Discussion: Professional Crafters - The Missing Class

[Basara]

One of the original intents for the BOD Books being able to be placed on Vendors at no charge, with the BODs not priced, is that it was SUPPOSED to be a means of showing what BODs you had that you were willing to trade, then people could leave use messages on billboards, or in books dropped into a locked down container, to arrange trades.

However, it was almost immediately put to use as simple storage by most folks, with no interest of trades.

 

[Tanivar]

One of the original intents for the BOD Books being able to be placed on Vendors at no charge, with the BODs not priced, is that it was SUPPOSED to be a means of showing what BODs you had that you were willing to trade, then people could leave use messages on billboards, or in books dropped into a locked down container, to arrange trades.

However, it was almost immediately put to use as simple storage by most folks, with no interest of trades.

That this would be done should have been no surprise considering how many possible BODs there are.

 

[Warpig Inc]

BOD collecting now is NOT an issue with Bribes. Little so with the random direction that is the wrong way always Bribes take a BOD. Barbed and Valorite runics can be had by anyone now. See it on chat sometimes "buying Plate Gorget BOD any type" It is more the mining and gathering leather that is the slow part of BOD flipping. Can make more selling the ingots and leather then the filled BOD is worth. And to avoid a migrain I just toss most runic tools I get now in the trash having full containers of 100 charge runics already for smith and tailor. They need to add into the reforge window of the picks what the possible result could be and range. A box on the bottom of the window as picks are made possible end results and negatives. There needs to be a "Learning Curve/ Open Book" for the slower, don't live and breath UO players as far as reforging goes. I don't want to grind farm gold just pay another player to make gear. My UO goals are not the ability to solo slasher, but have done stuff for ones self such as crafting. Burning runics, ingots, wood and leather groping in the dark to figure out where luck or SSI in reforging, well sucks. The RNG is just sitting there frothing at the lips when the reforge window is open, so why not just show what is possible? "No UO player should be left behind" they'll just drop out. Crafting takes more of an effort to make one desired item then just smacking a creature till you get that drop item that could never be crafted.

 

[Amber Witch]

Okay. Now I feel horrible having asked friends make me a suit. I had no idea as I pretty much gave up on smithing when it became more complicated than simply pounding on metal.

Next time I see these people in game I'm going to kiss their feet.

 

[Mazulat]

Okay. Now I feel horrible having asked friends make me a suit. I had no idea as I pretty much gave up on smithing when it became more complicated than simply pounding on metal.

Next time I see these people in game I'm going to kiss their feet.

If it makes ya feel better, anyone still running a dedicated crafter as their primary most likely appreciates the chance to do a suit for someone they know. I do suits for random folks that afford a complete load out, but it's my guildies and hunting buddies that get most of my work, due in no small part to enjoy being able to really crunch some numbers and do something awesome. Makes for a great break in the monotony of farming the resources required to do it.

Praise they crafter.... but don't let them fool ya, they do it because they really enjoy it. Why else would they/we collect the evil known as BoDs. No other game on the market has the range of crafting possibilities that UO does... It's what keeps me coming back after all these years.

 

[Ludes]

I have to agree with many others posted above.. in the years past we all had to make our own crafters.. most of us just added imbuing, etc... to our own personal crafters.. why go looking for a smith if I can do it myself?

That said.. lemme come in on the other side, speaking for myself only I miss going to find smiths to buy, repair, and upgrade my armour.. If I could just go to Brit Smithy and buy, and repair armour.. I'd dump my crafters in a second.. I hate gathering resources to support my crafters.. I'd much rather buy stuff with the gold I get hunting.
Alas.. not much of an option anymore...
So I agree with the OP... I'd love to see dedicated crafters back in the game..
Luckily on Cats we have Ducan Ironweaver, this dude makes awesome suits and weapons for us... usually at barely above costs.

 

[Ludes]

And in all fairness I should mention Bane as well... quite the Master at suit building..! I do feel bad about other shards where crafting has died out though.. my heart goes out to the OP.

 

[Ludes]

I think that people being tight lipped about how they make their suits hurts.

I also think that they look at what happened to sampires and realize that if how they came to their uberness, that if publicly known, that it would be nerfed. So they just keep it to themselves.

I agree.. I look at what you did NuSair to help people make sampires.. and the nerfs that came afterwords and I just wonder..

 

[NuSair]

There were others who really started helping people on sampires. I would hope that I wasn't the reason for the nerf.

Personally, I feel the change in Chivalry pretty much did nothing in terms of affecting sampires. At least, for me. The only time you cannot get around using Chivalry is when you are facing a creature that doesn't have a slayer.

 

[Tzadkiel]

Here is an odd dynamic regarding suit building. With so many BOTS running around, the commodity industry is largely but not entirely unattended, and the economy has been governed by the unattended bots (sad). When the introduction of arti's hit the scene that changed crafting yet again. Do I like the fact that I have well over 130 mil tied up in one suit? Not really. Will it change? One can only hope. This is how the game has evolved. I am hopeful that the team will govern more closely the ones who seek to gain an unfair advantage over other players and stop the unfair manipulation of the economy through dubious means.

A quick walk down memory lane....who remembers carrying bags of regs around? Better yet, how awesome was it to have a 60 or better on the mods of your suit? And finally, remember how rare it was to see a 70's/100% lrc suit?

 

[NuSair]

LRC was one of the worst ideas ever, imo.

Personally, I would like to see it where it was like in the PC games where you had to pre-mix your spells.

Scripting has damaged everything in this game so badly, it's a testament to the basic design of this game that it has lasted as long as it has.

 

[Tzadkiel]

LRC was one of the worst ideas ever, imo.

Personally, I would like to see it where it was like in the PC games where you had to pre-mix your spells.

Scripting has damaged everything in this game so badly, it's a testament to the basic design of this game that it has lasted as long as it has.

What do you mean by pre-mixing spells?

I respectfully disagree with the 100% LRC thing. That was kinda cool IMO.

But we are in agreement about unattended scripting. Or unapproved third party programs. It definitely is a fun killer for sure.

 

[NuSair]

Example- recall takes ash, pearl, mandrake root.
You mix them together to make a recall spell. And you carry about like 10 recalls made.

It's a cool idea, but you have to look at it from an economic perspective. It removed the biggest constant gold sink in the game.

 

[Ender76]

LRC was one of the worst ideas ever, imo.

Personally, I would like to see it where it was like in the PC games where you had to pre-mix your spells.

Scripting has damaged everything in this game so badly, it's a testament to the basic design of this game that it has lasted as long as it has.

If they ever really want to get serious about a gold sink, they should get rid of LRC. Maybe make it so LRC means you can have the regs in your bank box instead of carrying them around. Gold just doesn't leave the system enough

 

[Tzadkiel]

Then we are back to the BOT's gobbling up all the regs at the vendors. Catch 22? The scripting killed the crafter as we once knew it. As I type this I am watching one script away unattended with little to no consequence awaiting them. Very sad in my opinion. I do however like the LRC idea upon further thought. It makes sense.

 

[popps]

There has to be a way to bring back some of the older community to crafting.

Question, as long as players can have their own crafter on that shard where they have their fighting characters, be them for PvP or PvM, why should players need to need other players' crafters ?

If any player on a given shard can be self sufficient and have all sorts of crafting characters be handy for one's own personal needs especially considering that now with scrolls of alacrity, advanced characters, SoTs, soulstones etc. it is quite easy to raise skills and swap them back and forth as needed, not to mention skill items, how on earth, I wonder, is it possible to bring crafting back to Ultima Online as a viable profession ?

I think that any realistic goal of bringing back crafting as a viable profession in Ultima Online will first need to address the problem of self sufficiency in this game, not to mention also wear and tear.......

 

[Tanivar]

If they ever really want to get serious about a gold sink, they should get rid of LRC. Maybe make it so LRC means you can have the regs in your bank box instead of carrying them around. Gold just doesn't leave the system enough

Reagents would not be a good goldsink, they cost a few gold each. It would have to be some item that cost millions of gold to be a useful goldsink with the economy we have.

Maybe have runics, which are not much more than goldsinks themselves, cost a million gold per use? That would be a significant goldsink.

Have artifacts be repairable only by a NPC Crafter who charges a fee based on the total bonus's the item gives per point of durability repaired. Say 10,000 or 100,000 gold a point. This would be a much more effective goldsink.

Increase the cost of insurance based on how uber an item is. Items with bonus's and abilities that are under 80% of the maximum possible cost what insurance does now, items with bonus's and abilities that are above that 80% point charge 10x more gold at 81%, 100x more at 82%, etc. Items at maximum ability might sink a few hundred thousand gold each for insurance. A much better goldsink than reagents, and would have little effect on the average or new player.

Maybe give Stealing skills to the high end supermonsters so they can steal gold characters have picked up and bags of sending characters may be carrying. This would help lower the amount of gold added to the economy yet still leave the chance of getting the item drops. Another better goldsink.

Place a higher vendor fee on Player Vendors based on the price of items it's selling and the amount of gold it's trusted to carry would be a good gold sink. Anything priced over one million adds a 10% tax on the price to the vendor fee. True, many people will just jack up the price to cover the extra vendor cost and still cry out $$KA-CHING!!$$, though some may just lower the price to avoid the added tax. Those that don't lower the price will sink more gold out of the game which really needs to happen with the game economy in the shape it's in. We would, of course, hear the Palace treasurer screaming $$KaChing!!$$ all the way to the Lost Lands. <g>

Have different classes of Player Vendors that earn higher wages due to the value of the items they handle? A standard vendor gets paid less per day than those vendors entrusted to handle million gold items. Those that handle items that cost 10's ot 100's of millions get paid a much larger wage. Those players that deal with items of such high value can certainly afford the added costs. Given many of the prices, can you say goldsink!

The Dev's could do a subroutine for the game that would track the items each player owns and the vendor prices those items typically cost and collect a 'property tax' on those items, sinking more gold out of the game. A big goldsink here.

Add a 1/2% handling and security fee to bank deposits and withdrawls? This would add up to a good goldsink when a Tower, Keep, or Castle sells, considering what they sell for.

A token goldsink like ending LRC won't even be noticable to anyone other than a newbie, or casual player who it would hurt. A major goldsink aimed at those who already complain about the huge amount of gold they have and the hassle it is would ease their gold clutter problem and remove a lot of the excess gold from the game as an added bonus.

 

[Ender76]

Reagents would not be a good goldsink, they cost a few gold each. It would have to be some item that cost millions of gold to be a useful goldsink with the economy we have.

Increase the cost of insurance based on how uber an item is. Items with bonus's and abilities that are under 80% of the maximum possible cost what insurance does now, items with bonus's and abilities that are above that 80% point charge 10x more gold at 81%, 100x more at 82%, etc. Items at maximum ability might sink a few hundred thousand gold each for insurance. A much better goldsink than reagents, and would have little effect on the average or new player.

A token goldsink like ending LRC won't even be noticable to anyone other than a newbie, or casual player who it would hurt. A major goldsink aimed at those who already complain about the huge amount of gold they have and the hassle it is would ease their gold clutter problem and remove a lot of the excess gold from the game as an added bonus.

I pay next to nothing in insurance costs. In Trammel, I don't die unless I am not paying attention. In Fel, it's probably once or twice a week doing a champ that gets raided. As for regs costing nothing, do the math. It's a small cost, but very high volume. In an hour of fighting, casting a spell 10 times a minute, 25 gold per spell, that's 15k. For me, would be many times more than what I pay in insurance.

Goldsinks need to remove a little gold often, or a lot of gold infrequently (e.g., New Magincia)

 

[Warpig Inc]

Sure if LRC had been capped at 80% from the start. Like if cars never had cup holders. Drivers wouldn't need their keys in one hand and travel cup drink in the other. To change LRC would make an alligator go "DAMN" over the tears. Wouldn't want the crafters to have a running market of the now forgotten arcane clothing. Falls along with none weapon DI should of been capped a 60%. And of all the dropped balls, where is the other 120 PS for crafting skills? Why the hell can we not put 15 tailoring/blacksmith/tinker on jewelry? How overpowering would that be? Oh ya soulstone sales would fall, greedy bastages.

And I'll say it again. Now with the Doom hint coming down on updating. There needs to be a random item type of clean unique titled gear. Possible none crafter mods on a random drop created item like 20 skill or any the other new loot high mods. Theese drops would have a random 450-600 imbuing value with a rare chance of a 6th mod slot. As an example you get a sweet Doom drop of lets say RNG gives you a Plate Gorget. It's one Doom mod is 15 DEX and Item ID tells you it has 545 imbuing cap with 6 mod slots. Item ID is the only way to know the mod slot and imbue points caps are, imbue window stays stuck at showing 5 slots and 500 imbue unless it is IDed. Ooh the rebirth of Item ID wands in treasure chest with only 20 charges. An envy of all the Jackel Collar owners. And what would you do with a bracelet with 525 imbue 5 slots and 2 FC? Sure wouldn't be adding energy resist. Could have on the drop RNG a random weapon drop would have 500 imbue 5 slots with added 15 skill of it's weapon type that doesn't count on slots and imbuing. Could add in armor piece drop with 190 Luck and 540 imbue 5 slots, but that falls back to the " greedy Bastages" factor. Untill you want to enhance the end product with barbed leather or heartwood. With the long list of race weapon and armor it is not like anyone will get choice armor head to toe or 10 15swords Katanas to take to his crafter for the choice weapons locker of slayers.

 

[Tanivar]

Goldsinks need to remove a little gold often, or a lot of gold infrequently (e.g., New Magincia)

Given the economy the game has, They need to rig ways to remove a little gold without messing up the game for newbies and the normal players, and some way to steadily remove major amounts of gold from the game. People have million gold checks to the point they cry for larger checks or just numbers at the bank. What needs to be done is to bring the amounts of gold down in the game, and the high prices down in the game. Jacking up the maximum price on vendors to 175 million was a brainfart someone should be seriously reamed for. They've admitted knowing the economy is in a bad way and then add to the problem.

"oh my god... the dam is leaking so badly thousands in the town are drowning... QUICK!... blow a bigger hole in the dam and maybe less will drown in the deeper water!

Ream heck, just point them to the janitors closet and tell them thats their new job, something where they can't do any more harm.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

I do miss the old days when one could craft at the forge all day and it seemed as though the stream of customers in need was never ending, in the end it boils down to a combination of some things already mentioned. The ease with which resources are acquired, the lack of a balance against those who harvest (pks), the ease in skilling up characters. The community back in the old days was just different, it's not that people didn't see vendors as useful, it's more that people just enjoyed the interaction of trading with one another, Brit was a true merchant hub no matter what section you went to the place just felt alive back then.

You could hear hammers ringing all day and into the night, scribes and alchemists selling their goods by the mage shop, miners coming and going with their pack horses barely able to keep up with the demand for ingots, and anything else you needed could be traded for around the bank. Things have just gone in a different direction as these MMO games have evolved and the communication technology that has evolved beside them kept getting better.

When it's easy to acquire most of what you need, and you can make a large pool of characters, theres no need to interact with others for goods and services. When people say I need to move on from the old UO days and embrace the direction these games have gone in, I try to explain that it isn't nostalgia for me, it's the fact the number of people playing games online were smaller back then, and communities were tighter, people needed one another and that is what I missed most, everyone had a role, the good, the bad and the ugly whether you loved or hated PKs/Thieves or on the other side of it crafting/dungeon crawling everyone had a niche to fill, and that's part of a real community, just understanding that every type has it's place.

All of this I mentioned is also why I don't play free shards, you can set the game in whatever era you like, but you cannot recreate that vibrant community experience, and those shards are the mirror opposite of the OSI shards just big meat grinders for people obsessed with 1997-98 Mage style PvP (which was great fun times don't get me wrong) But the game is not fun when it is operating on either of the two extremes. I don't expect everyone to agree with me here, just sharing my own experience from the past.