Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

EDIT: See? Sniped over an hour...
I'm probably ignoring the bulk of this thread, as I started reading it this morning and then got dragged away, and thus have forgotten most of it - but this stuck out at me:

Ryzom's crafting is an incredibly complex system, of course, but there are complexities which aren't covered by crafting guides. In particular I'm thinking of how one gets one's stuff.

You're right, in that only newbies tend to buy gear - but this isn't because guilds craft their own stuff. It's because once you join a guild, you're in the company of older players who know that if you need new gear, unless it's something special like Freddy's PvP gear or uber-stuff like my yelkoo maga amps, it's free. All you have to do is ask a crafter, and if they have the time and mats most will do it straight away - sometimes it takes a few days or more to get mats, but either way it's as simple as asking. And if you don't know who to ask, you just ask in faction or uni - this applies just as much to q50 gear as q250.

And another reason good stuff doesn't go on vendors, is that most vendor stuff times out. That's a waste of your good, crafting mats, when you could just use up your grind mats and no loss. Why risk seeing sup zun go into oblivion when you could ensure that someone gets the benefit from it by only using it for requests?

But, of course, newbies don't know this... and they also tend to have come from games with a currency economy, and so feel that getting Yet More Free Stuff is "leeching" and should be looked down on. There's no easy way to convey to the majority of newbies that this isn't the case, unfortunately. If there were, we should certainly do it...

And, yes, Ryzom doesn't have much of an economy. For exceptional craft requests, mats are the currency; but for general grind gear most crafters are quite happy to arrange that themselves - after all, most people who need a set of q150 LA can't dig q150 excels topside, let alone sups. It'd be pointless asking them to pay when you know they can't, and when you can get the mats yourself with relatively little trouble (hence your having to provide your own bossmats :p ).

I suppose having really good mats on the vendor for insane prices could counter this... maybe with sups if we get kitin patrols back; actually putting some value into the dapper. But then, when you have jool crafters who earn hundreds of mil from mastery, how do the rest of us keep up? At lvl 200-ish in most MA pieces I only have 30mil (technically 40...); so that would need to be balanced before selling mats becomes realistic.
Ofc you can always hope some f00 puts their sups on storage. Not that I've ever stolen storage sups or anything. :D

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

Personally I think its not complicated enough :-) Now this is hard to explain, but, for example, I think it should always be relatively easy to make a reasonably decent sword, just shell+shaft+grip+cw and you have a sword, but I would like to see optional extras also that could be added once you each a decent mastery. I guess what I am getting at is, it should be possible for a Master Crafter to make a unique weapon that is almost impossible to reproduce unless you know the exact combo of vital and optional extras. Something that would make a newbie go "ooooooooh shiny!" :-) With an almost infinite range of optional extras it would create a market, if you wanted, say, a "singing sword of scarlet brilliance" you need to purchase it from a certain Master crafter and no one else would kow exactly how to make them. (would need the addition of a lot more raw materials though :-)

The same with magic, and foraging, actually increase the compexity so that magicians could have unique spells and foragers find uique mats, almost impossible ro reproduce without years of research, or the tuitiion of a master, guilds could have thier own trademark spells and stuff or specialise in one area.

Crafting, spellcraft, foraging, would become a mini-game in itself and something worth achieveing. Crafters would pay master foragers to get raw material for them since only they would have the knowledge and skill to get certain stuff.

Yes as you can see I am tired of MMO's where the only thing necessary to become a master is time for grinding, we need something unique that appeals to players tired of the same old thing.

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

That's what the Op mats and the super secret recipes guarded by master crafters are for...

In other words it actually IS possible ;)

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

I already knew about that, and to an extent yes that's true, and that extent is, you MUST be a member of a guild and that guild MUST have an outpost, an independant Master Crafter can't exist otherwise, which I find a pity indeed, its a limit to the game that I feel shouldn't exist. The OP mats (and cats of course) are simply a tool to make people fight over OP's and give the game an extra facet, but some of us simply aren't interested in that facet of the game.

If you lose you OP you lose the mats, so much for being a master crafter, you can't craft using recipes you can't possibly get mats for.

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

Master crafters can ask those mats in payment for their unique weapons or armor, created with mat recipies only they know :p

and if i know most guilds. They would happily pay ;)

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

Well, this may be the case on Arispotle.
It certainly is a bit different on Leanon. Of course we´ve got our fair share of OP conflicts, but even Guilds without OPs can quite easily acquire these special weapons/materials, by trading them at the player driven "free Merchants-Guild" events each week.

As for finding a crafter to build them, well... You have but to ask and maybe even meet a price.
This in my opinion should most definitely stay as it is, for these people truly have earned their mastership
and truly deserve to be asked for their favor.
Of what worth is a title when you can acquire it by simple grind and just copying recipes everyone else will know soon too.
What will you gain from having a few letters above your head state that you´re a "Master Crafter", if this in essence only means that you´ve grinded through a certain amount of levels? A hollow victory in my book at best.
There are only a few true Masters on each server and it should stay that way! For realisms and fairness sake.
Respect were its due, I say.

CU
Acridiel

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

Hmm, and how do you become a Master to learn to make these weapons that you will use to trade for the mats to make the weapons? Ask the Masters? Sorry, it's all secret, no new Masters allowed!

There are Masters and there are "Masters." The "Masters" are the ones who create the recipes, who experiment with new and unusual combinations of mats, who fail 999 times out of 1000, but that 1000th times is a true reflection of their "Mastery." Merely learning a recipe created by another doesn't make one a "Master", or even a Master, it makes one a pupil, an acolyte, a follower! By limiting the oportunities this way we end up with the old "Masters" and just a flock of followers, but never new "Masters." There is no room or opportunity for new "Masters" in the system, its a system designed to prevent them, not encourage them.


Agreed entirely.


And ten times agreed, but there should be opportunity for anyone, if they are willing to put the research and time into it, to become a true Master, quite often a true master is only recognised as such long after they are gone. I have stated here before that I hate Mastery that is the result of grind, grind, grind, and not hard work and research, but further, imagination, learning, innovation should also be part of it, and without the possibility of innovation from newcomers there will be no new masters.

To artificially limit the possibility of Mastership simply because you believe that there should only be X number of true "Masters" per server is a very bad idea, in fact it then becomes as stifling as those other MMO's I detest. You may just end up driving away someone who could show even the old "Masters" that they truly have more to learn. If someone has the dedication, intelligence and skill to "discover" their own recipes that are as good as or even better than the old "Masters" recipes then they should have the opportuniy to do so, if they then choose to keep those recipes secret that is their right, they will become a new "Master."

But by limiting certain mats to OP's and therefore Guilds and therefore only the Masters in those guilds then nothing is possible. Sure make mats hard to get, rare, expensive, only able to be dug by Master foragers, only found in one spot on the entire panet of Atys, that then becomes an opportunity for Master foragers to excel, but not make them impossible for a rising crafter to obtain and experiment with.

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

I´m a bit confused by your way of arguing, but I´ll try to follow ;)
Who said that there were no more Masters allowed?
Everyone is allowed to excel in his path, he/she needs only a certain commitment to get through it. More than is required to grind.


Hmhm, I think there´s room enough, only limited opportunity to acquire enough material to experiment with. That is true. But well, again I must point to the commitment/persistence factor. If you truly want to become a Master in every sense of the word, go out and "write your own story, get on with the "Quest" for mastery" and trade, cajole or do whatever it takes to become a true Master! Patience, young Padawn ;)


First, who "belives that there should be only a limited number of Masters"?
Who said that?
I think what was said was rather: "At the moment there IS only a certain mumber... and the way these people gained their mastery should stay as it was."
These guys didn´t get their "true Mastery building kit" gift wrapped under the Christmasstree ;) They were persistent and committed to their cause. They jotted down every single change in a recipes stats on paper or into excel-charts. They pored overt these charts and probably got serious brain-hurt from all the numbers.
So, who´s saying there shouldn´t be new Masters?
Every Apprentice in time has the opportunity to become a Master.
Every single Material can be gained not only from fighting over OPs and occupying them. Ok, if some jerks are to cheap to even trade some of their stuff, there should be something done about it, but not by the games mechanics, but by the Community. Again I do point to the excellent "Free Merchants Project" on Leanon.
It works great.
Anyone interested in it send a PM to Marduk or Dentom.

CU
Acridiel

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

OP mats really aren't that hard to obtain - especially if you're a crafter trying to find an awesome new recipe. The greatest factor in making OP mats hard to get is the quality - if you want q250 vedice, you might sometimes have to sell your soul. If you want q50 vedice, which is just as effective for learning recipes, ask and you will recieve - it's not a particularly sought-after mat, neither are any of the q50s.
Of course, once you've found your amazing recipe, when people want a q250 One Of Those, you tell 'em to bring their own q250 vedice. ;)

I don't think we need pretties and special names and "extras" to make gear look amazing - just hit the info window, and you can see how good the craft is. If everything that matters is damn near max, anyone you show it to will gasp and wet their panties without need for further embellishment.

And it's certainly the case that there are grind masters and real masters. Actually, the other new thread in this board discusses that quite extensively, although not in relation to crafters.

For example, we have a few master HA crafters on Aris, all of whom make very good gear. But if you want your amazing, better-than-the-bandit-lords, PvP HA; you ask Freddy. He's spent a long time developing his recipes, and as such they are the best PvP recipes around.

I'm at 248 desert dig... I will master soon(tm). I know for a fact that Erby is a far more efficient digger than I am, and I have no bloody idea why. I know she'd help me get my stanzas set up better if I asked; but nah, I'm gonna work it out myself. 'Cause right now I'm halfway between a grind master and a proper master, but I wanna end up the latter.

The same can apply to meleers and casters, but I figure that's enough examples for now.

Of course there are always gonna be grind masters, and anyone can become one of those - but it doesn't mean you can't also become a proper master. Yes, some masters guard their secrets carefully - well all the better; Atys' first masters didn't learn from other masters, they worked carefully with their friends and thought long and hard, and worked it out themselves; just as you recommend. I don't see why that's so impossible now. :)

Re: Ryzom post on Massive. com
 

maybe for a guildleader of a guild with a Q250 OP...... Checks out Nysha's sig.