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boomervoncannon

A fundamental design problem

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1. Requiring the skill to craft in order to use armor/weapons/tools.

2. Stated design goal of fostering economy and trading.

These two items are fundamentally at odds and I'm not sure why anyone should even need to mention this tbh. If crafters can't sell their wares to others because those folks don't have the necessary skills just to be able to use the thing they're buying, this is a dampening factor on potential economy and trade to put it mildly. No one will buy things from others they can craft themselves, so the requirement defeats the idea of trade. Also, if you are going to build stats into gear, you are effectively requiring people to take gear trees or voluntarily gimp themselves compared to others. This is a mechanic with zero upside that I can see and multiple significant downsides.

The thinking that might even have led to the decision to have initial design go in this direction frankly eludes me. I cannot imagine what the goal or benefit might have been.

Edited by boomervoncannon
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I couldn't agree more.

I know I would struggle to make a shirt from a bolt of fabric, but I still know how to put a shirt on ^.^

 

The only reason I can see for this is to stop people speccing into a tree, creating what they need and then respeccing.

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4 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Was this added in today?

It has been this way from day one. In order to wear armor above common quality one must spec into armor, same for weapons and tools.

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1 minute ago, boomervoncannon said:

It has been this way from day one. In order to wear armor above common quality one must spec into armor, same for weapons and tools.

Ah it's about BP's, thought it was the armor and tools in general. 

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Just now, Percieval said:

Ah it's about BP's, thought it was the armor and tools in general. 

Well you don't get stats from common armor and tools, so I figured it would be pretty well understood that BP's were what was being talked about.

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1 minute ago, boomervoncannon said:

Well you don't get stats from common armor and tools, so I figured it would be pretty well understood that BP's were what was being talked about.

I usually don't read all you say. I stopped at 'idea of trade', that's why.

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2 minutes ago, Percieval said:

I usually don't read all you say. I stopped at 'idea of trade', that's why.

Thus we see the problems that arise from commenting on posts you've not bothered to take the time to understand.

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1 minute ago, boomervoncannon said:

Thus we see the problems that arise from commenting on posts you've not bothered to take the time to understand.

True, but that's maybe the PvP'er in me, concerning the subject.

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3 minutes ago, Percieval said:

True, but that's maybe the PvP'er in me, concerning the subject.

As a pvper, the lower level bp's like green and blue are definately not worth the time to really bother with. The legendary and mythic bp's are sporting stat boosts that especially once upgraded by a crafter with high intelligence might be something you don't want to ignore. Just a heads up.

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22 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

Well you don't get stats from common armor and tools, so I figured it would be pretty well understood that BP's were what was being talked about.

I have a few common bps from maps that give extra stats. cheap to make and maintain. lol

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1 minute ago, boomervoncannon said:

As a pvper, the lower level bp's like green and blue are definately not worth the time to really bother with. The legendary and mythic bp's are sporting stat boosts that especially once upgraded by a crafter with high intelligence might be something you don't want to ignore. Just a heads up.

I never bothered with it, but I can imagine small groups would.

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4 minutes ago, DilBert said:

I have a few common bps from maps that give extra stats. cheap to make and maintain. lol

you have common bp's that give additional health, stamina, weight carry etc?

If so the increments I'm sure are insignificant as almost all fine quality bp stats are.

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they are just barely under green bps. make nice disposable gear. they mostly average int the 108%-114% range.  

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3 minutes ago, DilBert said:

they are just barely under green bps. make nice disposable gear. they mostly average int the 108%-114% range.  

Well their value is definately currently in the fact you're not required to spec into to use them, but this only highlights the absurdity of the present requirements imo.

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The skills to use upgraded gear are usually near the skills to make the gear, but aren't always, however the skills to use upgraded gear don't give you everything needed to effectively make the upgraded gear.

They don't give you the blueprints, you still have to work your ass off to get good ones of those

They don't give you the int bonus that makes what you make even better

They don't give you the materials needed, which for Mythic means you need 6 varieties of each material, and Mythos.

 

So yeah, while people with the skills to use the gear have the prerequisite to create base versions of those items, they don't automatically get the needs to actually construct them, which could take significant further effort.

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8 minutes ago, Archsenex said:

The skills to use upgraded gear are usually near the skills to make the gear, but aren't always, however the skills to use upgraded gear don't give you everything needed to effectively make the upgraded gear.

They don't give you the blueprints, you still have to work your ass off to get good ones of those

They don't give you the int bonus that makes what you make even better

They don't give you the materials needed, which for Mythic means you need 6 varieties of each material, and Mythos.

 

So yeah, while people with the skills to use the gear have the prerequisite to create base versions of those items, they don't automatically get the needs to actually construct them, which could take significant further effort.

True and valid points, however anyone familiar with the most basic concepts of marketing will understand that if you limit potential customers to those that have chosen to take a given skill tree to at least some degree, you are reducing by a wide margin the potential market to sell to. Using an analogy, one of the reasons beer commercials are ubiquitous on commercial television is because everyone of legal drinking age can drink and enjoy beer, the potential market for it is effectively the entire adult population. Advertisements for PediaSure, a beverage designed to deliver needed nutrients for growing children and sometimes the elderly are less common because the market is far smaller. Atlas's developers have effectively made all crafters marketers of PediaSure instead of beer for no particularly good reason that I can see.

Edited by boomervoncannon
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56 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

1. Requiring the skill to craft in order to use armor/weapons/tools.

2. Stated design goal of fostering economy and trading.

These two items are fundamentally at odds and I'm not sure why anyone should even need to mention this tbh. If crafters can't sell their wares to others because those folks don't have the necessary skills just to be able to use the thing they're buying, this is a dampening factor on potential economy and trade to put it mildly. No one will buy things from others they can craft themselves, so the requirement defeats the idea of trade. Also, if you are going to build stats into gear, you are effectively requiring people to take gear trees or voluntarily gimp themselves compared to others. This is a mechanic with zero upside that I can see and multiple significant downsides.

The thinking that might even have led to the decision to have initial design go in this direction frankly eludes me. I cannot imagine what the goal or benefit might have been.

Yeah, it's a baffling design decision that the only purpose seems to be an artificial skill point sink, like many of the branches in the skill trees. The idea that you would need special skills to wear better clothes/armor or shoot a better quality gun is nonsensical. And the idea you would need to be able to craft it before you can use the better quality versions is even more ridiculous. 

Imagine you won the lottery and went to go buy a Porshe, and the dealer said, "Well, first you have to prove to me you can build a Porshe from the ground up, and only then can you drive one!" 

You don't have to know how to make something in order to use it. It's weird that we have to explain things like this to the devs. You don't even have to know how to make something to maintain or repair it. 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Warspectre said:

Yeah, it's a baffling design decision that the only purpose seems to be an artificial skill point sink, like many of the branches in the skill trees. The idea that you would need special skills to wear better clothes/armor or shoot a better quality gun is nonsensical. And the idea you would need to be able to craft it before you can use the better quality versions is even more ridiculous. 

Imagine you won the lottery and went to go buy a Porshe, and the dealer said, "Well, first you have to prove to me you can build a Porshe from the ground up, and only then can you drive one!" 

You don't have to know how to make something in order to use it. It's weird that we have to explain things like this to the devs. You don't even have to know how to make something to maintain or repair it. 

 

 

It's doubly weird given that there is little precedent for it in the MMO genre and none that I'm aware of in MMO's that support significant economy. The thing makes no sense whatsoever from about five different angles and on top of that I can't find a single angle from which it would make any sense.

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20 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

It's doubly weird given that there is little precedent for it in the MMO genre and none that I'm aware of in MMO's that support significant economy. The thing makes no sense whatsoever from about five different angles and on top of that I can't find a single angle from which it would make any sense.

Just turn "have to have the skill" into "have to be level 20 to equip" and it's functionally the same.

They could take the skills out, reduce the number of skill points you get to normalize, and then set the level requirement to about the level that they expected you to need in order to use the gear, but that's a logical no-op.

There ARE games that have absolutely no requirements on using gear, but they're usually the exception.  Level requirements are pretty normal.  They just added another layer on top where since levels get you skill points and you need to spend skill points on it, however you can skip better gear and go more into ships etc. if that's your fancy.

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At lvl 50 you start to have so many points. Even a solo player can spec into armour and build ships and tame.If i built  upgraded plate leggings  for example and wanted to sell it, well I'd hope the person wanting that armour would be able to sacrifice the very few points needed to wear it.

After lvl 50 even medium groups have more than enough points between them to craft everything and still have points into armor. Now at lvl 57 for example i just have pretty much everything i need to survive solo if my crew isn't  online. Most players are not going to put points into mythical gear for example at an early stage because it's hard to make and most players wont even be able to buy it until later on.

I personally like the skill tree and how I have to think about my points and what my role is.

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3 minutes ago, Notorious said:

At lvl 50 you start to have so many points. Even a solo player can spec into armour and build ships and tame.If i built  upgraded plate leggings  for example and wanted to sell it, well I'd hope the person wanting that armour would be able to sacrifice the very few points needed to wear it.

After lvl 50 even medium groups have more than enough points between them to craft everything and still have points into armor. Now at lvl 57 for example i just have pretty much everything i need to survive solo if my crew isn't  online. Most players are not going to put points into mythical gear for example at an early stage because it's hard to make and most players wont even be able to buy it until later on.

I personally like the skill tree and how I have to think about my points and what my role is.

I personally don't see how creating a limitation that is both thematically nonsensical and trade inhibiting (you can talk about sacrificing only a few points all you want but my experience is I know fewer players at or near max level specced into armor than I do who are not, and those are not mostly solo players) is a benefit in any way shape or form. I am all for creating the need to make decisions about a build and not allowing everyone to do everything, but your argument wears thin when you start to look at what the full benefits of wearing and using these things cost.

If the full armor tree worth of points isn't important, why do the non wearing skills exist? If these non wearing skills are important, then failing to take them is gimping you in the use of armor in order to do other things. I know of no game that puts significant stats into gear, then forces players to choose between using that gear, using that gear effectively, and fully having other professions.

The bottom line is that any experienced game developer will tell you that a good general primciple in game design is limiting choices and options is poor design, providing choices and options is good design (with the caveat that number of choices not be overwhelming in quantity or complexity).  The present design only limits choices, it does not increase them in any way, and there is no meaningful benefit to doing so that I can perceive.

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I play both PVE and PvP , in PVE my skill points in armour goes to journeyman blueprints super cheap and really no reason why anyone wouldn't have it.

Now PVP this is where the tree is amazing.  We have one person that does all crafting and has high lvl Intel. My tree in armor is almost maxed for this reason. 

1. With full plate armour I can still run really fast, they don't have points into that so I get a boost. If they have armour but no points in the tree good luck keeping up to me.

2. Weather is less affected when I wear it. There was a heat wave and my character was fine and I can tell you other players were feeling it.

3. Durability is huge in a game. I'm running around fighting players animals weather etc. But for the hour I'm fighting my armour is still good especially when their armour brakes first.

4. Punching our use of hand weapons is faster while using armour when you have points into it. If they don't well I got a boost again.

This is personal opinion and I like yours above but I also like how it is. In PVP if I sacrifice my points and they don't I will usually win face to face.

In PVE adding points to movement  is nice. Because running away from alphas when you have a full set of armour is important because I need time to stop turn around and give the middle finger to the alpha and then keep on running to my destination or to safe place so I can cheese kill it with my bow lol.

 

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8 minutes ago, Notorious said:

I play both PVE and PvP , in PVE my skill points in armour goes to journeyman blueprints super cheap and really no reason why anyone wouldn't have it.

Now PVP this is where the tree is amazing.  We have one person that does all crafting and has high lvl Intel. My tree in armor is almost maxed for this reason. 

1. With full plate armour I can still run really fast, they don't have points into that so I get a boost. If they have armour but no points in the tree good luck keeping up to me.

2. Weather is less affected when I wear it. There was a heat wave and my character was fine and I can tell you other players were feeling it.

3. Durability is huge in a game. I'm running around fighting players animals weather etc. But for the hour I'm fighting my armour is still good especially when their armour brakes first.

4. Punching our use of hand weapons is faster while using armour when you have points into it. If they don't well I got a boost again.

This is personal opinion and I like yours above but I also like how it is. In PVP if I sacrifice my points and they don't I will usually win face to face.

In PVE adding points to movement  is nice. Because running away from alphas when you have a full set of armour is important because I need time to stop turn around and give the middle finger to the alpha and then keep on running to my destination or to safe place so I can cheese kill it with my bow lol.

 

Okay I can see how this creates increased nuance within the use of armor. Do you want just to be able to wear it, or wear it without drawbacks? I will say that presenting players with choices where they are spending to remove negatives rather than spending to increase positives, while mathematically equivalent, will be less warmly received by players. My core point is still this: 

If the requirement to craft is the same as the requirement to wear, I'm betting that the majority of those that can wear will choose to craft for themselves and this will sharply limit the market for selling crafted items. Having skills that improve the effectiveness of armor or eliminate drawbacks is fine, because it is far less likely to negatively impact the market for crafted armor, to say nothing of weapons or tools.

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