Crafting High Quality Weapons Q&A

[Krath]

On topic now....If you want amazing weapons rare and out of the reach of the common person make them soo expensive they cannot afford them. Our currency is at a place where 5k even 10k is easily attainable. 20k? 30k not soo much especially for one piece of equipment. Top tier weapons, armor and support items should be top tier prices.

[Patuk]

Charging top tier prices just means that Salarr sells its best of weapons to its sweatiest of glass miners. Armageddon is not Capitalism Simulator, and the Known runs on much more powerful forces than plain old money.

[Riev]

Charging top tier prices just means that Salarr sells its best of weapons to its sweatiest of glass miners. Armageddon is not Capitalism Simulator, and the Known runs on much more powerful forces than plain old money.

I kind of agree, here. If you make it 20,000, then people will just grind to 20,000 in their account. There are no 'finite' resources when it comes to coin, so we have to invent social resources.

Steve the Grebber who has no affiliations and no political clout may be able to AFFORD that sword, but why sell it to him when he's going to die, lose it, and someone else gets it.

No no. Sell it to someone who is going to use it against other people effectively, so other people need better armor against that sword. Then sell them sword BREAKERS. Then sell the other guy a shield.

[Armaddict]

I think that was semi-referenced in one of the staff responses.

Just because you have the coin doesn't mean you should be looking for one.  They're for the 'big ones', the nobles, the templars, the people who have built names for themselves, the notables.  I like the statement that it's not capitalism simulator, because while getting coin is a big part of it, there's a lot more to the merchanting than just making coin here.  Every move is not just for business, it's also for status, which has a lot more to do with the caste system.  Or something.

Anyway.  I +1 those thoughts, those are good things to keep in mind.

[Yelinak]

Don't we also have semi-annual discussions about how worthless money is, in large part because you can only buy mediocre crap from the GREAT MERCHANT HOUSES? That's in addition to the apparent genereal consensus that GMHs aren't important enough for the common player to care about them. Meanwhile, we're to accept that it's unreasonable to expect that House Salarr is capable of making weapons that qualify as 'the best money can buy.' Ridiculous.

Let's now have another thread in two or three months where people wonder why nobody gives a damn about GMHs and the roles associated with them feel like pointless dead ends. And another decade can then go by like that. After that, we can spend a bunch of time wondering why it is that nobody thinks money has any real value in this game.

A real mystery.

[Quelan]

I do have one pretty relevant question, which is what classes get low/high advanced or low/high master in these skills? Caps for classes are generally just listed as 'advanced' or 'master'. Does a Soldier get to high advanced? What about a Laborer?

[Quelan]

Nevermind, I missed that Brokkr said where Soldier and Laborer fall in one of his posts.

[Roon]

Now that there may be seasons that don't feature either tribes or a playable House Salarr, and come with a definitve end date with a pwipe, wouldn't it be prudent to soften the restrictions on high-end weaponcrafting?

One aspect of the GMH playstyle that I've always wanted to see more of is protecting your commercial advantage. If Season One doesn't support clans outside of Allanak, there simply won't be anyone who can attempt to compete with Salarr, so it robs that clan of opportunities to actually fight against the competition because nobody else will have the ability to craft the best stuff. Crafting the best weapons is limited to Salarr and tribes that specialize in a given type of weapon. Without the latter, Salarr has a hardcoded monopoly. That sounds dull.

A potential source of thematic conflict will have been removed from the game altogether, and it was a largely untapped source of conflict that I would have liked to see expanded and turned into a more prominent feature of GMH play, not eliminated. GMH play has a reputation for being boring and leading nowhere, and it would be much more appealing if GMH characters had an incentive to either go mafia-mode and break the knees of the competition or try to persuade (by hook or crook) talented crafters into joining them. This is super thematic and would make the role much more interesting, instead of being glorified salesmen and sweatshop workers.

Maybe it can be made so that indepenents with the requisite skill in a weapon craft can make one "magnum opus" top tier weapon, or perhaps two per year or something. This still leaves Salarr with a significant advantage, without making it so that they don't even have to care about anyone else because it's factually impossible to even attempt to compete with them and be someone they have to investigate, threaten or bring into the fold.

Secondly, with seasons having a finite timeline and ending in a pwipe, there's less need to worry about flooding the market with high-quality weapons. According to last year's announcement, you can only make four 'top tier' weapons per year, and you must wait a minimum of two months between each. I think that limitation can be lessened. Keep in mind that it only really applies to Salarr, for Season One.

Six per year and one month between each seems more reasonable, and I feel like the three-step progression can be reduced to two, i.e. mastering a weapon craft lets you CC the second-best and then, when that's accomplished and you've waited out your CC timer, you can make the best of that one category. Then you can choose whether to start over with another weapon category or make different top tier weapons of the same category you had already perfected.

Without that, I feel like there's too little incentive to bother at all when you know it's all getting erased from existence at the end of a season. Crafting top tier weapons is already a somewhat underwhelming goal because the character crafting them doesn't really get to benefit from the objects (what the F is an artisan gonna do with an amazing weapon?) so you're basically doing it for other people, or maybe the faint hope that one of your future characters may one day happen upon a copy of your old creation. If you can at least make these weapons often enough that master weaponcrafters are Zalanthan celebrities who can have people vying for their friendship, it'll add some oomph to an evidently unattractive character concept.

As a final side-note, with amazing weapons being as exclusive as they are, they definitely need to be removed from any NPC's loadout. When this change went in, I was miffed to discover that the best way to obtain a top tier weapon was not to curry favor with the finest crafters in the land, but rather to find out which NPCs spawned with amazing weapons and then killing them.

[digitaleak]

Perhaps I misunderstood the details of the Seasons updates, but I was under the impression staff was still aiming to create zones outside of Allanak for people to enjoy all play styles. Also, I was under the impression player stories would still be able to outlive their characters even in the next seasons depending on how the storylines are affected by players. So a player wipe at the end of a season doesn't necessarily equate to a wipe of everything players have been working towards while they were alive.

If these things are the case, then I'd imagine there's still going to be incentive to play crafters and/or compete with Salarr. Though, it is food for thought... What would happen if they did have a monopoly... and what would it look like if the player base did something about that in game? 

[Roon]

As I understand it, there will be no clans open outside of whatever place is the focus of a season, and Season One's focus is Allanak. And unless your big "character story" is to create a weapon that will last forever and become a future relic to be found in the ruins of wherever as part of some formal storyline, it'll be gone when the season ends and all characters (and their inventories) go the way of the kank. What are you gonna do, bury your amazing sword in the Salt Flats and then dig it up in the subsequent season with another character? I don't think that would fly.

What would happen if they did have a monopoly... and what would it look like if the player base did something about that in game? 

As the rules currently stand, there would be no "doing something about it" because the only ones who even have the option of crafting a top tier weapon are members of House Salarr, and members of a tribe that specifically specializes in making weapons of one particular kind. From what I can tell, such tribes will not exist in Season One, and so the only ones who have the option to make top tier weapons at all are members of Salarr. Hence the concern about a lack of competition-based roleplay and conflict. If nobody is even allowed to compete, there is no competition.

In my mind, the GMHs should be out there breaking the kneecaps of anyone who make anything as good as what they sell, and that's a fantastic source of conflict and subterfuge. Except if it literally isn't possible to do it at all, it won't be anything, and then the GMH playstyle remains that of shirt-sellers who store after two months because it's so boring that you die in real life.

[digitaleak]

I imagine there will be larger plots going on in the Season that involve power struggles over strong featured clans and all other clans that seek to change the status quo. Perhaps there will be new clans? Who knows! I'm curious to see if crafting rules will change slightly for indies to be more competitive and scale to the shorter seasons because I also imagine they will be adjusted in a way that makes sense.

[Roon]

Well, it's always possible that there are wholly unannounced changes in the pipeline, but we can't base our opinions on unfounded hopes. As it stands, the only ones who are allowed to craft 'amazing' weapons are members of House Salarr, and members of any tribe that specifically specializes in crafting weapons of that type. From what I can tell, the latter will not exist in Season One (and in future seasons, maybe you can't play in Salarr), and I feel like that calls for a change to the rules about crafting top tier weapons. It would be boring if the only way to make weapons for which there's a demand was to join the one clan that permits it; and there wouldn't be any need for that restriction when everything is wiped from the board each time a season ends. Seasons largely do away with the perils of "flooding the market" with high-quality weapons.

[Riev]

House Salarr has been making top tier weapons for hundreds of years. They have the skills. The techniques. The tools. Things developed over this time to make these things.

Your indie cannot make Amazing-quality weapons. BUT if a Season lasts 2 RL years, and NOTHING changes with the current PC Clan documentation (and it should, but thats another topic), you will have plenty of time to build up a PC Clan whose entire focus is crafting a super-cool sword. But it will never be as good as what Salarr makes, and even the one that Salarr DID make is going to be super limited.

Mordat made -one- amazing quality weapon. It took over 3 RL months and I was lucky to even get it into the game before I got Templar'd. I can only HOPE if there is a future Tuluk story that the blade is featured.

I don't know that every seasons player wipe necessarily means recipes will go away. Unless we jump into a "Historical Allanak"?

[Roon]

House Salarr has been making top tier weapons for hundreds of years. They have the skills. The techniques. The tools. Things developed over this time to make these things.

Your indie cannot make Amazing-quality weapons.

That just doesn't seem realistic to me. We're talking about bone swords here, not iPhones. I can't think of any reason why it should be literally impossible for anyone but the employees of this one merchant house to ever make weapons of the highest quality. It legitimately defies the way that reality works. It isn't rational. It isn't how things work on a fundamental level.

Moreover, it presumes that every season will have an active and playable House Salarr. If there are seasons that don't, are high-quality weapons just handwaved out of existence? It's clear that these rules were drawn up in a time when this clan - and tribes that specialized in making particular kinds of weapons - were presumed to be a permanent fixture of the game.

I agree that Salarr would have a distinct advantage. They have the mentors, the materials, the marketing edge and so on. That's why I advocated for things like a greater number of CCs per year for people in that clan. But to say that it simply is not possible for anybody else to ever make anything as good frankly seems more like a video game mechanic than a representation of a believable world.

I don't know that every seasons player wipe necessarily means recipes will go away. Unless we jump into a "Historical Allanak"?

Maybe I've misinterpreted what staff has said, but they said this:

All amazing weapons will be one-off custom crafts, rather than craftable.

To me, that does not mean "when you've invented an amazing-quality weapon, it will enter into the list of craftable items for all time and can be made again in the future." In fact, it means the total opposite of that. You get to make an 'amazing' weapon and then that's that. You made one. You didn't introduce a new craft to the game's collective inventory, you just created an object that will go away whenever it is no longer actively on the playing field, i.e. at the end of each season.

This is why I think the restrictions need to be reduced when we enter into a new version of the game that is wiped clean every so often, and all of these CCs are erased from existence.

[Armaddict]

Ultimately, the logic can really be taken both ways in this, and it's coming down to more of a design decision based off of other factors, in my mind.

I believe this is:
1) Keep the standard quality of weapons below 'Amazing' quality; not everyone should have amazing weapons, getting an amazing quality weapon is a long term goal, and you'll have to add to 'things to work on' for clanned people, rather than segregating yourself from the main structured components of the game (clans).

2) Clans have always been about 'what they offer'.  In old days, food, water, storage, and some amount of political capital were enough to keep clans well-populated, along with what was at the time a different way of doing things that meant clanned people had more kind of 'mini-plots' going.  That kind of died out as we made things that people wanted, which may have specifically targeted leaving clans or might have been just unacknowledged side products: we made hunting easier and less dangerous, which made food easier to get for yourself, and since it was less dangerous, more lucrative over long term so that you could afford water and your own storage (apartments).  I see this as a design move to create a different incentive to join clans without specifically punishing non-clanned (indeed, this is not a punishment to indies, just a boon to clanned people).

So again, I'm not sure logical what-could-be-done arguments are really the basis here.  We'd need a reason for the design of it to benefit the game more than clan involvement does.  I, personally, think the game thrived a lot more under heavier clan involvement because it naturally kept people more centralized and involved in political goings on.

I could be mistaken in all this, that's just how I see the design decision in my brain, likely with my own biases involved (i.e. This may be a non-objective perspective)

ETA before someone inevitably says this is punishment for not joining a clan:
Reminder:
Positive Reinforcement - Added benefit for an action or state
Positive Punishment - Added detriment for an action or state
Negative Reinforcement - Removing a detriment for an action or state
Negative Punishment - Removing a benefit for an action or state

This is a reinforcement for joining crafting clans, not a punishment for those who don't.  This is in keeping with the oft-requested principle of 'make the thing you want players doing better, don't make the other things worse'.

[Riev]

Personally, I would need to be convinced the "its just bone swords" argument is anything but "But I want to not have to deal with <x> clan for my goals".

Its not against you, Roon, but I see it all the time. "Its just stone. its just wood. They're bone swords".

Okay. So to take "just a piece of bone" and artfully craft it into an AMAZING QUALITY WEAPON should be even further out of an indie's hands. What makes you think that after 5 years of whittling wood in your back-woods home qualifies you to make ARTISANAL. MASTER QUALITY. SOUGHT AFTER BY HIGH NOBILITY. bone weapons?

Frankly? It sounds to me like people who argue for "I should be able to make amazing weapons" just want to do "the new thing the coders added without putting in the effort and roleplay involved". Maybe if you DO, and you work at it for over 2 RL years ... maybe staff will let you. But by default? No.

[Trevalyan]

Its not against you, Roon, but I see it all the time. "Its just stone. its just wood. They're bone swords".

You're being incredibly circumspect about this, Riev. I was in a position to know quite a bit about that sword, and the work Mordat put into it was preposterous. The vast majority of the playerbase has no idea how much effort goes into normal weapons submissions, never mind amazing ones. The guidelines for crafting amazing weapons are only a tiny sliver of the work you had to put in, and I thought it was a very well roleplayed journey.

Now, SOME of the tribes might be able to craft amazing-quality weapons, but only with Dragon-era knowledge using the most powerful components in the game. There's no way they could create new ones short of infusing them with magic or some other insane thing that the templars would never tolerate.

[NinjaFruitSalad]

Personally, I would need to be convinced the "its just bone swords" argument is anything but "But I want to not have to deal with <x> clan for my goals".

Its not against you, Roon, but I see it all the time. "Its just stone. its just wood. They're bone swords".

Okay. So to take "just a piece of bone" and artfully craft it into an AMAZING QUALITY WEAPON should be even further out of an indie's hands. What makes you think that after 5 years of whittling wood in your back-woods home qualifies you to make ARTISANAL. MASTER QUALITY. SOUGHT AFTER BY HIGH NOBILITY. bone weapons?

Frankly? It sounds to me like people who argue for "I should be able to make amazing weapons" just want to do "the new thing the coders added without putting in the effort and roleplay involved". Maybe if you DO, and you work at it for over 2 RL years ... maybe staff will let you. But by default? No.

I think maybe Riev has a point here... it all IS just bone, and wood, and obsidian, and stone...

What if the quality of these weapons is all in our heads, and it's all just crappy quality, and the only thing that gives the weapon real value at all is that it came from a big influential merchant house, and high nobility wants it?   


A little more seriously and less philosophically, it would be interesting if certain very special items like these were tracked and let's say, in another season, some other templar npc, noble, guard captain or whatever has ownership of those amazing-quality weapons.

[Dresan]

I have two thoughts:

1. First  is that words matter. A few more sections out of the range of player crafters would probably solve most concerns.

As a fun exanple: Superior(sponsored role), Supreme(GMH sponsored only), Legendary (staff) and Artifact tiers(save ginka server).

Its then all just becomes perspective. For example  gaj tooth dagger that i cant sell because for 1 sid because merchant has too many, could maybe be a a couple of tier shy from 'amazing' .

I really doubt we'll see gortok granite mace levels of amazing again so i am not too concerned about 'amazing' level weapons everywhere. Again amazing could all just be perspective.


2. There is an issue in this game when it comes to the defining of risk/effort vs reward.

Oddly this is not a code issue, the code exists to make exploring any part of the game as rewarding or risky as people want. Its more of a policy issue where game has never properly defined/standardized the effort for rewards that makes sense for this game. Its often very subjective which leads to many problems later on.

So people are left subjectively trying to debate how much effort/risk is enough to own/find/acquire something 'amazing'. Is it okay to pick up 'amazing' off the ground like i did my gortok granite maces back in the day? Maybe

[Armaddict]

So people are left subjectively trying to debate how much effort/risk is enough to own/find/acquire something 'amazing'. Is it okay to pick up 'amazing' off the ground like i did my gortok granite maces back in the day? Maybe

Maybe it was stated somewhere, I haven't paid that much attention, but it might also be worth knowing with the standardization whether some weapons are just...better.

That amazing quality bone longsword, is that better than this superior rainbow-obsidian broadsword?  This stone-studded cudgel?  Does Amazing mean 'omg use it' or not?

[mansa]

Maybe it was stated somewhere, I haven't paid that much attention, but it might also be worth knowing with the standardization whether some weapons are just...better.

That amazing quality bone longsword, is that better than this superior rainbow-obsidian broadsword?  This stone-studded cudgel?  Does Amazing mean 'omg use it' or not?

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58907.0.html

They never used any numbers to justify it, but you can assume that it either adds to the higher end of the dice roll chance -or- it adds damage at the end of the damage calculation or a combination of both.

aka

terrible longsword is 1d5
low longsword is 1d6
below average longsword is 1d7
average longsword is 1d8
above average longsword is 1d9
good longsword is 1d10
very good longsword is 1d10+1
amazing longsword is 1d10+2

[whengravityfails]

Amazing weapons should remain rare, there's no need for more of them circulating in game. They should be highly sought after prizes that people scheme and kill for - and certainly shouldn't be produced outside of Salarr and those tribes who can specialize in their one particular weapon. The case of Salarr, those special tools and techniques that have been honed over centuries -mean- something. I do agree that something ought to be done to make playing in Salarr or the other GMHs more attractive. That's a far better solution than removing restrictions on Amazing weapons.
I really do hope that all of the crafting recipes aren't wiped out, it would be a shame for those who went through the trouble of making them. Very special weapons should be discoverable in future seasons - like the rapier Mordat crafted and a few others.

[Dresan]

I think it can be min, max damage or plus damage but i am unsure if other bonus like light weight or skill bonus will count as well to quality....thinking yes since these are crafted items but again unsure.

Ultimately 'amazing' quality weapon will be better than above average 'quality'. But how much better from one tier to another or how much better from what we currently are used to using in game is debatable.

A certain razor-tipped spear could probably pass for amazing when it first came out. But could it help my newb ranger love-tap his shield warrior sergeant to sleep in a round or so like the gortok granite maces could....of course not, but both were selling for the same price and were everywhere for a while.

The only thing that i see being rare and hard to get might be short sword stabbing weapons, I think staff shifted stances on those existing but never updated documentation.

[perfecto]

Amazing weapons should remain rare, there's no need for more of them circulating in game. They should be highly sought after prizes that people scheme and kill for - and certainly shouldn't be produced outside of Salarr and those tribes who can specialize in their one particular weapon. The case of Salarr, those special tools and techniques that have been honed over centuries -mean- something. I do agree that something ought to be done to make playing in Salarr or the other GMHs more attractive. That's a far better solution than removing restrictions on Amazing weapons.
I really do hope that all of the crafting recipes aren't wiped out, it would be a shame for those who went through the trouble of making them. Very special weapons should be discoverable in future seasons - like the rapier Mordat crafted and a few others.

Total agree with this direction for high end weaps, the greats should be the only ones creating the greats.
Also hoping the player crafted recipes are still going to be a part of the reboot. Though it wouldn't make complete sense with the time shifts of the seasons that some things be available for creation?  Any comments on that Imms?

Still makes me smile when I see my Gigantic fan-bladed war sword for sale in one of the shops.