A fundamental design problem

[TinyCuts 2]

I agree 100%. The way it's currently setup does not lend itself to fostering a thriving economy.

[Notorious 67]

8 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

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.

Me personally if I came across a freeport and you had gear for sale  while I had a pocket full of gold, I'd 100% buy yours.  I hate crafting but in PVE in enjoy it. In PVP I'm full on warrior. Again this is why I like the tree....gives you choice of, Are you a full rounded player or a player that wants to be standing last. As fast as I can lose gear in this game I'm always open to stocking up on high-end armour. It's so little points to wear basic armor .

The crafter will always be able to sell. Let's be serious though in PVE I don't feel the drawbacks of not having a full tree unlocked for armour because it actually feels normal.  But in PVP it's huge. Reminds me of the old days when I played Quake and this new mouse came out, was a razor boomslang or something I can't remember but it had 10 000 dpi. I was so fast online that i could single handedly destroy clans solo lol . Was amazing .....

[Notorious 67]

11 minutes ago, TinyCuts said:

I agree 100%. The way it's currently setup does not lend itself to fostering a thriving economy.

How if you don't mind me asking? You take the effort to craft and find the blueprint where I don't and I come across your base and you offer to sell me some. I don't no many that wouldn't buy it. I don't have to get all the materials needed which can take hours if not days. But in a few days of playing if not hours I can wear that armour. No chance I'm gonna be crafting armour of high quality in just a few hours of starting.  But if I got the gold or whatever you need for that upgraded fur or plate I'm buying it hands down.

[TinyCuts 2]

OK, just so we're being clear and on the same page. with the amount of effort that goes into collecting the materials needed to create Legendary and Mythic level armor. Are you so easily going to have the gold you need to be able to purchase this gear when not on your own home island where I'm assuming your stores of gold might be located? People haven't begun to sell much of this stuff currently is my guess, but I can see gear costing thousands of gold. So you'll be able to carry that around to simply buy something off of someone else? No, the more likely answer is that you'll find someone within your company who can do it, or find some way to slug through doing it yourself. I'm my company's high int crafter, and my bonuses are starting to grow nicely on what I make. Plus, if I intend on upgrading any of these Legendary+ items those upgrades alone could cost into the thousands of gold, so I question your capability of easily being in a position to afford purchasing high end armor... 

You add to the fact that with some effort you can craft the stuff on your own because of the skill tree requiring it, and I wonder which route you actually end up taking?

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

14 minutes ago, Notorious said:

 

The crafter will always be able to sell. 

I think this is the only point where we disagree. I do not see the current design choice as encouraging sales for the crafter, while you say that the crafter will always be able to sell. I have seen MMO's where crafters were unable to sell because of design choices by development teams that did not prioritize economy. Oh in theory they could sell, there just wasn't any meaningful market for their goods, and I think this may be what you are overlooking. The current design choice restricts rather than encourages the market for crafted goods. We can debate to what degree, but this fundamental fact is fairly obvious and straightforward.

[Notorious 67]

If I played a week I shouldn't be rolling around in mythical armour. Lol. If I played a few months of coarse I'll have the gold to purchase that armour. The money isn't in mythical armour it's in the journeyman class.

[TinyCuts 2]

My company of 5 people has already grown beyond Journeyman level armor, though when and if there is a market for said gear, sellers will need to probably have an assortment of quality if they aim to cater to the masses. Though my company keeps aiming higher because that's the point of the game, and there are too many things that require resources to burn mats on lesser quality gear that my guys won't wear.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

Just now, Notorious said:

If I played a week I shouldn't be rolling around in mythical armour. Lol. If I played a few months of coarse I'll have the gold to purchase that armour. The money isn't in mythical armour it's in the journeyman class.

which is signficantly easier to obtain the mats for. Most people can get 3 versions of a mat class fairly easily, it's that fourthe and fifth and especially sixth that become increasingly harder, so far more players will craft their own JM if they can wear it because it will be easier. Also I don't know if you have looked at the base stats baked into jm class, but they are far less appealing than those of higher classes. As presently constructed I would argue that JM gear isn't likely to be heavily upgraded and sold when players evaluate cost of doing so vs return. The returns look a lot more worthwhile in the higher stuff, as they should.

[corpse 13]

I agree that this is a bad design.  What is the best solution?  I like the idea of quality of gear being related to level.  It would give more meaning to the basic BP's.   I do like the basics, because we are a small company - about 10 of us, only 5 on regularly.  We have several ships between all of us.  We each have our 'Main' set of gear, but if we sail out on adventure, but don't come back home right away, our gear is out there somewhere else.  I craft sets of basic, or sometimes green quality items to be used by whoever is on my ship.  They just need to repair and replace it into storage before fast-travel.  The only other thing I can think of would be to have a new skill tree - expertise.  It would have small point cost for different things - armor, riding, melee, something along those lines. 

[Notorious 67]

Lots of gamers are lazy, the 4 or 5 of this mtls needed is a pain in the ass for most. That alone gives the seller an open market. Most player you would even sell that gear to will lose it and back again to buy more. Then you have the weekend warriors that don't have the time to craft but have gold to burn and will buy it. I'm not against making a better market for the sellers. I guess until trading has become more a thing in the future update we shall see how long people sit on high end gear. 

For example I hate farming as in crop plots, yet I've tamed my animals with the best type of food needed every single time. Started trading shoulder pets and moved all the way up the food chain and now my preserving bags are full of crops.

I'd trade high lvl elephants for example or the dum amount of gold I have. Will be interesting if the trade markets will actually have gear in stock to purchase.will sell out so fast. As the saying goes build and they will come.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

1 minute ago, Notorious said:

I'd trade high lvl elephants for example or the dum amount of gold I have. Will be interesting if the trade markets will actually have gear in stock to purchase.will sell out so fast. As the saying goes build and they will come.

If everyone had a baseball diamond in their cornfield, would those ghosts have shown up at Ray Kinsela's Field of Dreams?

If everyone must have the ability to build it before they can come, the number who will show up to yours is going to be less than it could. We could sit here and argue and theorize about how much less and why, but it is a plain simple fact that the number will be fewer than it could be and I have yet to see any compelling argument for why the present requirement has any benefit to counter this negative.

Also, I think you are making a mistake of assuming that a far larger percentage of the playerbase shares your personal disdain for crafting. Some players disdain crafting, in an MMO with crafting, most do not since it is one of the core mechanics. As I've previously stated, my position is based on having played games where developers who did not care about stimulating economy instituted similar restrictions, with the result that there was little to no market for crafted gear. There are examples of existing and past games that prove that simply having crafting in your game does not equate to presto ECONOMY!

[ptonfm 7]

1 hour ago, boomervoncannon said:

If everyone had a baseball diamond in their cornfield, would those ghosts have shown up at Ray Kinsela's Field of Dreams?

There were currently baseball fields all over America and the ghosts DID show up at the Field of Dreams.

It's not like he has the only baseball field.

But that has nothing to do with Capitalism.  

1 hour ago, boomervoncannon said:

my position is based on having played games where developers who did not care about stimulating economy

WHAT. GAME.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

12 minutes ago, ptonfm said:

There were currently baseball fields all over America and the ghosts DID show up at the Field of Dreams.

It's not like he has the only baseball field.

But that has nothing to do with Capitalism.  

WHAT. GAME.

He had the only baseball field built by plowing his own cornfields under because he heard a ghost.

I’m not arguing that baseball analogies are equivalent to capitalism, only that the statement if you build it they will come doesn’t apply very well to the problem the thread is about. Thus are the limits of argument by analogy.

Neverwinter.

 

[DilBert 42]

Never tried yet but can you repair equipment that is a higher tier without the skill? if not then you still will need the skill. 

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

I think you need only the correct crafting station, but the fact you need the skill to be able to use the thing at all makes this a moot point.

[Notorious 67]

Pulled over by the cops today.....they said I need a license to drive a car. Unreal.....

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

Does anyone have a problem grasping the core argument here that number of players who will be specced into a given skill to be able to use the armor/weapon/tool < all players and therefore the restriction needlessly limits the crafters potential market?

I have seen people attempt to nitpick this point by arguing based on their personal preferences that the impact of this limitation will be minimal. I disagree but that is an area where there is room for debate. What I have yet to see is anyone present a compelling argument why the limitation itself has any value or merit. At best people have said well it doesn’t require you to use too many points to be able to wear it, but they cannot offer a fundamental reason why that limitation is a design choice that has merit, only that its neagatives are not overly strong.

The far more common industry practice of level gating armor tiers makes far greater sense imo, as lower levels are unlikely to be able to assemble the variety of needed mats anyway.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

13 minutes ago, Notorious said:

Pulled over by the cops today.....they said I need a license to drive a car. Unreal.....

This isn’t a comparable analogy because driving the car is demonstrating use. The game requirement equates use to building, in effect saying before you can get a drivers license you must first demonstrate the ability to build a car. If you went to get a license to drive and were confronted with engineering and metallurgical tests that would indeed be unreal.

Edited February 12, 2019 by boomervoncannon

[MeatSammich 214]

A solution to it would be to have any tier gear usable by everyone - everyone wants the better gear, after all. Just change the ability to use the gear to a bonus to effectiveness. You took tier 3 in tools, you get a boost to harvesting amounts, or to stamina drain when you use the tool. Armor, you already get the speed and stamina benefits, just have the base speed penalty for not being speced into armor be slightly higher with each tier

[Rats 30]

Flag claiming/spamming is the design problem of this game.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

3 minutes ago, Rats said:

Flag claiming/spamming is one design problem of this game.

Fixed.

Also there are numerous threads addressing that topic. Please do not attempt to drag this thread off topic.

Edited February 12, 2019 by boomervoncannon

[MeatSammich 214]

10 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

Fixed.

Also there are numerous threads addressing that topic. Please do not attempt to drag this thread off topic.

But, the biggest problem is the fact that I have to spec so far down the tree to use masterwork flags to spam and offline raid people, while not finding any land to claim.

Edited February 12, 2019 by MeatSammich

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

6 minutes ago, MeatSammich said:

But, the biggest problem is the fact that I have to spec so far down the tree to use masterwork flags to spam and offline raid people, while not finding any land to claim.

Masterwork flag spammers sounds like a great name for a company.

[MeatSammich 214]

1 minute ago, boomervoncannon said:

Masterwork flag spammers sounds like a great name for a company.

Only if they live in lawless and have no claims.

[Asanna 86]

From a small clan standpoint this hurts.

I shouldnt have to waste skills in armory when I wont be crafting my own armor just to wear what's been traded to me.

Yes, yes, yes, "blargh join a big tribe" no. Get out of the mindset that people want to even put a little trust in people they dont know. Some of us like the small play and with people we've been gaming with for years.

Back on topic, I think it should very much be tied to the type of armor/weapons being used. I dont think a stone pickaxe or cloth armor should fall into the skill tree. I understand there are common BPs that increase the items, but I feel like the quality should rise with the type of armor/weapon with "rares" being stuff you wouldnt expect. For example, I have 6 BPs for legendary cloth hat, wtf lol. The highest I have for a good armor is Masterwork fur boots, I feel like it should be harder to find certain stuff and I know I'm probably a minority because that just makes the game harder.

 

Edited February 12, 2019 by Asanna