The Kitin Lair – A Final Plea before it’s too late..

[rushin]

The poll is hopefully impartial, my viewpoint not Don’t give us uber items, give us plans to craft things. Enough damage has been done to the crafter community already. *waves finger sternly at dev's*

[edit from later in this thread]
to be clear uber loot in the form of weapons, armor, etc that is beyond the ability of crafters to produce.

[rothimar]

I will vote against uber loot drops every time the question is posed. A stable economy never comes from gear players get without a crafter's blood, sweat, and tears.

[iphdrunk]

We have specifically been asked for feedback, but imho it has already been given in related threads. As fasr as I know, they are taking our views into accout.

[1]With regard to rewards, this (Ed. note: regarding this Phat lewt concern) is not our intention. With the rewards, we want new challenges for explorers, harvesters, achievers, hunters. The missions will allow us to add new objects with new looks but you can have fun in the nest without taking any mission (ed note uh ). No mission rewards have, at the time being, final stats. We don't want to be unfair / unloyal competition for craters, but we want them to be interesting enough. Your feedback is precious, (...) your needs and wishes (...) time to change (...) subsequent development (...) giving devs opportunities to change things, within a limit

My views:

* It seems that the items are already implemented and added, only the stats are open, so this plea is limited. There will be "ready to use" dropped loot. It seems that the items are not directly "dropped" by kitin, but the "mob-drops-armor" is disguised by means of a more realistic NPC/ranger intermediate via a mission.

* Fortunately, they are considering the stats on the items, to precisely avoid what Rushin is fearing, which is a good thing (I'd rather let them think about it for a while, it also took them a long while to balance outpost rewards and the result was (at least for me) unsatisfactory).

* According to what I understood, some of the rewards will have new looks. this part is still unclear to me... If crafters can learn the same looks, it's a fair deal, we all win and crafters still can craft. If the looks are exclusive to "given/dropped" items, let me express my uttermost unhappiness, to be multiplied depending on the retained choice for the statistics. Given the time and dedication crafting requires, the grind and boredom it turns after lvl 150 and the absolute frustrating "pat in the back" after reaching 250 in one or more branches. But this is, of course, my view as a crafter.

All in all, "wait a see", I think there is room and opportunities for either a) an unpleasant frustrating surprise for crafters, delegating one or more craft branches into uselessness or b) a fair-balanced deal respecting a player based economy yet allowing players to be rewarded to some extent independently from crafters.



[!] (...) Avec le nid nous voulons renouveler les défis pour les explorateurs, récolteurs, accomplisseurs, chasseurs. Les missions vont nous permettre d'amener quelques objets avec une nouvelle apparence, mais vous pouvez vous amusez dans le nid sans prendre aucune mission (aucune des récompenses de mission n'on encore de stats définitives; nous ne voulons pas qu'elles représentent une concurrence déloyale aux artisans mais nous voulons quand même les rendre suffisamment intéressantes).
J'ajouterai que lire vos commentaires dans ce thread est particulièrement intéressant. Ces premiers retours sont précieux et nous indiquent si nos choix ont été les bons ou pas, et aussi si nos idées pour la suite du développement sont en adéquation avec vos attentes.
C'est bien pour ça que je publie des documents sur les features un peu conséquentes bien avant leur sortie, cela permet de donner suffisamment de marge de manoeuvre aux devs pour rectifier le tir si besoin est, dans une certaine mesure

[rothimar]

I'm not sure what they can do with the stats to keep the loot items from causing crafters to lose business. If the loot drops are too limited in stats/quality, people won't really feel as though they have received a fair reward for the effort, if they are close... but not quite as good... as crafted gear, you will see people making do with the drops to save the dappers for other things. And, if the items are too good, obviously, crafters will be competing with missions.

It's a slippery slope, to introduce loot drops into Ryzom. I've already begun to question whether it's worth it to continue advancing my crafting skills, for if the economy swings the wrong way, I will be rather put out with all the wasted crafting time I could have used to level something else.

My heart sank when I first read there would be loot drops. The lack of loot drops was one of the initial appeals of Ryzom for me.

[michielb]

in short

Phat lewt=bad!!!

[rothimar]

in short

Phat lewt=bad!!!

LOL - exactly

[iphdrunk]

I'm not sure what they can do with the stats to keep the loot items from causing crafters to lose business.

Eternal dilemma. What can be done?
- looks. Different looks but basically the same stats than crafted items? well, looks are one of the main drivers for crafters. Months, months ago, learning high quality plans was a milestone for crafters. New looks are always refreshing and it is already frustrating (but understandable) that new OP looks require mats that cannot be easily obtained.

- stats: nothing to add here. Aen hurt Heavy armorers pretty bad. Only now, some supreme q250 crated armors can arguably be considered better than aen. Shields, event daggers, etc. If we assume crafters can learn the plans for the newly added items, would a "just below supreme but a bit over excellent" be considered a good reward? Imho it also depends a lot on the effort reauired to finish the mission. To be honest, if it requires gathering a gazillion "royal tokens" and an bozillion clicks to trade them for "bigger royal tokens"...

I've already begun to question whether it's worth it to continue advancing my crafting skills,(...) be rather put out with all the wasted crafting time I could have used to level something else.

Although I have enjoyed crafting to date, it is sad when a (recent) newcomer states this. It is true that as long as event shields are available, this is a craft branch I have no plans to work on for these same reasons.

The lack of loot drops was one of the initial appeals of Ryzom for me.

Signed. Player based economy, specially when crafting is such a pillar of economy AND dappers are secondary

[rushin]

hmm I should maybe have not included the 'uber' bit in the poll question. The trouble is even if the loot is no better than what can be crafted you are still leaving crafters stagnating with the same plans we have had from lv150 and 2 years ago, and compounding that, and completely naturally, everyone will want to own these new items thus leaving crafters out in the cold.

Let’s assume that things are too far along for Nevrax to contemplate removing the new item rewards, how about adding crafter versions of the missions to gain the plan and not the item? And meh! Gone off-topic already o_o

[iwojimmy]

the solution i can see, is rewards of "uber" mats, requiring a crafter to finish them... and new crafting plans of course

this would provide incentives for non-crafters to befriend crafters, and may even encourage some to dabble themselves.

[olepi]

In Dark Age of Camelot, crafters were in demand. A good crafter could take a dropped sword, for example, and salvage the metal from it, giving mats. Then they could craft a better sword and sell it. The best items were player crafted, with the possible exception of supreme-type drops from rare epic quests.

Then they introduced Trials of Atlantis (or TOA), and most of the mobs dropped really good loot. Suddenly, almost every crafter was out of business. It was bad, really bad. And that was never fixed, so the economy was broken and stayed broken. Ruined is the word.

One of the things I like about Ryzom is the player economy, but if they start having mobs drop loot that is even CLOSE to what players can make, then it will be really bad. I wouldn't mind mob drops with special colors, or looks, but if the stats are close to player-made, Ryzom will suffer huge damage.

My suggestion: have the Kitins drop glowing mats, and when made into armor, these mats make the armor glow (or sparkle, or something). But keep the stats normal.

Blackavar