Specialist System in 3.0

[Gillionaire]

snip

Those generalists aren't too bad to deal with, you just have to specialize in one market and push them out.. Give them enough trouble (i.e. undercut them every chance you get so THEY have to keep an eye on your market even closer on top of what they ALREADY do... They'll eventually back off after finding it to be not worth their trouble.. It's the 2 specialists competing in same market scenario that gives the worst price wars, often going below the raw material costs.. because there's no quick alternative.

[Aeyis]

I can say quite assuredly that generally the ones who give me the most pain are nothing like me. The ones who are the worst are the ones who have 4 retainers full of goods from every market and literally have undercut my undercut 5 minutes after. They have every 4 star gear piece posted on the MB in every craft and the second they sell one, they have another posted.

Crafters like me check the MB once or twice a day to undercut and put up a few goods when there's low supply here and there.

See that is what I disagree with. Your post is nothing but a generalization. Right now crafters either specialise in markets or do a little bit of everything. The first group is the one giving you trouble. And as you mentioned being a specialist yourself, that group includes you.

The difference between the other specialists and you is not ''level of specialization'', it simply the amount of time they put into it.
You cant compete with them because they simply have more time to spend.
Not because they ''have 4 retainers with goods from every market''
Do you know why people will have certain goods stocked up in extremely large numbers?
Because they specialise in that market.
I don't believe there is a single person that has ''every 4 star equipment posted on the mb'' either.

the second they sell one, they have another posted.

[Example]
I am doing that right now with nuggets. Not because I'm some nefarious trade baron that controls the servers board.
But because I happened to accumulate about a dozen stacks of gold ore (partially due to TT time windows).
This effectively makes rose gold nugget a market I specialise in.

However, since I can make gil in any number of markets, I won't always even have nuggets on the board.
This would change if the system forced me to specialise, and gold nuggets was something I would take to specialise in.
Since I'm now unable to change markets at will, I have no choice but to focus on this market.
Result: I become a permanent presence on the market, one capable of farming a good deal of materials on daily basis.
I would likely produce 2 more alts, trippling my production.
-> casual crafter/gatherers that also chose this as their specialization would fail to make gil, because I would always be there to undercut them.

--> another hardcore crafter produces similar amounts as I do, with the same time available for undercutting.
Result: the market crashes, the item devalues greatly.
[/Example]

[giantslayer]

The Reddit translation of the Famitsu interview says:
"With the new system, once you're at 60, you can then become an apprentise to each respective guilds' guildmaster. You'll gain new skills and recipes by becoming a meister/specialist. You can have more than one trademeister but there'll be a delay before you're allowed to switch."

I have a new hypothesis. I am fairly optimistic that some of this will be right because it seems consistent with both the stated mechanics and the stated intent of the developers (return to the armory system concept of being able to do any class without being required to do all of them).

After reaching level 60, you can apprentice under a guild master. You can only apprentice under one at a time and you can switch masters. Quests for new tokens may possibly be handed out by your master. There will be some sort of progression with each master. Progress is retained with the old master after switching (think beast tribe reputations, not desynth).

Skills and recipes are acquired through progression. New recipes are basically a replacement for the master book system. Skills are class specific and intended to give casual/single-class crafters a fighting chance at making top level recipes. Recipes and skills are retained after switching masters.

[Gillionaire]

Recipes and skills are retained after switching masters.

Yeah... for some reason I have a hard time believing they would refer to that kind of system as a "specialization" system..

[Thrustie]

Snip

Honestly I'm not generalizing. I wish I was. Maybe it's unique to my server but we literally have a few crafters that have one piece listed for every single 4 star gear piece in LTW, WVR, ARM, BSM and CRP. They do a LOT of everything. And my market is 4 star gear pieces so I don't carry a large stock since the sales are often days apart. I elected to go for big infrequent sales rather than volume quick sales. Mostly because I'm lazy and don't have a batch macro.

I get your point. I didn't realize many people dabbled in everything like that. Maybe I'm already more specialized than your average crafter. I see how that could be a detriment to your market preferences.

[Thrustie]

Those generalists aren't too bad to deal with, you just have to specialize in one market and push them out.. Give them enough trouble (i.e. undercut them every chance you get so THEY have to keep an eye on your market even closer on top of what they ALREADY do... They'll eventually back off after finding it to be not worth their trouble.. It's the 2 specialists competing in same market scenario that gives the worst price wars, often going below the raw material costs.. because there's no quick alternative.

I did that for weeks against one of them and it honestly started making me a bit mental. We were undercutting each other relentlessly multiple times an hour. And I couldnt make him give in. I thought, like you said, that eventually he'd decide I wasn't worth pulling his retainers off the market for but I was wrong. Eventually I gave up and priced mine 1k above him and just settled for sloppy seconds. Wasn't worth losing my sanity over. I can still make 5m in profit a week without the headache. The other specialists like me seem more reasonable. Yeah they undercut me but it's daily instead of 3 times an hour. Some are even content price matching with me.

[Gillionaire]

snip

Well, you just have to think that he has more on his plate since he has more items to make/sell/watch etc.. So you technically have an advantage in that regards.. Of course, you can only capitalize on that if you also happen to be a full time crafter like he is.. If you have any interest in raids or dungeons, you'd have trouble keeping up.

But with specialists, it gets even worse.. Let me just make it clear when I mean specialist, I don't mean 4 star capable in 1 craft. Although that's possible.
I think the specialists you refer to are probably not full time crafters, so there's some breathing room between the two of you as you both have other things to do.

I am a specialist, but I am 4 stars in everything except CUL. So I technically have the means to compete over multiple markets, I simply choose not to because I can only craft so much stuff and I learned that I can meet my entire server's demand with my crafting just barely. So I don't have enough time to diversify. (admittedly, I compete in a market that's very time intensive) But that's what makes me the money. I do plan on diversifying later when it becomes less profitable, but I've been in the same market for the past 2 months and I'm still raking in quite a bit.. That's the kind of market control a full time crafter can have when he is led to specialize (either by in-game mechanics, or by one's choosing). The only issue I foresee with the forced specialization would be exactly that, it would create pockets of really volatile market conditions with unpredictable, often gouging prices.. I'd much rather have a market with a bunch of generalists who create little bits of everything and the over all price becomes steady and predictable.

But considering the interview, it looks like that's not their goal, but I don't know.. I've just been burned way too many times in the past by MMO devs' preliminary ideas and where it ends being when finalized.. I'd really like to see more information released regarding the system.

[Ranzan]

Progress is retained with the old master after switching (think beast tribe reputations, not desynth).

Skills and recipes are acquired through progression. New recipes are basically a replacement for the master book system. Skills are class specific and intended to give casual/single-class crafters a fighting chance at making top level recipes. Recipes and skills are retained after switching masters.

I pray to the twelve this is the case.. /pray

[Zfz]

Come to think of it, specialization probably won't be the primary driving force behind alts. The tomestone weekly caps will be.

Regardless of how you play with the crafting system, a weekly cap like that combined with a specialization system necessarily doubles your progression as a whole if you have alts, when compared with someone who has to narrow his focus.

For example suppose I can choose 3 specializations and I invest my weekly tomestones into buying recipes for one of that specialization. Now I do it on two characters, I effectively doubled the number of specializations I have, and doubled the number of top-tier recipes to which I have access. Since I only ever need to put money in gold sinks for one character, I effectively double my earning capacity.

So a "true" omnicrafter in 3.0 would have his own FC (use the FC chest to transfer items and gil), have all specializations spread over several characters, and have access to all top-tier recipes, cap tomestones everyweek. By the time the no-alt crafter max out tomestone recipes on one craft, the omnicrafter have got everything.

The required investment is leveling a combat class to 60 on each alt, and all crafts on all alts to 60. With a lv50 master crafter already available, it's just a matter of time to produce HQ items for leve turn-ins. Since all alts earn leve allowances in parallel, the progression speed is only capped by how quickly one can produce those HQ items.

----

This does mean, though, that a closely-knit FC that distributes specializations among members will derive that same benefit without anyone running alts. So in a way it supports a community effort while still leaving a backdoor (and a rather powerful backdoor) open for the true omnicrafter.

[Gillionaire]

snip

Yes, if what they mean by the blue/red tokens and they're analogous to the weekly capped token of sorts, it'll definitely be beneficial to have alts and progress simultaneously.
I don't know how the leveling will be handled in the expansion but if it's anything like now.. less than 20 leve allowances for 5 lvls.. then my stockpile of 100 allowances should be enough to get to 60 on 2 classes. With 3 other characters, in the course of a few days I can probably hit level 60 over all 8 then start farming tokens..


Either way, it leaves a lot of room for some early expansion exploitations.. That's a common sight after every major patch, but I think the specialization will just exacerbate it more so than before.