Tradeskills

[Burmadapig]

Another thing on DAOC that I liked, that I think could be incorporated is Tradeskills. The following tradeskills existed there.

Armorcrafting
Fletching (makes bows, arrows, staves, and pretty much anything else wooden)
Spellcrafting
Tailoring
Weaponcrafting
Alchemy

Armorcrafters, Fletchers, Tailors, and Weaponcrafters would acquire materials and make a wide assortment of goods.

Alchemists would make potions, dyes, and tinctures. Tinctures when "imbued" into a player crafted item would give it certain procs/abilities.

Spellcrafters would make gems that when imbued into armor or weapons would give them certain stats (similar to enchantment but much more detailed).

The key to this working is that you had to develop your skill by working your craft in order to make higher level items.

Spellcrafters would imbue the gems and tinctures. If their skill was not high enough to accomplish the task, the result would be an explosion causing death.

All of the materials have increasing costs as the level of stat increases. Also, after a certain level the materials required by some tradeskills are only available through player crafting.

Each primary tradeskill has secondary/tertiary tradeskills i.e. armorcrafters have secondary tradeskills in tailoring and fletching and tertiary tradeskill in weaponcrafting.

Each tradeskill is broken up into things like metalworking, woodworking, clothworking, etc.

Each tradeskill has an ability to salvage equipment for components based on what the primary tradeskill is. i.e. A tailor will be more skilled at salvaging cloth and leather from goods containing them and a Fletcher would be more skilled in salvaging wood from items containing it.

There are a lot more details if anyone is interested.

I know that Homeland had potion making which would be a part of Alchemy.

[rer]

I'd also like to see scroll writing. Unfortunately, this has a 100% chance of being horribly abused... Still thinking about how to get around that, but it would be nice to see.

I think the same is true for potion brewing - really easily abused and 100% sure to happen - but I'd definitely like to see it!!

[Burmadapig]

The way around it could be:

make the components rare i.e once per boot

in addition higher level scrolls/potions would require the highest skill level (on DAOC it was Legendary Grand Master)

One thing with tradeskills, the time to level up a tradeskill to its top notch would be harsh. i.e for tradeskills such as alchemy and spellcrafting something like the equivalent of leveling 10 enchanters to 50 solo and naked.

It is very expensive and time consuming to level to the next rank.
For example,

Going from Grand Master (second highest level) to Legendary Grand Master would probably cost about 250K in materials not to mention time.

It would be easy to keep people from using triggers to level up as well. Instead of just limiting experience like trophy does, you could make it to where if you make the same items over and over again your skill will decrease. You also can only hold a certain amount of any particular component in inventory.

Each tradeskill has its own tools requirements. Tailors of course need needles, metalworkers need a forge, spellcrafters/alchemists need an alchemy table.

Each level is 100 points on a scale of 1 - 1200

Along with tradeskills, there was housing. You could buy a house and a consignment merchant to sell things for you. You could also buy merchants that sell specific types of supplies for crafting.

[rer]

Hrm, cool ideas Burmadapig!

I knew someone smarter than me would have thought of "anti-twink" methods for this!! :P

Although, would people really bother spending the time to level 10 solo, naked enchanters up to 50, let alone get their tradeskill up to the top level? Perhaps if the top-tier rewards were great enough...

Definitely cool ideas - we'd probably have to address them one at a time and go pretty well in depth on each one to make sure the time spent was worth the reward at the end, without being too overpowering...

[Burmadapig]

The idea of tradeskills goes hand in hand with equipment eventually wearing out. It is a great way to foster a working economy. The time investment to skill up make it to where not everyone is going to have a top level crafter and therefore makes it to where the crafters can control their prices and profits. It would also have to be prohibitive to all but the most dedicated both in cost and time while offering substantial rewards and profitability once certain levels were achieved. At each level you could make certain things. Like it might require a skill level of 700 for an armorcrafter/weaponcrafter to salvage a certain type of metal. Once salvaged, the ACer/WCer could make some "trinket" (hinges, metal components, etc.) and resell them for a higher value (generally 1.25 to 1.65 times what the components would sell for depending on the material, item, etc.)

[rer]

Hrm - so, since the people that have the time for this are the resident statues in WD, ie: Rangers, it seems they may become useful after all!!!

[Botef]

I think the same is true for potion brewing - really easily abused and 100% sure to happen - but I'd definitely like to see it!!

how so? there already is a limit to the number per hour you can quaff (5).

[Burmadapig]

I think he's referring to stockpiling potions, which was the problem when certain shops sold limitless quantities, etc.

[rer]

I think he's referring to stockpiling potions, which was the problem when certain shops sold limitless quantities, etc.

Nogs.

That and brewing Level 50 potions of haste/stone or stone/vit/bless/armor or even just an elemental embodiment, throwing a couple of those on your level 1 character, and walking around spanking mobs 30 levels higher than you solo.

Or scribing level 50 scrolls of Force Missile and just blasting your way through everything as a level 3 warrior who happens to have DScale scrolls as well.

I think the other thing to think about Burm is making the potions/scrolls usable only by a certain level of character - this would still allow you to make and trade some kick ass potions/scrolls, but would prevent abuse.

Of course, you also have to watch for the PKill abuse

"Hey, quaff this potion for haste/stone!"
"OK!"
*quaff*
Welcome to Toril.

"Hey, what was that?"
"Oh, must have given you the potion of Inferno that I brewed for fun. My bad!"

[Burmadapig]

Level Restrictions

i.e. That scroll was too powerful for you to use. BOOM! Welcome to Toril!

i.e. That armor is way too high level for you and will degrade quickly.

Every item on DAOC had a con (color coded level) somewhat the same as mobs do here. Based on the con of an item would determine whether or not you could use it without adverse results.

Another thing, you'd NEVER see scrolls that are Force Missiles, Inferno, or any other high damage spell whatsoever!

[kiryan]

The idea of tradeskills goes hand in hand with equipment eventually wearing out. It is a great way to foster a working economy. The time investment to skill up make it to where not everyone is going to have a top level crafter and therefore makes it to where the crafters can control their prices and profits. It would also have to be prohibitive to all but the most dedicated both in cost and time while offering substantial rewards and profitability once certain levels were achieved. At each level you could make certain things. Like it might require a skill level of 700 for an armorcrafter/weaponcrafter to salvage a certain type of metal. Once salvaged, the ACer/WCer could make some "trinket" (hinges, metal components, etc.) and resell them for a higher value (generally 1.25 to 1.65 times what the components would sell for depending on the material, item, etc.)

not really. the real value in tradeskills is in creating things players can complete in short periods of time unlike most zones and even exp for many classes.

You could tradeskill with 15 minutes here and there. you will never get to 50 exping 15 minutes here and there and not many pieces of eq that can be done in 15 minutes.

A secondary value of trade skills is that they can usually fuel an economy all by themselves. people will buy components from players, people will buy components from shops, people will spend goobs of time to master a skill that is relatively worthless or only produces output after inordinate effort just to do be able to say they mastered it.

[Burmadapig]

Kiryan, I think we're saying the same thing, just phrasing it differently.

Tradeskills = Time sink and Cash sink

You're right though. Some people will master it just to say they did.

[kiryan]

every other word out of your mouth seems to involve upkeep and maitenance or destruction of eq. thats generally what im responding too.

I also think we may have a subtely different view of what tradeskills do fundamentally. Your more focused on it from a usability / power / plat sink view, im more concerned about just adding a new facet to the game, something new that even part timers can enjoy 10 15 minutes at a time.

[Burmadapig]

I agree, but the casual person (15 minutes at a time) will take an extremely long time to achieve master level.

My main focus of talking about tradeskills is because I found it something fun to do on DAOC. It is only secondary that it helps the economy by being a plat sink.