller

I feel there are two caveats. 1st one is the fact it costs gold for the escrow system, thus, crafters will most likely not have to dip into gold reserves to progress. 2nd one is the fact that crafters should have to do more than just craft at first or the game would not be pvx for those players.

Veeshan

taxes to the city, if crafted in freehold, freehold owner shold get half and then half the city the freehold falls under, (maybe some lost aswell via money sink)

Vargos

pyreal wrote: »

In yesterday's live stream, at 39:51, they show the Blacksmithing screen and above the Fast Craft and Manual Craft buttons there is a 'Cost' indicator and another that shows Hours, Minutes, and Seconds.

The idea that it would cost the crafter gold per item at a crafting station seems odd to me.

Isn't the cost in the material and time investment for the Crafter?

They aren't out looting mobs and chests, they are making things with their own hands.

What y'alls thoughts on this?

Perhaps using gold for item crafting doesn't seem very logical, but it's likely a necessity because such a system will help with the outflow of gold from the game, which will protect it from devaluation.

And for people who engage in crafting and interact with other players (trading), I think they won't experience a shortage of gold. The crafter will provide them with the crafted resources/equipment, and in turn, receive gold for further crafting. And no looting mobs and chests will be required for this.

WeGbored

Are there actually crafting stations?

I was hoping by the screenshot we got that you could craft anywhere.

I could definitely see high level crafting stations being used to craft the best of the best stuff, but being able to craft while you're out and about is awesome.

Ludullu

WeGbored wrote: »

Are there actually crafting stations?

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Crafting_stations

Gizban

WeGbored wrote: »

Are there actually crafting stations?

I was hoping by the screenshot we got that you could craft anywhere.

I could definitely see high level crafting stations being used to craft the best of the best stuff, but being able to craft while you're out and about is awesome.

Under the weapon name it says "Required: Apprentice Weaponsmithing Station"

Go to 40:00

https://youtu.be/3FxHjg0YgiM?t=2400

superhero6785

I think a gold cost to craft is fine. I'd rather pay gold to cover "consumables" (glue, sandpaper, nails, etc.) than the way New World did it where you needed things like sandpaper as a material for woodworking. I'd rather just require logs and gold. Makes balancing the crafting gold sink easier as well, rather than relying on the market for consumables.

Depraved

pyreal wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Taxes are taxes! Everyone pays and no one can escape. Also, quite a lot of crafters won't be buying mats, they'll be provided them.

Taxes don't generally work that way. A retail business is generally tax exempt when buying inventory (or creating inventory), the buyer gets taxed.
(not getting into inventory tax)

Crafters will be provided mats? You mean a guild crafter will be provided mats to produce an item for the giver of the mats?

well, they are paying for the use of the crafting station. also the crafting station needs maintenance and repair :P also you just add that money to the price of the item you are selling and your buyer ends up paying for it, unless you are just mass crafting and discarding for experience?

Azherae

I've thought about this for a while and I don't really feel like we have enough information to say with certainty.

Different games represent the cost of crafting in different ways, but it's generally not a good idea for it to not even exist, in my opinion.

Of the four ways I'm used to, I like this one the least as an 'economy player' and I also dislike it from the perspective of 'game designer trying to figure out what would be the most fun'.

FFXI uses 'crystals', basically every instance of crafting has an item requirement beyond the materials, there's always a cost. This is good for the economy but not high on the fun scale for most people.

BDO uses 'Workers' and 'Tools' (but somewhat inconsistently) and things with durability. Fails on both econ and fun scales.

Most other games I know of use 'Crafting Stations' or some item with durability that is consumed on every craft, similar to gathering, somewhere between the two above. Generally combines better, average for both fun and economy.

And of course there's 'just throw gold at it', which is... 'unstable' in my experience, but I don't think that it can't be done right, I've just never seen it. If the gold cost is 'to rent the crafting station' or 'to repair it', I don't like it.

The thing that BDO achieves is player independence, it's effectively a single player game, they use the Workers and Tools as 'time gates' and 'annoyance factors'.

The thing that FFXI achieves is redistribution. Rich, high level crafters buy their crystals from low level adventuring parties (high level too, but you get the idea)

The "Crafting Stations" games achieve less of both, but it's a solid approach that people don't seem to hate.

"Throw gold at it" gets closer to BDO's 'single player game' but with an addition of a gold sink. In a different type of game I'd think that was good, because it would be 'equal to gathering', but not here. Here, I expect it will lead to the obnoxious outcome that BDO gets where raw materials are always worth meaningfully more than the items you get by crafting them and Crafters are treated as people who don't want to engage with the rest of the game.

But no good developer would recreate BDO's terrible 'crafting system' right? Right?

Xnate13X

NiKr wrote: »

Taxes are taxes! Everyone pays and no one can escape. Also, quite a lot of crafters won't be buying mats, they'll be provided them.

I've never played a game where people provide me mats to train my crafting.. That only happens when you manage to be the leader of a guild or one of their friends that are trusted. I always have to farm mats/gold and merch the AH to pay for maxing all my skills in any game. Must be nice to get stuff for free though..must be nice.

Ludullu

Xnate13X wrote: »

I've never played a game where people provide me mats to train my crafting.. That only happens when you manage to be the leader of a guild or one of their friends that are trusted. I always have to farm mats/gold and merch the AH to pay for maxing all my skills in any game. Must be nice to get stuff for free though..must be nice.

That's a skill issue

I've both trusted people and have been trusted by others to craft them stuff. You just gotta build that trust.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

If the gold cost is 'to rent the crafting station' or 'to repair it', I don't like it.

Could you explain the implications of this that make you dislike it? And what if that cost was just an automatization of the "gets consumed on each craft" item? So the station at a node would consume that item automatically and you'd be paying for that, while crafts at a freehold or just the player shop at a node would require that item from the crafter themselves.

Item acquisition could come in whatever way and on whatever lvl, from mob drops at lvl1 to some artisan profession at the top lvl of progress. Nodes could have these items as task requirement, so even lowbies that have no friends could be a part of the crafting system and get paid on top of that.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If the gold cost is 'to rent the crafting station' or 'to repair it', I don't like it.

Could you explain the implications of this that make you dislike it? And what if that cost was just an automatization of the "gets consumed on each craft" item? So the station at a node would consume that item automatically and you'd be paying for that, while crafts at a freehold or just the player shop at a node would require that item from the crafter themselves.

Item acquisition could come in whatever way and on whatever lvl, from mob drops at lvl1 to some artisan profession at the top lvl of progress. Nodes could have these items as task requirement, so even lowbies that have no friends could be a part of the crafting system and get paid on top of that.

The difference is simply whether or not a player activity is required to recharge or repair the station.

If players gather the coal and wood and whatever else that 'refuels the Crafting Forge in the node' then it's close enough to the same as one of the other ones I don't dislike (not entirely but that's a long discussion).

If that sort of stuff just 'happens because you throw Gold at it and some NPC magically repairs the station' then it's a gold sink, not a player interaction, and economically, this can cause some issues. Not saying it would. Without knowing what their Economy Designer has in mind, there's no way to say with certainty, it would just make me cautious.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

If that sort of stuff just 'happens because you throw Gold at it and some NPC magically repairs the station' then it's a gold sink, not a player interaction, and economically, this can cause some issues. Not saying it would. Without knowing what their Economy Designer has in mind, there's no way to say with certainty, it would just make me cautious.

I'd imagine node tasks would pay out money as a reward. That money would have to come from taxes and any type of npc transactions within the node (unless Intrepid want to have a neverending stream of money for players). So I think that having money-based automated station refueling/repairs would be fine, if it was in the context of "this money pays for the tasks that the node gives out". And the flow of money itself could be controlled by the world manager and depend on whatever Intrepid sees necessary for their economy.

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