Loot-Craft and Time Investment = Reward System Discussion

Hello everyone, this may be a really long and controversial discussion for some people, so I will break it into multiple parts. Talking about me and why I believe that discussing this topic is really important in now-days mmorpg genre is because of ridiculous amount of RNG > Time Investment to progress through out the game industry. I really want this game to succeed so I want to get this discussion running right now to get more public opinion on it. I am sure that there is better ways to implement few things, but the main idea still stands.
I apologize if there is any grammar mistakes, English is not my first. If I had any programming or design experience in gaming industry, I would for sure have joined your team, Intrepid.

You may skip this part about my history
Quick talk about me

I am one of the younger generation of gamers; however, I have a long history of playing almost every mmo-game on market and have been playing mmo-games religiously for 10 years. Being a semi-casual PvPvE tank/healer in games, I have focused on every part of the game I played starting from: gathering and crafting to hardcore raiding and arena PvP to guild siege wars.
I have played countless amounts of hours of BDO, GW2, RIFT, WOW Classic, ArcheAge, Warframe, Monster Hunter, Dragon Nest, ESO, B&S, WildStar, RevOnline, Perfect World, Albion, Lost Ark, Bless Online and heading deeper into the games that should have never existed due to ridiculous amount of P2W and poor gameplay. If I haven't played it, I heard all about it (GW1, WOW as a whole, SWG)

Main Discussion
EDIT2: Crossed out few things that was already confirmed on the wiki but left few things to still add to it **

Looting
Looting in games have always been something that included so much RNG that it didn't matter how good or bad of a player you were. It also didn't make any sense to get a top tier sword off a dragon boss in a raid or pair of leather gloves of a stone golem boss when they don't possibly carry it around on their body. I have heard in the previous developer streams that you will follow logical approach to looting; however, does that also apply to raid/dungeon bosses and world/elite bosses? **

Another question pops up: Why do I only get 1 dragon claw loot off a boss that has 5 on each limb, or 2 pairs of gloves off a humanoid boss when he is wearing only 1? Sure - fail at gathering materials may get you less of one type, but would it matter if you have a high tier leather worker with you to gather exponentially MORE leather/hide due to experience?
That is what I call Time Investment > RNG. Not only you need to have a good group of dps and healers to do the dungeon, but you would also bring in the whole entire point of crafting and gathering into the game. Having few high level miners in the raid group would bring you more loot from a golem boss once gathered, for example. You do not need to interact with the body to boost the loot given, but having a higher average miner score of everyone in the group would scale it up. **

Once all the materials have been obtained, (example rare dragon fang, 4 claws, 10 leather) who would craft those items into armor and weapons? You would need to have a high level leatherwork to process that leather + more ingredients into armor. Would you need to find someone who can craft the sword for you if you don't have metalwork?

Crafting is confirmed to be extremely difficult to master**
Yes, you would have to go out and find someone to craft it. Don't implement request boards (please, please, please) it just ruins the whole idea of player transaction. Make the crafting player houses worth while to check and talk to other people to find what you need. Don't make crafting into unessential part of the game, it is the main structure of player economy. Those who want to focus on crafting should be the kings of economy, those who want to focus on gearing up should be the kings of raiding and pvp. In a realistic game, those two groups of players must balance the essential need out, PvE players must depend on PvP and vise versa.

How hard would it be to level up a crafting profession? MONTHS, every part of the game should be time invested to reach the TOP. What is the point of reaching Master in crafting if you can do it in 30 minutes of processing, where is the REWARD for reaching Master of Crafting? You have to work for it to be the best, not only processing excessive amount of materials (that you probably bought with gold) to get the top. Why does making a sword only takes 5 seconds next to a bench?
If you want to be the master, you have to invest time into it. Making a hilt for the sword should take at least 30 mins, processing high tier dragon fang and sharpening it into a sword or a dagger should take hours. This lazy, uneventful crafting system (of WOW or GW2 or RIFT) is made for kids who cannot wait or know the value of time. Make it realistic, make it feel like that crafting this sword for my guild is something everyone be excited about once its finished! KILL-LOOT-REPEAT should stop, this is not what a mmorpg game IS (SWG crafting system example). Make every piece of equipment take time to be obtained, not only top tier legendary loot.

Durability
Durability in games have always been something that players would just pay little amount of cash to repair at NPCs. Why does my leather set never get old, never wears out? Why when my weapon reaches 0% durability, it is just unusable and not completely broken? Players should be mindful of their gear condition, if its broken, its a penalty. A heavy penalty. Make people have to use the same materials that the leather armor that they crafted it with to repair it. It would keep the market flowing. Make higher tier crafters repair it more efficiently and make it last longer. **

Legendary
What specifically people looking in top grade armor and weapons? Higher stats, unique look, better grade level, difficulty of finding/crafting. Make them indestructible, make them permanent unlike any other item in game. Have a unique look to it, something that everyone can recognize from far away no matter how rare it is. Don't make them overly unbalanced, it would break the game with top tier guilds overpowering low tier, but make them unique with buffs and bonuses to their owner. (Fire sword does extra fire dot, ice staff made of dragon wing provides a frost shield to its owner and etc.) Achieving a legendary weapon or armor should be rewarded for someone who master the content (like GW2 legendaries) and should be something that everyone look towards to.

Dungeons
Talking about dungeons, from the last stream on 4/30/2020, you have pointed out that dungeon would get more and more difficult the deeper you dwell into one. From knowing that dungeons will supposedly be huge and part of open world, each one should have something for everyone. Same as nodes, dungeons would be best if they were changeable and randomly generated room by room, not only mob changes or mechanics (like Waframe system or No Man's Sky), over specific period of time dungeon structure would change. Open new passages and close the old ones, vice versa. This is what I would love to see in a game unlike any other one previously. The more players explore the dungeon, the more they will know about the changes to it in the future. Give them some bonus to spending time exploring it. Finding that one raid boss room should be difficult, but once found it should be a reward of its own.
You have used the same randomized system with your nodes and NPCs, this is the spot to impress everyone if you can still do it this far into the development.

Raid Loot Distribution
The main thing that always pissed me off and probably not only me is the loot distribution. Spending time in game to get materials to get better is my main goal and when it comes to party or raid difficulty content, there is always someone who did it all for nothing.** Killing a boss should be rewarding to everyone who participated. Make people who participated in events get loot, not just afkers. (RIFT and GW2 system) Dungeon loot should have 2 different pools, personal small loot pool for each character and bigger raid pool with buy out and bidding** (the one affected by gatherers).

Off topic: Raid Bosses/Elite DPS
Looking at the dungeon presentation and the raid boss room (which looks amazing by the way) on your stream last month, many people pointed out that lava wasn't doing any environmental damage. Of course that is just a test without any heavy mechanics to it, but I personally want to see more than just lava damage.
To better explain it, each raid boss room - lets talk about the lava room presented - should have overall de-buff on each player in the room. The longer you stay in the volcanic room, the more "overheat" debuffs the character accumulate. That debuff will "lock" 5% of your character hp, that means you will have 5% less hp total. Stacking continuously until healers cannot keep up.
To balance that out, when the dragon is closer and closer to dying, it will get weaker and weaker. So it will do less damage, which is technically still be the same amount due to your "HP lock" if the raid damage is enough to beat the boss. The faster you kill the boss, the easier the fight. Those with better gear would be able to do it easier.
Technically speaking - this is backwards enrage. Instead of boss enraging and getting 1000% more dps and defence from failing dps check, you just simply die to its normal attacks due to staying in the boss room for too long. Of course some monsters/humanoids will have different mechanics, but the point of getting weaker and weaker closer to death still stands. The raids should be difficult but not reaction time dependent. Making 8-9 mechanics for a boss is unnecessary confusing. (Making raids similar to GW2 difficulty is the best personally) It would mean that healers have to pay a lot more attention to the raid than normal heal>tank to survive. Unavoidable room attacks (like in Wildstar) is just lazy design and too easy to out gear in the late run.

Off topic: Casual Friendly
Even though I called myself semi-casual, I have a huge stance again casual players overall. Casuals need everything brought to them on a silver plate in shortest amount of time possible. New content?

Casuals - "You better make NPC green gear better than top tier gear in the last patch"
Developers - "Okay"

Looking at the condition of many of the games with big content updates (WOW, FFXIV, RIFT) they have completely removed the importance of old content and provided the worst new content items that were better than top tier old content. In the future, do not delete the importance of old content and do not give out items on a silver plate because that will just make players quit faster because they beat the game FASTER. MMORPG games are about the end-game, but it is also about the road that you take to reach the top, do not remove chucks on the road for those who are too lazy to walk.

Conclusion
Thank you for everyone who did read this long post and commented your opinion on my view of the time investment > rng. Developers, I hope you consider some of these ideas in your development and make this game less casual friendly and focus on players who actually want to explore and enjoy your game. MMORPG community members are depending on dedicated people like you to make the right choices for this genre.
This discussion was a lot about bringing up the crafting professions up; and knowing that Ashes of Creation will have a lot of its attention on crafting in the future with node systems and housing; I want to give these ideas out right now before it is too late. Trading and crafting in a game is what makes a normal solo hack and slash game into an mmo. I feel like over the years many companies lost that idea and many younger people never had to wait for anything to be done. That doesn't mean that younger generation is right.
Please comment your ideas of some of these topics, either you are a pro player who only PvPs and hates every single word I say here, or casual crafter who would enjoy having their own little market open to smelt some PvP swords for those who need them.

Contact me on Ashes of Creation discord if you want : [BadPotato] Mary#9987

EDIT: If I have mentioned some of the things already announced by Intrepid, it would be great to know. I try to be up to date with the information posted online, but I might have missed few things here and there.
EDIT2: Crossed out few things that was already confirmed on the wiki but left few things to still add to it **
EDIT3: Confirmed that the high level gathering professions will be affecting total loot pool from a specific boss

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Comments

Plateau

That's a lot of semi-related topics... And it's late at night for me right now, so I'mma get back to this later. For now, I'll just say that I think Intrepid has most of these points in mind already. They're planning to have meaningful crafting/gathering, which tie together the economy and community. They're planning to have a lot of things which reward time investment (probably too much time investment for my taste, but I'll live with it). And they aren't too fond of RNG (although there will still be some random loot).

Also, I am obligated to link the ashesofcreation.wiki, in case you haven't checked it out already. 90% of the things Intrepid has announced or talked about are catalogued there, so you can get a decent picture of what Intrepid wants to do with the game.

Noaani

A few general points.

I am all for a longer crafting time on items - but only if it is engaging. It needs to be active and interesting, and perhaps most importantly it needs to be only applied when players are making high quality items.

If a system is put in place where it takes hours to make a single item that is only being made for experience, people will simply stop leveling up as a crafter.

To me, there should be two crafting systems. There should be a basic system that is there for leveling up and for any quests that require a crafting component, but then there should also be a system for when you are making an actual good item. This second system should involve an amount of ability from the player, so a form of mini-game. It is then possible to have the items general power be influenced by how well the player does in that mini-game.

Item repair make use of the same materials that were needed to craft the item, which should keep the market for these materials stronger than in some games.

RNG with loot is an issue in most games, but the idea of looting an item that is then used to craft the desired reward gets around this nicely. As to why a dragon may only have one claw - that dragon was just in a battle with 40 other players, and it lost. The other claws may well have just been damaged beyond usefulness.

EQ2 also got around random loot in an interesting way for some zones. In zones that had class based loot as the boss drops, the game would only drop loot for a class that was present in the raid, and didn't have the item on them. Thus, the randomness of the drops became less and less, to the point where a raid that had all the items could take someone along with none of them and guarantee them a full set of raid level, class specific armor after a few hours (often in exchange for a good chunk of coin).

This sort of thing would be horrible if it happened on every encounter, but on a few encounters that allow a raid to always get an upgrade for someone in the raid, it was useful.

BadPotato

leonerdo wrote: »

That's a lot of semi-related topics... And it's late at night for me right now, so I'mma get back to this later. For now, I'll just say that I think Intrepid has most of these points in mind already. They're planning to have meaningful crafting/gathering, which tie together the economy and community. They're planning to have a lot of things which reward time investment (probably too much time investment for my taste, but I'll live with it). And they aren't too fond of RNG (although there will still be some random loot).

Also, I am obligated to link the ashesofcreation.wiki, in case you haven't checked it out already. 90% of the things Intrepid has announced or talked about are catalogued there, so you can get a decent picture of what Intrepid wants to do with the game.

Oh, thank you for pointing out the wiki for information, I should have looked into it previously to making this post to update myself on newer info posted. Last time I have checked it, about 6 months, I haven't really seen anything that I was mentioning here. That is good to hear.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Looting

There is no information on how crafting will be for now, however. They are mentioning that it is somewhat similar to Star Wars Galaxies in quality of resource, but I wonder if the crafting itself will be similar to Star Wars Galaxies.

The big points with SWG's crafting were as follows:

1. Any point on a sliding scale between combat and non-combat gameplay was viable. If you wanted to play a character who did crafting skills fulltime, your ability to play the game and progress in whichever ways you desired was not impeded (check)

2. Crafting skills required the use of materials that had to be found through exploration and were randomly generated (check)

3. The components of an item could be made up of varying materials that each had their own qualities making the final product better or worse in different areas. Specific materials would change in value on the market based on their supply and demand. (check)

4. Almost every item in the game was crafted, and almost every item in the game required eventual repair. This meant that crafters were in very high demand. (repair is known to have higher "cost" but not specified, bosses drop either full crafted loot/materials/silver pieces according to Steven)

5.1 You were limited to 1 character per account per server and it was skill based with a limited number of skill points available. (unknown about crafting points)

5.2 And items didn't just need repair, they would eventually break. (somewhat known from podcast in 2017, only says that repair cost will increase as item decays -Steven)

noaani wrote: »

A few general points.

I am all for a longer crafting time on items - but only if it is engaging. It needs to be active and interesting, and perhaps most importantly it needs to be only applied when players are making high quality items.

If a system is put in place where it takes hours to make a single item that is only being made for experience, people will simply stop leveling up as a crafter.

Disagree, just because leveling a profession is hard, doesn't mean it is not worth it.

"There is no labor or energy system in Ashes. However, that's not to say that crafting will not be difficult. Crafting is very difficult; but it is because it is difficult that it will be very rewarding as well." - Steven interview in 2018

I am tired of having people making 10 alts and buying materials to level up professions in one day. Crafting should be a part of the game for those who don't want to engage into combat. Game should reward crafters for spending time on crafting as much as game rewards raiders for spending time on combat activities. Hardcore crafter guild should be the one buying Merchant Metropolis, not a big raid guild member who sells gear/rare mats on market. That is their reward for spending time and energy on crafting and trading 100% of their game time.

Crafting at this time in the mmorpg industry because a casual friendly profession, if you are a crafter - you just spend time on boring uneventful grind of materials. Those who take it seriously don't get rewarded like those who raid or pvp in the game.
Being a crafter shouldn't be available to maxed out easily for everyone. It is a class of its own, a whole entire half of the game. Only small amount of people (similar to top raiding guild) can be on top.

noaani wrote: »

RNG with loot is an issue in most games, but the idea of looting an item that is then used to craft the desired reward gets around this nicely. As to why a dragon may only have one claw - that dragon was just in a battle with 40 other players, and it lost. The other claws may well have just been damaged beyond usefulness.

Sure it is broken or smashed beyond usefulness, but it should be reasonable similarly to MHW or Dauntless. I know it is different type of games and there is no breaking parts off in Ashes, but it is most reasonable in quantity of loot dropped compared to any other game out there.
That is the point I also addressed, would a high level skinner be able to boost the amount of party pool loot received? Would the be a benefit for those who take their time doing both types of game activities? Gathering can be easier to level up than crafting, but it does require an exploration so it will take time either way.

Caeryl

I'm on board with basically all of this. My biggest concern at the moment is being able to at any point totally make out a profession line (as it stands you are allowed to master every Gathering profession for example). That just starts to invalidate new player who would like to approach crafting. If a handful of people in the guild can cover every single profession with just 3 alts, that's not a good thing.

I'm also very concerned about loot rules. Having no instanced loot at all means someone in the group is gonna get screwed over. At least with instanced loot you never walk away with nothing. There needs to be more loot freedom besides getting the first-hit/last-hit, because that shit is the most annoying thing in the world.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

I'm on board with basically all of this. My biggest concern at the moment is being able to at any point totally make out a profession line (as it stands you are allowed to master every Gathering profession for example). That just starts to invalidate new player who would like to approach crafting. If a handful of people in the guild can cover every single profession with just 3 alts, that's not a good thing.

I'm also very concerned about loot rules. Having no instanced loot at all means someone in the group is gonna get screwed over. At least with instanced loot you never walk away with nothing. There needs to be more loot freedom besides getting the first-hit/last-hit, because that shit is the most annoying thing in the world.

I completely agree that the crafting system as described is a bit of a worry, however, I don't believe the ideas in the OP are the way to fix it.

Some of them would work, but absolutely not all of them together.

If an item takes 2 hours to make, that means it will take crafters a combined total of 32 hours to fully gear out a single player character. If we assume that half the items will be drops, that is still 16 hours of combined time for one character.

In order to be a way to make profit, a game needs roughly 1 crafter per 10 adventurers. With 10 crafting classes, it means one needs to be able to service 100 players for their specific service.

If you are trying to service 100 players, and all you are doing is a single weapon for them, that is 200 hours of crafting. Thing is, in that time, those players will want upgrades and repairs as well. Basically, in order for the numbers in the OP to work, the game would need as many crafters as adventurers.

My understanding of look rules was that loot will go to the group that has dealt the most damage. In terms of open PvE combat, this is the fairest way to do it, as obviously the group that did the most damage is the group that did the most killing.

If you are in a group that is trying to get a kill and you are not sure you will do the most damage, you can always just attack the other groups.

The only issue I see with this is if groups of DPS classes go around and try to snipe kills. I doubt this would be very easy, but even if they did manage it, in order to get the loot they need to have done the most killing.

(note to self - during beta, test the viability of a glass cannon class with long range and stealth)

It is also worth noting that the current ratio of open world to instanced content is looking set to be 80/20. As far as I can tell, this is of all content - and since most solo and small group content will be open world, it is safe to say there will be at least a reasonable amount of instanced group and raid content.

Even if only 20% of raid content is instanced, that is still a good amount.

Noaani

BadPotato wrote: »

Being a crafter shouldn't be available to maxed out easily for everyone. It is a class of its own, a whole entire half of the game.

Crafting isn't half of the game.

Edit; The only way you can consider crafting to be half of a game is if you break a game in to crafting and adventuring.

This is completely ignoring the fact that adventuring is broken down in to solo, group and raid in every game. It is completely ignoring that 90% (or more) of game development resources go in to adventuring as opposed to crafting. It is completely ignoring the fact that 90% (or more) of the games world is dedicated to adventuring as opposed to crafting.

It is also completely ignoring other aspects of game play that the game may offer - which in the case of Ashes is all things ocean related.

I agree that crafting should be more than it is in virtually every MMO out there, but it is not half of any game.

To me, in a game like Ashes, crafting should be roughly 12.5% of the game (a very specific number, considering I said roughly).

Crafting, solo adventure, raid adventure, economy, node and ocean should all be roughly equal in terms of both player and developer time spend, and group adventure should be roughly twice the size of any of these.

BadPotato

noaani wrote: »

BadPotato wrote: »

Being a crafter shouldn't be available to maxed out easily for everyone. It is a class of its own, a whole entire half of the game.

Edit; The only way you can consider crafting to be half of a game is if you break a game in to crafting and adventuring.

Yeah I mean that there is combat (dungeons, pvp, raids, adventure and questng, trading) 50% and noncombat (crafting, gathering, economy management, resource finder, building management, trading) 50%

I understand that crafting on its own will be low percentage overall (12.5%) but as Steven said that crafting will be required in the game unlike others.

Another thing I found online is Jeffrey talking about crafting in more detail in a livestream in 2018 saying

I think Star Wars Galaxies had a great crafting system... The resource gathering and the crafting system altogether as a whole really was I think way beyond its time. That's kind of the direction we want to go, where there's choices to be made in the crafting system and those choices change what you end up with... It's not just about doing X recipe to get Y item. You know, there's actually thought involved in it and there is you know a market to be captured based on those decisions.

Even thought you might not be a fan of 100 players being involved to craft one item or taking almost 2 days for a set of armor, but I am in complete agreement that is how it should be. MMORPG genre is getting to the point where progressing is extremely easy and you can reach endgame within 1-2 weeks. That shouldn't be the case, the longer you make the progression, the more that reward for being able to kill specific dungeon boss will be.
Since the dungeons will probably have no cap on how many boss kills you can get per day or how many attempts you can do on raids (WoW classis for example with 1 MC raid per week), durability and slow crafting time will slow down those who will grind those bosses 24/7. Those people will have no choice but stop and wait for their get to upgrade to continue on more difficult content. It would make preparation for each raid run extensive without implementing 1 per week limit.

I can see with their node system that they will be making the top tier cities (which can be brought down at any point with siege) take almost a year to complete by whole entire population of the region. This is not the game that should be quick grind fest and I got all mythic gear by the end of the month.

BadPotato

Caeryl wrote: »

I'm on board with basically all of this. My biggest concern at the moment is being able to at any point totally make out a profession line (as it stands you are allowed to master every Gathering profession for example). That just starts to invalidate new player who would like to approach crafting. If a handful of people in the guild can cover every single profession with just 3 alts, that's not a good thing.

I agree, PvE professions should have some kind of limit to them where it is impossible to focus on Hardcore raiding and level gathering profession to max, only possible for those playing 22/7 and get 2 hours of sleep for a month or two. Since I didn't really play Star Wars Galaxies, I haven't experienced them myself unlike my guild mate who played hardcore for 5 years.
However, I played ArcheAge and even though there is a lazy limit of labor (energy) on everything it slowed down progressing to endgame to about 2-4 years long (sadly there was no reason to progress in that game). It would take you about 23,000 minutes, 16 days, to level 1 profession to max if you had unlimited labor cap (around 2-3 months technically if you only did that each day).

I'm also very concerned about loot rules. Having no instanced loot at all means someone in the group is gonna get screwed over. At least with instanced loot you never walk away with nothing. There needs to be more loot freedom besides getting the first-hit/last-hit, because that shit is the most annoying thing in the world.

That is true, that is where a system like in Guild Wars 2 event participation or RIFT open world events comes in.
Having a bar that tells you exactly how much loot your would receive if you hit or buff those who are fighting through period of time. Receiving the loot = to % of boss hp remaining when you join the fight.
However, it is up to developers on how they want dungeons to be run, would outside help be more beneficial or would that be avoided to keep the difficulty of each boss?

The dynamics of who has the authority to gather the loot will be decided based on testing.

Party leader.
First tagging raid.
Most damage done.

With regards to the dynamics of authority, you know, who gathers those things, exactly what is that: The party leader of the first tagging raid. Is that the most damage dealing. Is that the you know whatever: Those are things we've got a test in testing and see how they turn out.[20] – Steven Sharif Interview in 2018

The loot tagging system is still being finalized.

Either or, there should be some kind of loot participation percentage to make players would want to join the fight with you instead of reseting or flagging up on you every boss fight.
Example:
75% of the boss hp remains -
1. Kill the party that is killing the boss to get higher percentage of the boss loot (75% to 100%)
2. Join the party that is killing the boss to get 75% or less of the boss loot (75% to 5%)
3. Move on without interfering without any loot
25% of the boss hp remains -
1. Kill the party that is killing the boss to only get that 25% of the boss loot (25% to 50%)
2. Join with the party that is killing the boss to get 25% or less of the boss loot (25% to 5%)
3. Move on without interfering without any loot

There should be a limit on how much dungeon PvP should affect other groups. Would it be uncontrollable to the point where high geared groups would want to gank new players for boss loot or follow them closely behind? Would it keep people staying separated to earn 100% of the loot compared to only 25%?

I would like to see on this topic more, what is their goal with public dungeons when it comes to stealing bosses.

Noaani

BadPotato wrote: »

Even thought you might not be a fan of 100 players being involved to craft one item or taking almost 2 days for a set of armor, but I am in complete agreement that is how it should be.

Game developers won't allow a situation where players have to wait for gear to be made in order to adventure.

Developers spend so much time on adventure content, they want players out participating in it. They don't want players sitting around town for days while an army of crafters make the gear for them that will last the next 10 levels.

Crafters need to be able to keep up with (or exceed) the demand for items that adventurers generate. If they can't meet that, the developers will have no option other than to give players more dropped item options.

Players will wait days - or even a week if needed - for a top end item that will last them a long time. Players will wait hours - or a day if needed - for a good item that will last them a few months. Players will wait minutes - or an hour if needed - for an item that will last them 10 levels.

If you want crafters to be valued and important, that is the framework that needs to be worked within. Any time a player wants an upgrade to their leveling gear, they should be able to get it within an hour - if they have the materials and/or money to acquire it.

Since the dungeons will probably have no cap on how many boss kills you can get per day or how many attempts you can do on raids

There is no reason to assume open world raid bosses won't have a long respawn timer. In most games, that respawn timer for open world raid encounters is between three and ten days.

I mean, Intrepid are competent developers, and they are also happy for players to fight over things. Seems to me like they would chose to make these encounters rarer so they are fought over.

That only applies to content that is open world - which is 80% of the content last I heard. The other 20% will be instanced, and there is no reason to assume there won't be a timer on that content.

BadPotato wrote: »

Those people will have no choice but stop and wait for their get to upgrade to continue on more difficult content.

This is not how raiders think.

If you force raiders in to needing crafters to raid, all that will result in is all raid guilds having enough crafters in house to never need any others. If crafting items becomes the gate to raiding, then that gate will be overcome by the guild as if it were any other gate.

This will result in a number of players in raid guilds having the full resources of that guild behind them to help them level up what ever crafting classes the guild deems necessary.

I've seen one game where one class was needed by raid guilds. The guild I was in at that time level up a crafter by having a few guild members locate themselves in one area, and take shifts leveling the character. The character didn't stop crafting for 62 hours, maxed out, and we carried on as if it was nothing.

If you assume 2 hours a day of solid leveling to be average, that is a months worth of leveling up that crafter that they did in a few days. If the leveling process is longer than that, the people would have simply carried on longer.

If raid guilds go in to Ashes after alpha and beta knowing that they will need specific crafting classes to raid, they will have the first max level of every class on every server - this is just how we operate.

If the idea of crafting is to have it as a somewhat stand alone play path, one where crafters service all players, you really don't want to get in to a situation where raid guilds feel the best thing for them to do is to level their own crafters.

BadPotato

noaani wrote: »

If you force raiders in to needing crafters to raid, all that will result in is all raid guilds having enough crafters in house to never need any others. If crafting items becomes the gate to raiding, then that gate will be overcome by the guild as if it were any other gate.

This will result in a number of players in raid guilds having the full resources of that guild behind them to help them level up what ever crafting classes the guild deems necessary.

I've seen one game where one class was needed by raid guilds. The guild I was in at that time level up a crafter by having a few guild members locate themselves in one area, and take shifts leveling the character. The character didn't stop crafting for 62 hours, maxed out, and we carried on as if it was nothing.

If you assume 2 hours a day of solid leveling to be average, that is a months worth of leveling up that crafter that they did in a few days. If the leveling process is longer than that, the people would have simply carried on longer.

How I understand SWG crafting worked is that you didn't need to sit around and micro-manage crafting 24/7, players could get macroed crafting recipes and not worry about it for 2-20 hours and gather crafting materials in a meantime.

I agree, leveling gear should be "easier and faster" to make unlike top dungeon or raid gear as you say.

However, I disagree with the point that there will be a need for 6 people to log in the same account to max out the profession due to SWG system. Having 5 main crafters (lets say one of each gear crafting profession) in a big raiding guild will not be enough, if each full set takes (as you say 36 hours to complete) 5 main crafters in no way gear up 40 man raid in 3-10 days of time given all the materials from guild as a whole.

That will require either a full balance of example - 225 raiders and up to 75 full time nonstop crafters in a raid guild. It will be extremely hard to supply 75 players with same amount of materials to level up and be impossible to make gear for all raiding groups if guild is active. They would have to rely on outside the guild force to min-max.

Edit: If raid guild requires that many crafters to min-max, so be it. Being in a successful guild doesn't mean you can't do anything that is necessary to fully support themselves. 300 man guild don't have to rely on anyone else if they want that.

Edit2: Also mentioning the fact that bigger guilds will have less bonuses for other things in a guild skill tree. That would mean that smaller crafting guild would be exponentially faster at leveling a profession if they choose to spec into that.

If you think about a small raiding guild then they wouldnt be able to have enough crafters, if you have a big raiding guild they will not have enough bonuses to crafting like small ones. Only choice is to make a raiding-crafting guild alliance.

Beor

Balance is the key word here. Times and peoples mentality have changed and I'm personally one of those people who have had enough of runescape-like neverending grinding or AA rng for example.

Noaani

BadPotato wrote: »

I agree, leveling gear should be "easier and faster" to make unlike top dungeon or raid gear as you say.

That's basically my main point.

As I said, I agree with what you are saying in general, just not on some of the details.

BadPotato wrote: »

However, I disagree with the point that there will be a need for 6 people to log in the same account to max out the profession due to SWG system.

There won't be a need for it, but raid guilds look for the most efficient way to get a task done, rather than looking for the easiest. If the most efficient way to do what needs to be done is for players to take shifts leveling a character, that is what they will do.

If a raid guild of 50 needs to have 50 crafters, that is what they will have.

BadPotato wrote: »

Also mentioning the fact that bigger guilds will have less bonuses for other things in a guild skill tree. That would mean that smaller crafting guild would be exponentially faster at leveling a profession if they choose to spec into that.

This is assuming guilds are easier to level than crafting classes or nodes.[/quote]

Even then, I doubt crafters in a pure crafting guild will level up faster than raiders in a pre-existing raid guild.

As I said, they will have a detailed plan going in to launch day. They will know what classes they will want, they will know what players will have those classes, they will know what items to make in order to level up most efficiently, and they will know exactly what materials they need to make those items.

Before the game launches.

As I said, efficiency. Ruthless efficiency.

The best thing a game can do for crafting and dedicated crafters is to not force raiders in to the crafting sphere. Having items for raiders be made by crafters is good, but it does need to be done in a way where the pool of people wanting to craft for craftings sake can satisfy the demand from adventurers. As soon as that demand isn't being met, raiders will cut crafters out of their situation.

BadPotato

noaani wrote: »

If a raid guild of 50 needs to have 50 crafters, that is what they will have.

Don't see that as a bad thing and talking about most efficient, SWG macros was the most efficient way to do it. No need for continuous 24/7 monitoring so idea of using multiple people on one account is not going to bring any more good than one.

The best thing a game can do for crafting and dedicated crafters is to not force raiders in to the crafting sphere. Having items for raiders be made by crafters is good, but it does need to be done in a way where the pool of people wanting to craft for craftings sake can satisfy the demand from adventurers. As soon as that demand isn't being met, raiders will cut crafters out of their situation.

I dont see how not forcing PvErs into doing PvE content is a bad thing.
I mean if you are a straight up PvPer, you are still forced to go through story line and leveling and getting money through PvE.

Why do raiders have a privilege of only want to raid and not do anything else and be the richest / most geared on the server?
If you do not want to craft, give the request to those guilds who focus on crafting. Get alliance and that way you will never have to deal with crafting or any other part of the game. Balancing supply and demand is the main thing in this, if they make hardcore progression demand more than being supplied then any economy would crash.

This is assuming guilds are easier to level than crafting classes or nodes.
Even then, I doubt crafters in a pure crafting guild will level up faster than raiders in a pre-existing raid guild.

I feel like there will be certain minor buffs from the start. As Steven mentioned

"As you're leveling up the guild and you're getting these points to either allocate towards expanding the guilds member count or allocate towards adding certain passive abilities that your guild members can gain by being guild members. You're also going to see as you're leveling up the guild through different type of quest-based, participation-based, node-based, organization-based systems and ways that those quests hook into the world. You're also going to see perhaps some augment abilities at the upper tiers of the guild levels become unlocked for certain members that have a classification of officer or knight, will have access to those different types of augment abilities that might get unlocked should you go down the non expansive member lane; and the idea there is to offer these benefits to smaller groups."

Leveling a guild doesn't only involves doing raids or killing mobs, so I can say the same. You are assuming that raiding guild would level it faster than crafters on same hardcore-determined level.
Mentioning augment abilities and passive tree to guilds who choose to progress into that. At the beginning of the game even a small boost of 5% more crafting exp to a hardcore crafting guild would bring them higher than a hardcore raid guild. Especially counting that you can craft for others if they got no more mats 24/7.
Raiding guild would have an allied hardcore crafter's guild, either it is their alts or other guild mates, that is what ruthless efficiency is no matter what.

BadPotato

Beor wrote: »

Balance is the key word here. Times and peoples mentality have changed and I'm personally one of those people who have had enough of runescape-like neverending grinding or AA rng for example.

And I am sad to see that. Nowadays mentality wants to chew, spit and move on after a taste. That is how games are getting created now, and that is why there is no content out there that will keep people engaged no matter how fun it is, because it is too easy to get to and through it.

Ravudha

I'm on board with making artisan mastery take months as long as the potency of crafted goods sits roughly in line with the difficulty of content that is unlocked by nodes.

Plateau

Mmm, all of that sounds fine and decent, but if crafting (and leveling crafting classes) is supposed to take a really long time, then that time ought to be spent doing something other standing in place, waiting for a bar to fill up.

I can see 3 ways of that being the case, in order of likelihood:

The majority of crafting time is actually spent obtaining materials. Exploring, gathering, fighting, trading. This implies that materials are scarce, and needed in large quantities, so that you can't just buy everything you need to craft/level up off the auction house. Or at least, it would cost a ton of money which took a long time to obtain.
Crafting is full of long completion timers (minutes/hours) which you set-up relatively quickly, and then you can leave to do other stuff until the craft is complete. Like how a lot of mobile games work (and BDO's worker system, I think?)
Crafting is actually a suite of full-fledged mini-games, which are engaging for long periods of time, just like combat. (One can only dream.)

I suppose the final solution could combine all of these possibilities.
______

And some quick thoughts on RNG, because honestly there's not much that needs to be said. I don't think there's room for nuance in these statements: RNG content (AKA procedurally-generated content) is fine, and oftentimes it can even be fun. RNG mechanics are fine, as long as there is always a path to success (no getting fucked uni-laterally by RNG).

RNG rewards are garbage. I do content for fun, or for specific rewards; so don't fucking make me do it a random amount of times to get the thing I want. At the very least, RNG should be capped. i.e. There should be a system that guarantees you can get the rare drop you wanted after X number of runs. (e.g. End-game raids in FFXIV always drop one totem/token, and you can just buy a loot drop with 4-10 tokens. So you're guaranteed to get something every 4-10 runs. Super rare mounts costs 99 totems though

)

That is all. (Lmao like I could ever just say "that is all" and stop typing/editing things. Nice joke, me.)

Okay wait, one more thing. Loot bidding is a great idea. Obviously, despite what I said, there will probably be some RNG behind loot. BUT a loot bidding system removes a good chunk of that randomness, because you almost never walk away with nothing. (Unless all the loot was crap and nobody in the party wanted any of it.)

In case someone doesn't know what I mean by loot bidding:

Loot drops happen the same way as usual, but it is distributed differently (as opposed to need/greed, lootmaster, or round-robin). Everyone who wants the loot bids an amount of gold for it. There can be several rounds of bidding. In the end who ever wanted it the most, or could afford to lay down the most money, gets the item. Crucially, the money paid by the winner goes to everyone else. So everyone gets something, and next time around, the losers will have more money to bid.

Caeryl

noaani wrote: »

It is also worth noting that the current ratio of open world to instanced content is looking set to be 80/20. As far as I can tell, this is of all content - and since most solo and small group content will be open world, it is safe to say there will be at least a reasonable amount of instanced group and raid content.

Even if only 20% of raid content is instanced, that is still a good amount.

Instanced loot refers to loot being distributed to everyone on a player-by-player basis, so long as they met the qualifications for looting by dealing/healing/tanking enough damage. It has nothing to do with whether the dungeon you went into is instanced.

imo it’s far superior to any kind of bidding system because if you actively participate in combat, you’ll never be left with nothing to show for it.

Obviously you’d bring gatherers to harvest enemies in addition to the basic instanced loot, but that would be something you’d do to get rare materials and higher quality loot. Anyone can yank a Rough Dragon Scale off a corpse, it takes a particular skill to locate and perfectly extract a **Delicate Blazewing Scale**.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Instanced loot refers to loot being distributed to everyone on a player-by-player basis, so long as they met the qualifications for looting by dealing/healing/tanking enough damage. It has nothing to do with whether the dungeon you went into is instanced.

Before answering, are you referring to a system whereby everyone in a group shares the spoils of the loot from encounters equally (so an alternate system to RNG or leader assigned loot rules), or are you talking about when killing a mob, any player in any group that has earned done X amount of damage to it gains loot rights, and so is a replacement for the group doing the most damage to the encounter getting the loot.

I've never heard that term in regards to loot before, and your description fits both of these situations - both of which I dislike, but for different reasons.

Caeryl

noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Instanced loot refers to loot being distributed to everyone on a player-by-player basis, so long as they met the qualifications for looting by dealing/healing/tanking enough damage. It has nothing to do with whether the dungeon you went into is instanced.

Before answering, are you referring to a system whereby everyone in a group shares the spoils of the loot from encounters equally (so an alternate system to RNG or leader assigned loot rules), or are you talking about when killing a mob, any player in any group that has earned done X amount of damage to it gains loot rights, and so is a replacement for the group doing the most damage to the encounter getting the loot.

I've never heard that term in regards to loot before, and your description fits both of these situations - both of which I dislike, but for different reasons.

Instanced loot is player-based. It has no regards to groups. It doesn’t split loot amongst a party, it allows every player that has loot privileges (granted by the game, not by any group lead) a draw from the mob’s loot table, completely independent of anyone else.

I’m of the opinion groups should not get loot, individuals should get loot dependent of their performance. Loot controlled by group leads only discourages pick up groups and just makes it needlessly difficult to obtain items with relative consistency.

Edit: To put it simply, everyone sees different loot. BL3 has an option for instanced loot, ESO is an MMO that has instanced loot. It means you can never loot-ninja, or be loot-ninja’d

BadPotato

Okay wait, one more thing. Loot bidding is a great idea. Obviously, despite what I said, there will probably be some RNG behind loot. BUT a loot bidding system removes a good chunk of that randomness, because you almost never walk away with nothing. (Unless all the loot was crap and nobody in the party wanted any of it.)

Steven have said that there will be similar system to a buy out system with loot "Intrepid are investigating a potential bidding system, which allows players to bid on items instead of rolling for them.[1]
The highest bidder wins the item.
The gold then goes into a pool that is split among the rest of the party members."

Caeryl wrote: »

Instanced loot is player-based. It has no regards to groups. It doesn’t split loot amongst a party, it allows every player that has loot privileges (granted by the game, not by any group lead) a draw from the mob’s loot table, completely independent of anyone else.

I’m of the opinion groups should not get loot, individuals should get loot dependent of their performance. Loot controlled by group leads only discourages pick up groups and just makes it needlessly difficult to obtain items with relative consistency.

I agree with that point, but might add that having a second system of raid loot pool to add to that will be also very beneficial and will work with bidding system mechanic. Knowing that Ashes will have a standard loot rules like any classic mmorpg does (WoW, RIFT, AA) kinda shows that potentially there might not be any individual loot OR there might be individual "low quality material" loot but also "Rare item" group loot pool that is affected by those standard rules.

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