Everquest 2 Tradeskill system announced

[Kendricke]

Mooregard recently announced the Tradeskill system which will be utilized in Everquest 2.

Here's a snippet:

Originally posted by Mooregard:
Crafting items in our game is not just a matter of buying some components and making uber loot out of them. At the most basic level of the game, Artisans will be able to buy components and make simple items that can be sold to players. However, the more desirable the item will be, the more intricate the process is to create it.

Let’s look at crafting a breastplate. (Again, this is a hypothetical example, so keep in mind the specifics of the process may vary.) Instead of obtaining components, plopping them into a forge, and hitting a combine key, we add flavor to the process. You take your components (which will vary, again depending on the level of the item you’re trying to create) and fire up the forge. At this point you enter into a kind of mini game. You need the forge to stay in a certain temperature range during this process, so you have to control the amount of wood you put on the fire. While keeping an eye on that, you also take actions that affect the properties of the finished product. You can refine the armor, which makes it lighter. This impacts its durability, however, so you might want to bolster durability by reinforcing the armor. You’ll also want to shape the breastplate, which affects its overall quality. The Artisan must decide at which point in the process the armor is done, because keeping it in the forge too long could weaken it.

Crafting a breastplate, then, becomes a series of balances that the Artisan must manage which directly affect the quality of the finished product. While part of this has to do with the character’s skill levels, it as just as important (if not more so) that the player understands the mini game and is skillful at playing it. A talented Artisan will minimize component costs by playing the game efficiently, and will learn how to customize the finished product to the specific desires of the customer. Success in the crafting process earns experience for the Artisan rather than just having a random chance of seeing a skill increase. Also, keep in mind that failure will not destroy rare components; only the base materials in such a process will be lost.

Tradeskills will have a variety of mini games for the different types of items that can be created. Making weapons will have different challenges, as will creating magical items, potions, furniture, etc. We want Artisans to have fun in the process of creating stuff and improving their craft, and not just see it as a mindless chore.

Just as adventurers earn the reputation of being skilled Fighters or Mages, Artisans will earn reputations based on their skill. And it won’t come down to a simple skill number or roll of the die; it will depend on how well the person behind the keyboard plays his or her class.

[andyhre]

Tailoring: The Video Game, coming to a gameboy near you.

[Kendricke]

Mooregard goes on to explain in a separate forum that skilling up will not be done in any way recognizable to current tradeskillers. You won't be creating dozens of "fine plate gauntlets" hoping for a random skill up.

Instead, every attempt will net you some amount of "experience" which is applied to the appropriate skill. Excellent successes will be presumed to supply more experience, while utter failures (e.g. - didn't really try at all) will receive no experience or close to none.

[Iilane]

player-crafted items and dropped loot: There are some basic misunderstandings in the community about our tradeskill system and the role of dropped loot in EQ2. This is understandable given the minimal amount of information that has so far been presented, especially regarding the infamous quote that "the best items in game will be made by players."That is an oversimplification of how loot works, so I will provide more detail on the subject.

The fear invoked by the above statement is that loot will become trivial. The assumption is that since players make the best items in the game, the best items will be easily obtainable, making loot all but worthless.

This is not the way we're designing our game. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Just like in EverQuest, loot matters. A lot.

As I'm discussing these concepts at length, I will post the information in two separate parts, which follow below.

Item Drops vs. Component Drops

Let me first dismiss the fear that mobs won't drop loot. They will. As in EverQuest, mobs have drop tables, and those possible drops include complete items. And as in EverQuest, the quality of those items varies depending on the challenge of the encounter. In other words, killing the big bad dragon will net you complete items. So will hunting in a regular zone.

In addition to the chance for loot drops, mobs can also drop components. That nasty dragon might drop a hide, for instance. So say you kill Jimmy the Dragon and he drops a Cloak of Fiery Hotness and a purple dragon hide. Why would a player prefer to get the hide over the cloak? This is where tradeskills come in.

(Please note: The following examples are purely hypothetical and are not specifics of what will actually happen in game. These are merely to help you understand the concepts behind the system.)

You take that purple dragon hide to an Artisan of the appropriate ability who can, through effort and skill on his part, make you an uber item that is usable by your class. Some components will make specific types of items: an orc captain might drop a component that can be made into leather armor, a gnoll commander might drop something that can be made into chain armor, etc. Rare components from uber mobs will probably have a larger variety of things they can be made into. The purple dragon hide could be made into boots or a tunic or sleeves-whatever the player needs most. In any case, the purple dragon hide will make an uber item that will be every bit as rare and desirable as standard drops.

The advantage to this type of system should be obvious. Instead of having a mob drop an item that is specific to a certain slot and class (and could therefore be unusable by the players who are present), the component will be desired by everyone. There is less chance that an item will be sold off or be given to an alt, because anyone there can have something made from the component that will benefit their class.

This doesn't take away from the uber factor of the loot. Just as loot from the hardest mobs in EQ is rare and lusted after, so will it be in EQ2. We're just allowing the players more variety in what form that loot will ultimately take. Instead of being on a dragon raid where only one item might be of use to you (and if it doesn't drop, you feel let down), you instead have a shot at a component that you know will benefit your character.

In the case of uber loot, the player-crafted item is not more powerful than the dropped item. Dropped loot simply has a predetermined function, whereas the component allows you flexibility in what you end up with. Also, the enchantments present on dropped loot will already be in place, whereas crafted items can have customized enchantments. But since this is really the first time we're mentioning the concept of enchantments, I'll save further discussion on the topic for another time.


Question: although the "mini game" may be fun at first, how fun is it going to be after you have played it 800 times.. it will become a burden eventually.

I can see your point, but let me make a counterpoint.

In EverQuest, tradeskills can be quite redundant, but thousands upon thousands of players use the system anyway.

In EverQuest, killing the same camp of mobs over and over and over for hours is repetitive, but tens of thousand of people do it every day.

Why? Because the results are deemed worth it.

How much better would it be if the process was also fun and challenging?

Almost anything in life becomes tedious if you have to do it enough times. The challenge to us as designers is to vary the process enough that it's not just doing the same thing over and over, but instead mixes things up a bit.


Question: Hardcore artisans will flood the market making items, leaving casual players little chance at making money.

If making items is as fast and easy as it is in EQ, then you are correct. But we can control how many steps items take to make.

Artisans won't be making dozens of basically useless items just to get skill increases. Artisans will earn experience (and hence more skill) through many steps of the creation process. The final combine is only one part of that.

The idea is that you will produce less finished items because each takes more steps to craft. Making really good items can be a somewhat lengthy process, although it can be broken down into phases that the player can do in relatively small chunks of game time.


Question: The second wave of artisans will need money to buy items they need to craft, but won't be able to make money to buy them because they only make money by selling items.


Artisans can also make money by performing tasks (essentially quests) for NPCs in the cities. These will be limited in the number that you can complete per day to prevent players from only interacting with NPCs. The money gained from this process can be invested in creating more lucrative items for players.

We can also control the market by varying the contributions to the city that Artisans are required to make. These will also be along the lines of quests, which reward the Artisan with experience while not adding to the saturation of the market.

Please keep in mind that we do not intend to have a 100% player-controlled economy. We have mechanisms in place like those above that allow us a strong measure of control over the flow of goods into the marketplace.

[Kendricke]

I just realized that this might not be the right place to post anything related to Everquest 2. I apologize and hope the moderators will place this post in a proper location (OOC?).

[Hobbun]

I am not sure exactly who Mooregard is or where this quote came from, but I am going to assume this info is correct.

The system sounds...interesting. But there is one problem I have with it.

Item Drops vs. Component Drops

Let me first dismiss the fear that mobs won't drop loot. They will. As in EverQuest, mobs have drop tables, and those possible drops include complete items. And as in EverQuest, the quality of those items varies depending on the challenge of the encounter. In other words, killing the big bad dragon will net you complete items. So will hunting in a regular zone.

In addition to the chance for loot drops, mobs can also drop components. That nasty dragon might drop a hide, for instance. So say you kill Jimmy the Dragon and he drops a Cloak of Fiery Hotness and a purple dragon hide. Why would a player prefer to get the hide over the cloak? This is where tradeskills come in.

(Please note: The following examples are purely hypothetical and are not specifics of what will actually happen in game. These are merely to help you understand the concepts behind the system.)

You take that purple dragon hide to an Artisan of the appropriate ability who can, through effort and skill on his part, make you an uber item that is usable by your class. Some components will make specific types of items: an orc captain might drop a component that can be made into leather armor, a gnoll commander might drop something that can be made into chain armor, etc. Rare components from uber mobs will probably have a larger variety of things they can be made into. The purple dragon hide could be made into boots or a tunic or sleeves-whatever the player needs most. In any case, the purple dragon hide will make an uber item that will be every bit as rare and desirable as standard drops.

The advantage to this type of system should be obvious. Instead of having a mob drop an item that is specific to a certain slot and class (and could therefore be unusable by the players who are present), the component will be desired by everyone. There is less chance that an item will be sold off or be given to an alt, because anyone there can have something made from the component that will benefit their class.

This doesn't take away from the uber factor of the loot. Just as loot from the hardest mobs in EQ is rare and lusted after, so will it be in EQ2. We're just allowing the players more variety in what form that loot will ultimately take. Instead of being on a dragon raid where only one item might be of use to you (and if it doesn't drop, you feel let down), you instead have a shot at a component that you know will benefit your character.

In the case of uber loot, the player-crafted item is not more powerful than the dropped item. Dropped loot simply has a predetermined function, whereas the component allows you flexibility in what you end up with. Also, the enchantments present on dropped loot will already be in place, whereas crafted items can have customized enchantments. But since this is really the first time we're mentioning the concept of enchantments, I'll save further discussion on the topic for another time."



It sounds good for classes that can collect loot, but what about tradeskillers? I see they are trying to make it more realistic that the crafter receives the components from an outside source (whether its an adventurer or he purchases them) but is that how they are only going to be able to get the "rare" component drops? From what I understand, the trader class in EQ2 is not very effective killing mobs. I don't know about anyone else, but I've always liked to option of getting my own components. I don't know if I like having to rely on another class to always get my "rare" components or maybe even not so rare components.


Hobbun

[Kendricke]

Mooregard is the Everquest 2 Community Relations Liason for Sony Online. He was chosen for the job, in part, because he founded and ran Mobhunter.net for the last 2 years or so.

[feressa]

This is a nice idea, and it has a lot of potential, but if it's really going to work, then development of tradeskills needs to occur in tandem with the inevitable upscaling of mobs and loot rewards. Tradeskills in EQ1 have only ever had one boost - when the skill cap was raised to 250. If trades and the tradeskill class in EQ2 are really to be viable they must be open-ended.

When PoP came along and high-end tradeskills started producing items of real worth, even to those who regularly hunted the big mobs, all it did was increase the number of people who power-skilled their way up to 250 so they could make stuff for their guild. There was no difference between a someone who'd been a dedicated tradeskiller from day 1 and someone with a ton of money and a fair amount of free time. This is why tradeskills in EQ1 remain a peripheral activity.

If EQ2 trades are to be a central activity, then you really want the situation where those who go out and kill the Big Monster of Uberness are going to be coming back to town to search out the BEST armoursmith for the hide that dropped, someone who's been working at it heart-and-soul. This will only work if there is no effective limit to skill (obviously there will be a limit on item quality that is determined by the current balance in the game, but this must move as the game progresses). Basically, they need to structure the system so that making top-end quality items needs someone who plays a tradeskiller as their MAIN character.

[Quesci]

However, in EQ2 the Artisan is a character profession/class. you won't have warriors who are also high end blacksmiths. if someone is a weaponsmith, he is a *professional* weaponsmith. And given the rather informal polls that I have seen on various message boards, the vast majority of players won't choose to be professional artisans.

So those who do choose that path won't have to compete with the uber player who became a smith just for one quest. We won't have to worry about the powerleveling potter dumping steins on the market below cost to free up space. We won't have to deal with competition from enchanters who took up jewelry because that's what all enchanters have to do, dontyaknow?

[Quesci]

By the way, other sources have added some depth to the information posted above:

1) The rare items will not be lost if the artisan fails the attempt. I know that this was mentioned above, but I wanted to repeat it. If you win the Purple Dragon Hide you won't be risking an Uber drop if the Artisan happens to get distracted during the crafting process. If he fails a bunch of times you can thank him or her and go find yourself a competent tailor.

2) You don't risk having your uber drop stolen by the Artisan. A dev mentioned at the Vegas Fan Faire that they have a mechanism in place to protect "customers" from shady tradeskillers. You won't have to worry that the Artisan will tell you he failed, or even just log off with your precious Purple Dragon Hide.

3) In many cases, high-end items will require multiple Artisans working together. In some cases, groups of Artisans will have to come together for grand projects, such as building a guild hall or temple.

Quesci

[Yakk]

It looks like they are implementing something like "a tale in the desert".

"a tale in the desert" is basically a pure tradeskill game, with a dash of nomic.

For example, there a kilns in "ATINT". At the start, nobody knew how to use them. Eventually, when thermometers where invented by someone, people managed to quantify how kilns worked -- each kiln turned out to have somewhat unique properties, and behave differently.

So, they worked out how to measure the differences between kilns, and once you knew that you could generate predictable results from using a kiln.

Imagine if the forge cooled down at a certain, forge-dependant, rate. You could push air into the forge or add more fuel to it -- which would increase the tempurature in the short or long term depending on the characteristics of the forge, fuel, and the bellows.

Smiths would want to gear up their forge with better properties (bellows of the gale, trapped fire elementals, everburning coal, etc), and would have to learn how various materials responded to each other and to heat.

In other words, it could be interesting. =)

[sumamael]

I love tradeskills, been doing them for almost 3 years now in EQ.
Why? Because being able to create something gives a new depth to my roleplaying experience.

I was the first to reach 240+ in smithing on my server back when there was nothing meaningful to make, I'm not one of those who skilled up just for the shawl or just for the Aid Grimel.

However the idea of limiting myself to a non-combatant role just to be able to tradeskill is frightening.

Large part of why I play this game is adventure, you know fighting big mean dragons, taking on even with the gods themselfs....

Imo SWG had a good compromise that you could multiclass and be a crafter and a combat class at the same time but my limited knowledge about EQ2 says that won't be the case there.

So if I gonna play EQ2 (probably wont) then I will give up on tradeskilling because I'm the "go out to see the world and become a hero" kinda adventurer and not gonna sit around in a town making armor by the forge just because thats all my class can.

[Littlun]

EQ controlled processes

I've been a LOOOOONG time out of the game, and may not come back here once I'm sober .

I have 2 issues with the proposed system. The 1st is the video game/Nintendo method of crafting. If I wanted to play Nintendo, then I could, ummmmm, play Nintendo. This is perhaps unfair since we have no indication of HOW the crafting process will work, but if they want to make it tougher than the current clickage then there has to be some sort of hand-eye coordination to it. So what happens when there's a lag spike? This is clearly not the players fault, but gives those with high speed connections that are "close" (in an IP sense) to VI a huge advantage.

The second and really key objection is in the following quotation:

We can also control the market by varying the contributions to the city that Artisans are required to make

While the "invisible hand" may be a nice economic concept I worry about it a LOT where VI is concerned. How many of you have seen mobs that drop uber lewt suddenly "nerfed" because they were too generous? So now whoever finds the tradeskill loopholes first (and there WILL be loopholes) wins. They can then leverage this success through the extra skill or plat to continue to dominate the market. Those of use who GMed under the "old" rules will see this as a bit of a reversal from the old system where the new artisans have things "easier" (*I* sewed in the snow, uphill, both ways) since EQ has basically said ex ante that any success will be nerfed ex-post.

Missing EQ terribly,

Littlun.

[Littlun]

Visitor!?!?!?

Bah! A little RL sneaks out from behind a bush to club me on the head for a few months, and all of a sudden I'm a "visitor". You younguns have no respect!



Littlun.