Mundane Subclass Feedback

[Nao]

People have enjoyed merchants all along. It has not, historically over the lifetime of merchants, been necessarily linked to custom crafting.

This was a long time ago, and the game has changed.
There is also a difference between playing a merchant that can't custom craft when it's available for other crafters, or the feature just not being available. You don't need to compete with other crafters that have that ability when the feature just doesn't exist.

What do you see as the major weakness of the mercantile classes? Players often pick a subguild to partially 'fix' a major weakness they see in a class or add some missing skills and abilities. We can't do that if we're forced to pick the custom crafting subguild to be useful to other characters, which seemts to be one reason the current setup is so unpopular.

[Marauder Moe]

I think custom crafting should just be 1 karma point per item.  No need for a specific subclass.

[Heade]

I think custom crafting should just be 1 karma point per item.  No need for a specific subclass.

I think a per-item restriction is silly. Just have it be a binary on/off flag set at character creation for 1 karma, with automatic acceptance of special apps from 0-karma players that spec app a mundane, non-karma PC that wants custom crafting on.

[Narf]

I think custom crafting should just be 1 karma point per item.  No need for a specific subclass.

I think a per-item restriction is silly. Just have it be a binary on/off flag set at character creation for 1 karma, with automatic acceptance of special apps from 0-karma players that spec app a mundane, non-karma PC that wants custom crafting on.

I imagine that depends on why the restriction is there in the first place. If its meant for class balance, then yes that wouldn't be a solution. If the restriction is there to prevent item bloat, that creating a per-item cost to custom crafting would be the /best/ solution (though the cost need not necessarily be karma).

[Heade]

I think custom crafting should just be 1 karma point per item.  No need for a specific subclass.

I think a per-item restriction is silly. Just have it be a binary on/off flag set at character creation for 1 karma, with automatic acceptance of special apps from 0-karma players that spec app a mundane, non-karma PC that wants custom crafting on.

I imagine that depends on why the restriction is there in the first place. If its meant for class balance, then yes that wouldn't be a solution. If the restriction is there to prevent item bloat, that creating a per-item cost to custom crafting would be the /best/ solution (though the cost need not necessarily be karma).

I disagree. If the current situation is to prevent item bloat, then attaching a karma cost to an on/off flag would be similarly effective to the situation we have right now. People with 1 karma, currently, may use it for a subguild that lets them custom craft, and people who don't have karma can take a 0-karma subguild to do so. My proposed alternative would require 0-karma players to burn a spec app(limited to 2 per year) to have a PC able to custom craft, in theory, making 0-karma custom crafters even more rare than they are now, while giving them the ability to choose a REAL subclass when they DO exist.

[X-D]

Bringing up the fact that merchants did not always have crafting from a time when there simply was NO crafting at all sort of a straw man.

Once there was crafting, master crafting was a thing pretty much right off the bat, Oh sure you had to RP a bunch and ask staff to make it, but it was there from the VERY beginning...In fact...a merchant could master craft before crafting existed and through the same means. I remember "mastercrafts" Back in '93' and beyond, Called player submitted items.

I am actually (oddly) in agreement with most the people here in that mastercrafts SHOULD be main class...and if I had my way, not subclass at all. It makes no sense at all for a subclass, something really meant more for flavor/variety to be better at something then a main class...In fact Brokkr, aside from the crafting subs you yourself have said that they should not be.

[Boogerbear]

Oh, there was also a time when, as a GMH PC, if you had a good imm, then they would custom-craft items on a weekly basis.  And they weren't really ever rejected, except for like this one time when I submitted a pair of feline-shaped, orange-tinted sunslits for another PC.

I was playing a GMH PC when crafting was implemented and used no coded skills (what, make things?  totally beneath a silk-clad signet-ring wearer) but was still able to submit multiple versions of "mastercraft" items on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  Again, it depended on your imm.


You also had to keep up with all your minion PCs, if they were dead or not, and when to pay them.

[Boogerbear]

RE: Lots of objects being imp'd and whether or not that's bad.


If staff are struggling to keep up with mastercraft items, bad.

If staff are holding in there and want to keep fleshing out potential mastercraft items and craftable items as an entirety, good.

Personally, after having a lapse in terms of years between playing crafters, I'm glad that the most basic ingredients now seem to have WAY more options, but there is still room for improvement, as long as it doesn't impact staff ability to do even better stuff.


I also think players should be more willing to use just basic ingredients as opposed to weird combinations of shit because the end result is people having more options to craft, overall.  I understand not wanting everyone to start copying your new object, but seriously, arcane crafting recipes should be left to the wayside in favor of recipes that the game, overall, might benefit from.

Whether or not master crafting is good or bad is difficult for a standard player to comment on because it's hard to have an idea of how big of a pain in the ass creating new items is/how many people are doing it on a regular basis.  Without that kind of info, I hesitate to comment or weigh in one way or the other.

[Boogerbear]

I think custom crafting should just be 1 karma point per item.  No need for a specific subclass.

MM, that is all savage and no chill.

[Alesan]

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion, but maybe player-characters should put less emphasis on custom crafting themselves. Every noble/templar/whatever person doesn't need their own special unique item, do they? Are GMHs really constantly looking for shiny new [thingamabob] and won't hire anyone but a custom crafter so they can get it? Why? There's probably literally thousands of pretty/badass/whatever crafts already in the game that people could dig up to use instead, and sure it won't be made just for you but it's also not your run of the mill ordinary [thingamabob] either. Stop making crafter classes feel bad because they didn't take a custom craft subguild. And maybe the situation might eventually tip back to a more reasonable level.

Disclaimer: I'm not against heavy mercantile classes getting custom crafting, I'm just against custom crafting being the end-all be-all of a crafter character.

[Narf]

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion, but maybe player-characters should put less emphasis on custom crafting themselves.

Personally, I agree, but I do think the craft-based classes should have something to distinguish themselves from any rando with the appropriate craft skill.

If it were up to me, there'd just be a bunch of items that you could not even attempt to craft unless you had a certain level of craft skill, and then make it so only the mercantile classes could reach that level in many of the crafts.

Alternatively, allow mercantile crafts to make superior versions of other items as a special ability.

Both of these would make them valuable without contributing to item bloat in the game. The first one would even be easy to do with the current code.

[Bogre]

I would lean towards mercantile guilds being master crafters, over subguilds.

They give enough up, their specialties should definitely lie in crafting.

[Lancer]

Just a thought, but if part of the intent is restricting/limiting the amount of mastercraft submissions coming in from primary class crafters, what about different cooldowns? For example: Light Mercantile once every 3 months, Heavy Mercantile every 2 months, Custom Crafter/ESG master subguilds every month?

[Heade]

Just a thought, but if part of the intent is restricting/limiting the amount of mastercraft submissions coming in from primary class crafters, what about different cooldowns? For example: Light Mercantile once every 3 months, Heavy Mercantile every 2 months, Custom Crafter/ESG master subguilds every month?

Why would the extended subguilds get to do it more often than the core crafters? Again, doesn't make sense within the theme of not having extended subguilds outshine the core classes.

[Lancer]

Why would the extended subguilds get to do it more often than the core crafters? Again, doesn't make sense within the theme of not having extended subguilds outshine the core classes.

They're already doing it more often than the core classes. Make a case for flipping the cooldowns around if you want, I was just throwing out an option to get the classes capable of doing it at all.

[Heade]

Why would the extended subguilds get to do it more often than the core crafters? Again, doesn't make sense within the theme of not having extended subguilds outshine the core classes.

They're already doing it more often than the core classes. Make a case for flipping the cooldowns around if you want, I was just throwing out an option to get the classes capable of doing it at all.

The issue isn't that they want subguilds doing it more. That'd be an absurd case to make. No one has ever argued that subguilds should be better at something than the main classes.

The issue is that someone had the idea to tie custom crafting solely to subguilds as some sort of a tradeoff that really isn't a tradeoff at all, but rather a crippling of the core classes. Just as if weapon skills were taken away from a warrior and added to a subguild the warrior had to take to get them back. They'd have never tried to do that, but someone apparently doesn't think that custom crafting matters on an IC level to the core classes that have always had it since it's inception. It's integral to their identity, and has only been made different very recently, in a disastrously failed experiment.

[Riev]

20 years ago, the game was different and Merchants couldn't Master Craft.

Some time between then and now, they were given the ability to affect the world through adding items to the game, as scripting the process and the item database's control were loosened a bit.

That makes all you players "entitled" (as a pejorative) to this thing you have had for, lets estimate, 10 straight years. You were ALLOWED to do something fun, because staff wanted you to enjoy their game and bring something unique to it.

That is not the case anymore. Staff cannot trust the players to keep their items both "in line" with the universe and described "accurately". That makes you "entitled" as a pejorative, and open for mocking by the game's top Producer. If you want to have access to do the thing you've been allowed to do for 10 years, you're going to have to sacrifice more out of your concept.

(Take from this what you will, dear reader. I cannot possibly fathom how "Heavy Mercantile" classes cannot possibly have the creativity to make a unique item, even if only granted to them when they've become a master, as under the old system. Let a Subguild Swordsmith make custom crappy blades their whole life, but a Heavy Mercantile swordsmith is capable only of truly wondrous creations.)

[Heade]

I actually checked my statement from earlier for accuracy. Custom Crafting was introduced for merchants roughly 15 years ago.

[Brokkr]

October 27, 2004 to be precise.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,11145.msg108788.html#msg108788

The first sentence highlights a continuing issue, the emphasis on content vs the emphasis on roleplay.

[Heade]

October 27, 2004 to be precise.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,11145.msg108788.html#msg108788

The first sentence highlights a continuing issue, the emphasis on content vs the emphasis on roleplay.

Yup, almost exactly 14 years ago(which is why I said roughly 15, and not just 15). Of course, as referenced in that post, crafting submissions were a thing before that. But at this point, we're splitting hairs. The fact is, on an IC basis, custom crafting has become an important part of what merchants/heavy mercantile characters do, even if it is infrequent.

No, not every character even uses it, but even for characters that never do, it may very well have been a part of why they chose that class, and have been part of their RP, despite not getting to use the ability. I'm sure many PCs die before they ever get a chance to submit a custom craft. With as long as custom crafts take to get made, I've had plenty of PCs die while waiting for an item to get finished.

But, for many crafter/merchant PCs, custom crafting is part of the dream. Part of the idea for long-term goals for the character, perhaps feeding into the idea of starting their own business, or to assist in climbing the ranks of a GMH. It is, quite often, an RP hook that leads to lots of interaction with other PCs. Because a PC can go to just ANY weapon crafter to get a basic bone sword. But if they're looking for something special, they have to work closely with someone capable of creating that.

Custom crafting has led to a TON of IC interaction and created innumerable opportunities for plot as people vie for the elusive and infrequent services of a custom crafter. I just think it's doing merchants/heavy mercantile characters a great disservice to subject them to being second-class crafters in this regard.

[yousuff]

...are you seriously going to fight this hard against the majority of your feedback-giving playerbase over custom crafting forever?

How long do we have to keep on pointing out that it's not a desirable idea before you start to do the side-to-side nod of your head and say 'Okay, maybe they really enjoy this and want it in their game in more places rather than less'?  Because we can just set up scripts to keep reposting about entitlement and whatnot for that long.

+1

[Cind]

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion, but maybe player-characters should put less emphasis on custom crafting themselves. Every noble/templar/whatever person doesn't need their own special unique item, do they? Are GMHs really constantly looking for shiny new [thingamabob] and won't hire anyone but a custom crafter so they can get it? Why? There's probably literally thousands of pretty/badass/whatever crafts already in the game that people could dig up to use instead, and sure it won't be made just for you but it's also not your run of the mill ordinary [thingamabob] either.

Unfortunately for most of my legacy class Kadians this was the case; hardly anyone needed any one crafter's particular ability to make a necklace that anyone with jewelrymaking could make. For that, all you needed was one crafter who could do it reasonably well, and there was almost always one or two long-lived legacy merchants who could make everything well.

But special items? Kadius might have had three merchant guild players, if they were lucky, working on a list of twelve custom crafts for that RL year (actually, it was more, but around a dozen to fourteen were usually considered high priority.) That was, if someone didn't store out of boredom. Many of the people buying the crafts were the type to live a long time, keeping us from scratching them off the list and moving on to other projects. Because many clients were nobles, aides and templars, we felt an IC pressure that probably extended to OOC to get to their projects first, and these were the people who were least likely to die before we sent in our custom crafts to be inspected by staff.

Let me tell you, people LOVE their black capes lined with green snake embroidery. Can't get enough of them. Once in a while, they don't like it, and send it back.

[tapas]

Is this really a hill worth dying on?

I know some players really like their custom crafts. But couldn't they just put in a spec app for their Craftsman/Grebber and ask for the ability to custom craft?

[sleepyhead]

Is this really a hill worth dying on?

I know some players really like their custom crafts. But couldn't they just put in a spec app for their Craftsman/Grebber and ask for the ability to custom craft?

Brokkr has repeatedly said he hasn't decided whether or not we should be able to special app the ability to custom craft on characters that wouldn't usually have the ability. If he's finally given an answer to this, I haven't seen it. Of course, it makes zero sense not to let people do that from my perspective. People only get two special apps per year now, and most people will still probably just use them to play concepts above their karma level. It shouldn't create that much more work. But I don't make that decision, and the last time I heard anything about it from Brokkr, he was saying he had not made up his mind about whether he'll allow it.

[tapas]

Even if they could not mastercraft through special app, I would agree with Alesan that the game does not need dozens of new MC's a year.