THE GREAT CRAFT CHANGE (From Herald)

[Nalrach]

THE GREAT CRAFT CHANGE

Today, the Istarian Crafters Commission met in open session with all crafting guilds to outline proposed changes they wish to implement. Our intrepid dryad reporter was able to be there and was able to gather a few tid bits that we would like to pass along.

There was much discussion about "primary" skills needing to take center stage as it were. There was alot of debate over so called crossover skills like metalworking and the like, and that to make primary skills stand out, most of these ( if not all ) cross over skills would need to be eliminated. The miner and gatherer guilds won a minor coup, when it was agreed that the only crafters that would gain experience from refining raw resources would be miners and gatherers.

No time was decided as to when these changes would be made. But rest assured that we will be following this development very closely in the coming months. We will be passing along ANY news we get, to keep you informed.

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My two bits comment.

The Devs are better seriously think how they want to play that one ... xp for producing final craft item is soo low and short time lived (ie: you still get xp for the brick, but none for construction), that this will kill the levelling of the crafter. Plus I'm not sure I really want to level miner, just to make bricks so that I can craft for mason.

To put this is a serious option on killing the crafter player base.

Instead of nerfing things out, why don't you seek way to enhance the current live craft. Place more XP on the final product, and have the optimized to use i resources. And keep the progression 100%-75%-50%-25% of resources required.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Umm....

First: Your Mason will be able to gather and make bricks - just won't get exp for them.

Second: All final products and for more detailed crafts (ie multi-components) there will be am increase in exp given to offset the losses AS LONG AS ITS IN YOUR PRIMARY SKILL.

Third:All Construction Class Trainers will be offering quests for construction material turn ins (and not the "Make me 5 Construction Blocks" kind - think more like 20,30,40 or even more - Dev did talk about utilizing Tarbashes for these - could even be 100 units) for experience rewards to offset the fact that sometimes there just isn't a construction job out there while you are leveling.

Fourth: All Construction Classes will gain MORE experience for APPLYING units to player and game structures.

Fifth: Why don't you do some research on this first before getting your panties in a bunch.

Maybe it would be better time spent on asking for more use in Tier 3 Construction Materials since your so concerned about your mason skills.

Bulgrim

[Kwinn]

Umm....

First: Your Mason will be able to gather and make bricks - just won't get exp for them.

Second: All final products and for more detailed crafts (ie multi-components) there will be am increase in exp given to offset the losses AS LONG AS ITS IN YOUR PRIMARY SKILL.

Third:All Construction Class Trainers will be offering quests for construction material turn ins (and not the "Make me 5 Construction Blocks" kind - think more like 20,30,40 or even more - Dev did talk about utilizing Tarbashes for these - could even be 100 units) for experience rewards to offset the fact that sometimes there just isn't a construction job out there while you are leveling.

Fourth: All Construction Classes will gain MORE experience for APPLYING units to player and game structures.

Fifth: Why don't you do some research on this first before getting your panties in a bunch.

Maybe it would be better time spent on asking for more use in Tier 3 Construction Materials since your so concerned about your mason skills.

Bulgrim

Bravo Bulgrim! You have a standing ovation ffrom me.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

The Devs are better seriously think how they want to play that one

That's funny, cuz it wasn't a dev that came up with the idea.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Fourth: All Construction Classes will gain MORE experience for APPLYING units to player and game structures.

That should be done REGARDLESS as current XP earned from application is a JOKE. To lose application XP before the builder even loses XP from creating the materials is ridiculous.

[Kulamata]

I don't think someone should be chastised for not having researched this possible change.A crafting overhaulwas not mentioned in the July "coming attractions" in any time frame, or at least not in a form that I recognized. Nor have I seen anything that seemedwell defined, let alone set in stone.

Some players seem to beinformed about such possible changes, but most have not been told much at all. Telling us, the uninformed, that we should be better informed is blaming the victim.

What will the primary skill be? One's current craft class, or a break with the current multi-classing with just one fixed, unchanging, ineradicable class choice?Would there be a primary skill from each group: product crafting, construction, gathering, and now processing?

As I understand what I've heard so far, jewelers (for example) would get xp only for making jewelry. Not smelting, not mining, not gem cutting, not making tools. OK, how does that reduce grind? Making jewelry, and deconning themis how jewelers would level. They can't make an alternative product and get jeweler's credit for it,so the main change seems to be to limit smelting or gem cutting xp.If the xp is moved from smelting/cutting to more for making/deconning jewelry, what is the real change? Is it just an ideato further limit player choice and capabilities? If it's to encourage mining and organic gathering as classes, those are the ultimate grinding classes, with no salable or applicable product beyond bars. My craftingsatisfaction comes from making people armor suits that are just what they want. Others get their kick from rebuilding a town wall, a bridge, or buildings. Miners have no similar source of satisfaction. How many miners will we develop, just by making bars a needed commodity? How many will play the game and level just to sell bars?

How would dragon crafting be affected, if at all?

How would making 50-100 construction items for a quest differ from current grinding? I agree completely that more xp should be given for applying, as that is the unique capability of a construction class; indeed it should outweigh xp for the other functions.(And I agree that it could be changed independently now. ) But with no application targets, can a better solution than "craft x (even if big x) units" be found? A few MASSIVE Empire projects, with all tiers required so that there would always be a construction products sink? Like rebuilding the spiral city? Or Old Rachival?

On collaborative construction projects, like the satyr mines, various bridges, etc., it was most efficient by far to have some players mining, some processing, some running, and some applying. Mining and running gave no xp; now processing wouldn't either. So despite rotating through the other positions, none of those players would receive xp at all; just the final applier.(Appliers were usually less than 10% of the participants.) Could something be done about that?

I am very much in favor of a crafting overhaul that increases fun, and the comment that leveling would be faster seems to me to be a step in the right direction. It's a big topic, and I hope it gets a good deal of public exposure and discussion. The mostdifficult, yet best executed,issue was the plot redistribution required by the merger. Therewas a lot of discussion, some excellent player suggestions were incorporated, player testing was widespread, corrections were made, and a potentially disastrous set of changes went off extremely well. I'd suggest that asthe model fora major craftingrevision.

[Galem]

If a dev didn't originally come up with this plan, who did? The focus group? Who is in this focus group? I want to know their qualifications in the game (ie, to know they are not just blind fans fawning over whatever is babbled)

I read the whole exchange. It sounds NOT fun, but tedious. It sounds like the people who thought this up thinks its fun to mine/reap mindlessly for hours for nothing, except in the final product.

So many things really need to be addressed, a complete revamp of the crafting system is not, in my opinion, even close to being priority. Adventure classes need attention so much more (also, not a rewrite, but a tuning)

The only way this game will gain more players is by a slow addition, not some grand flooding of the gates because of some super-duper change like this. Do you honestly think that the number of people you lose over this will be replaced by multitudes of new players? Do you think people who left will return for this? Will we see dozer praising the 'new' Horizons with the revamped crafting system?
Honestly, this being even on a whiteboard anywhere at this time worries me, a lot.

Additions will come with the fixing of the client, with the balancing of classes as they play right now, and a dynamic Blight (That being a big one).

The Design Preview looked very hopeful. This makes me want to chuck it all.

Focus on that.

[Tzael]

I think it's great now we know what the full story is to the revamping of craft schools, mithril change makes so much sense now and like others have said, I also reckon that this will make a significant improvement to crafting and the overall interaction between the players !

btw when it comes to building schools at level 75 weaver I was making about 2/3rds of a level for every run of 120 silk tapestries (60 units) I was taking to my plot thanks to the tarbash disk, including the making ofsilk spools, turning spools into tapestries and then applying the whole lot to my workshops... Made 40 levels of mason from just making sandstone and slate units including the resources and applying those to walkways and so on... personally I've not got a prob with the proposed changes since it impliesI can save a tonne of time by buying resources from miners / gatherers and still get the same exp [:D]

[Varangaard]

Well, this is the first time I've heard of this, and I do hang on IRC a bit. :P

Miners and gatherers have been asking for changes that would make their profession more special. I guess being the only classes that gain exp from raw materials will be more than they expected.

If the exp gain lost in certain areas is properly offset by an appropriate boost in primary skill's gain, I see nothing to complain in that area. However, there are some things requiring mroe details here, like:

most of these... cross over skills would need to be eliminated

What does this mean exactly? Also, what will be considered the primary skills of base schools with wide selections, like blacksmith or outfitter? Prestige schools cover all their 'primary skills', does this mean they won't have any? Or will they have multiple primary skills, with smaller exp boost than prestige crafts?

What about dragons? Someone asked this above already. We (currently) have no multiclassing there. Does this mean dragons simply won't get any exp off base resources, at all? Assigning a primary skill to dragon crafter means it will be the only choice to level up the craft.

[Vlisson]

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All schools that currently do so will still be able to gather and refine their own resources. They will only get experience for doing so, however, if the processing skill is one of their current school's primary skills, meaning Miner and Gatherer only.

For instance, Dragons would still increase their mining and smelting skills as their level increases, but would only gain experience, and therefore levels, for crafting scales or spells.
*****************

eliminate cross over skills mean (i think) that metallwork will be split up, like weaponcraft and armorcraft (atm)

they will make this cross over skills divided up in several class unique skills

[Doombreak]

doesnt sound good to me to b honest..so if only miner/gatherer gets xp for processing (havent read everything only the shard report a min ago) wot about the new guys that come into the game and dont know about these schools..maybe give rminer/gatherer xp for gathering raw resources but odnt limit all the other schools to just making finished products..doin jeweler on T5 only finished products would b pure hell and im sure theres other schools too..This game is famed for its crafting system dont break it now

[Death-knell]

But your not making miners and gatherers more special, people will just multiclass. This changes nothing, except now all that gathering is even more meaningless grinding....BRAVO! BRAVO!

As to effects on dragons, well it drags into being more biped like. Except we don't get the skill and stat bonuses like the biped crafters do. Just the standard 9 per. The more I learn about this change the more I think tulga is hell bent on driving their company into bankruptcy again.

And this doesn't make the mithiril change make sense. Most classes won't be getting XP from processing anyway, so whether mithiril is pure or an alloy makes no difference except more wasted time.

[Doombreak]

me myself im a lvl81 miner and a lvl64 gatherer i dont feel bad or out of the loop or something i feel special because at lvl81 i can mine mithril, marble and otherminer resources at optimal rate not quite there at processing them..as the trainers say wen u join up to be eithe rone "being a miner is no easy task but others find it rewarding in thier own way" (or something along those lines)

[Guaran]

If a dev did not come up with the idea, did they propose the change or did players?

I think a big reason for this 'change' is the fact that on Chaos, there is a Tier5 pawnbroker right by the mithril, and craft grinders can make gold by grinding away.

So depending on how this whole discussion came about, could have been the "Have-Nots" who suggested it. I've done the ocassional grind for cash/hoard but it is so mindless and boring (even with Mhedon's ocassional tickle to keep me awake, bless his heart) that I can't stand doing it. This is EVEN WHEN MAKING GOLD, I simply cannot stand grinding away. And now you want to make it more difficult. For those who can endlessly grind coin at the mithril, more power to you I say. They are working, producing mithril bars/tools/armor/etc and selling it to the empire dirt cheap to begin with. (91.33cp per Mithril bar used is what the t5 pawnie pays) And since those players are already used to the grind as it is, this change will slow them down but it's not going to stop it.

The same principle applies to the level grinding too. However I am thankful they have come to thier senses when it comes to Cobalt. OMGWTF is the only description for that. If they want to fix leveling one craft off another, a far bigger rework of the crafting exp distribution would be needed and I have to agree with a previous poster that crafting for the most part works and theres other issues that could use dev attention more urgently than this.

I guess as far as exp goes, if the crafting of final product has its exp granted adjusted significantly upwards, and the processing of the resource (using skill gained from another craft school) is removed, it will make sense how exp is earned.

Although I idle in IRC I do not sit there and watch it 24/7 and the change removing exp from processing and shifting to item creation is news to me. This metalworking change should be re-explained by Tulga with what is EXACTLY going to happen, with exp comparisons before and after of making bars+making item vs same steps in the new system. I don't want more second hand 'information' or 'mis-information' from players.

[Peaches]

[Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y][Y]

for sure!

[HratLi]

It's an amazing amount of change, it would have made sense if it had been done BEFORE launch. But as is, though *I* don't see it as being an insurmountable nerf (provided that construction XP is upped significantly), it's kinda like closing the barn doors after the horses have left. Unless they remove a lot of the overlap (which WILL be a nerf, for example if they make Sculpting ONLY scholar, then blacksmiths and tinks would have to level scholar just for stone tools), you can still level one 'class' get skills in another, then use that to level the new class. In the previous example, then people will level blacksmith, then hop right in to making Marble tools as a scholar. Then hop onto making Tier V Spells as a spellcrafter, having never made a single spell before...

In the long run something like this would be a good idea, heck I have always wondered about the incredible amount of overlap in skills, but I think the IMPORTANT question of WHY people are grinding away 27x100 craft levels should be asked. It's because we have NOTHING ELSE TO DO.... I know my slowest times of levelling is when we had world events. That's because I would spend hours getting NO XP running hundreds of sandstone blocks to whatever it was being built, and dammit I liked it.

In the current Tulga world, they are in 'repair and maintenance' mode. Adding underlying rules, fixing (hopefully) bugs, getting the infrastructure put in, adding mechanics to the game. What almost made me quit though is that that is ALL they have been doing. In my memory the last real major world event was Feladan and the Novo merge. There is no living world, no progressing story line. People just farm, grind and chat. From past history, I anticipate that they will also pass up the incredible opportunity of making Lairs and Ancient ROP into a 'real' world event, something to involve EVERYONE. It will probably be patched in, Boom! Suddenly the NPC's are there, dragons crawl out of the woodwork, and run their quests/build their lairs. World still is pretty much the same.

Sorry, I'm rambling. In short, I want STORY out of my MMORPGs... All these mechanics things, well I'll wait to see the implementation before I make my decision, but in my opinion there are a LOT more important things to be working on.

-HratLi

[Doombreak]

a good story is indeed wot we need...maybe a long storyline involving old rach..just like the satyr isles and the nazderon event those were the good ones..If this is gonan b implimented (note word if) we'd need an estimated (note word estimated) eta for this and if its offical (as in a person who works in the office and has one of those nice icons under their name) says it

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

Everyone is comparing this change to the current exp rating on finished materials. I would suggest that those who fear this change and don't want increased grind:

1. Wait until we can see a complete list of primaries for the classes. I think Smeglor has commented on some.
2. Wait until the playerscan test the exp on Blight.
3. Post results as Kuma did.
4. Ask for developer responses and player feedback on such changes.

After Kuma posted his exp on mithril bars and the differences, I asked Tulga Emp about it. I know I'll be watching the changes - and I'll be screamin' pretty loud if its not done fairly and right. I'm not going to start now tho because I HAVEN"T SEEN THE DATA YET!

Only the idea is announced :

- people are losing it without seeing/researching the developer responses to questions that you can find on the boards right now. (Please look before you squawk! No one is going to lose an ability to make something, you might lose experience for doing it tho. No one will "have to" take up miner and gatherer to get bars, bricks, spools, orbs etc - it just means you won't get experience for it and be able to PL another class just by refining.)

- people still seem to think that gaining 50-70 levels a day is "working as intended". (The Age of PL Crafting is done in Istaria I think - there are still going to be some crossover skills but it won't help you asmuch. Please tell me any game that allows such progression - anyone?)

- people aren't gathering data of crafting experience as it is "Live" atm. (The night of this announcement, I did a bunch of tinkering for my level - noted the experience gained, work involved andtried my best to makesure a developer got to see that feedback.)



Some of the reactions right now are over blown, based on what we know, save it for when we can all see the numbers. For those that think priorities are messed up: From in-game/out-game convos with Amon and Manga, they have wanted to make changes to this for a very long time (would say before Merging of Shards).

Now -Amon basically fixes bugs in game, works on quests and makes client changes. Based on the last couple patches to Blight - I would say he has his "priorities straight", maybe he's got some time to work on this comming up and over a couple months. He's also working on Tier 2 revamp (an area probably 4 times the size of the LA changes).

Manga - been focused on ARoP, loot, design changes. Based on what I have heard, ARoP is done - I believe its the art dept that is finishing up now. Lairs are in Art Dept now. More loot drops have been added/announced in latest patches. SO, after upteen months, Manga might have some free time before the "next thing" to work on a pet-project of his (craft design) - how are his priorities "messed up" atm?

Bulgrim

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Manga - been focused on ARoP, loot, design changes. Based on what I have heard, ARoP is done - I believe its the art dept that is finishing up now. Lairs are in Art Dept now. More loot drops have been added/announced in latest patches. SO, after upteen months, Manga might have some free time before the "next thing" to work on a pet-project of his (craft design) - how are his priorities "messed up" atm?

Because if he is doing ANYTHING AT ALL besides working on the rework for Confectioner, I'm gonna scream bloody murder that's how.

:P

[Death-knell]

I'm not worrying about the data as much,most the time they make a change it seems to be to reduce something. That you have a burr under your saddle about PL'ers I'm sorry. But what about the rest of us?

I spend 95% of my crafting time gathering what I need and 5% actually making the end product. Now their telling me that 95% of my time is worthless? I think they're really going to have to jack the heck out of the final product XP to make it seem worth it.

But that being said it still comes down to perception, I spend 20 minutes gathering and get nothing for it? A lot of people are going to percieve that as more mindless grinding

Now before people start going off about whining, I'm just making an observation. So just chill TFO.