Specialist again? Really?

[Kingsnake661]

The thing is, we leveled ALL 8 crafting classes so we could be able to make our own things without rely on other people. We got used to this and we like it...

I actually understand this more then most. I've played mmo for, god, 15, 17 years now... started in... 1999 I think. As such, I have endured many, many game "adjustments" aimed at fixing a broken system that I enjoyed. Slide casting in Asherons call... Beastmaster In SWG, supertanking in COH... Them are a few of many that jump to mind, and god I was mad when they where fixed, but it resulted in a better game 9 times out of 10. The developers should have never let you get self sufficient in the first place, they made a mistake in doing so. They are trying to fix it, and I think personally it's for the best. Time will tell.

[Niroken]

The developers should have never let you get self sufficient in the first place, they made a mistake in doing so. They are trying to fix it, and I think personally it's for the best. Time will tell.

Giving less options is not the best solution. I entirely agree that people who specialize should be able to craft without having to level up every class and potentially have several recipes to themselves when the items are relevent however I disagree with heavily punishing players who want to omnicraft should they choose to. It lowers competition which drives prices up, even for people who don't craft at all.

[Kingsnake661]

Giving less options is not the best solution.

I see people say this a lot, but it's just not always true. Especially not in mmo style games were the developers must strive to balance there game so that everyone has a fun and fair experience. Sometimes they have to limit what some players can do, or can achieve, to keep the game competitive. Sometimes, like in combat, you can still allow your player base to learn all the skills, but not use them all at the same time. So yeah, you know everything, but you can't tank/dps/heal all at the same time, you pick a role.

[Kingsnake661]

This balances the people with a ton of free time, they get the advantage of being able to play any role, but still includes the people who can only level one. Crafting doesn't work that way, and being able too do it all, isn't an advantage, it's an win button. If you want to compete with your follow crafters, you need to do what they did, learn everything, or else you simply can't. And there's no way to fix that without limiting the options. At least, none i can think of. What would you do i wonder?

[Niroken]

I see people say this a lot, but it's just not always true. Especially not in mmo style games were the developers must strive to balance there game so that everyone has a fun and fair experience. Sometimes they have to limit what some players can do, or can achieve, to keep the game competitive. Sometimes, like in combat, you can still allow your player base to learn all the skills, but not use them all at the same time. So yeah, you know everything, but you can't tank/dps/heal all at the same time, you pick a role.

Battle classes and Crafting/Gathering classes are entirely different worlds. I don't really want to go into lengthy detail on how combat classes have easier time gearing, that a person with multiple jobs are more valuable then a person with a single job in statics and Cleric Stance/Tank Stance. Having to party to run content in battle classes is quite different then side content like crafting.

This balances the people with a ton of free time, they get the advantage of being able to play any role, but still includes the people who can only level one. Crafting doesn't work that way, and being able too do it all, isn't an advantage, it's an win button. If you want to compete with your follow crafters, you need to do what they did, learn everything, or else you simply can't. And there's no way to fix that without limiting the options. At least, none i can think of. What would you do i wonder?

The reason that you were required to level every craft (or almost every craft) to 50 is because of cross class skills, if the speciality system was done right the skills granted with that system would be on par with the 50 cross class skills but currently they are not. If it did a WVR speciality should have the same competition as an Omnicrafter WVR, the advantage with omnicrafter WVR though is he can farm and craft materials like leather or gems that a specialist WVR can't make by himself. If a Omni WVR wants to compete with specialists in their specialty crafting recipes they will have to become specialtists as well. This would mean that the general materials are cheaper and plentiful while the advanced crafts are competitive.

If I were to change the system, i170 left and right side pieces would be a single set across classes while i180 would be more like the AF gear but they would have to be on par with max melded i170 gear. Specialist skills would be reworked to be as valuable as cross class skills, the soul of crafter would skill have it's bonus stats. New recipes would be specialist only until new recipes are added in a next patch, within reason (some housing items and glamour can remain specialist allowing their value to remain). Honestly imo the biggest drawback to this system is the gear requirement for multiple classes, the i60 crafting gear was a blessing for it's time.

*You can add more text to your post via the edit button. It bypasses they character limit.

[TaleraRistain]

I actually understand this more then most. I've played mmo for, god, 15, 17 years now... started in... 1999 I think. As such, I have endured many, many game "adjustments" aimed at fixing a broken system that I enjoyed. Slide casting in Asherons call... Beastmaster In SWG, supertanking in COH... Them are a few of many that jump to mind, and god I was mad when they where fixed, but it resulted in a better game 9 times out of 10. The developers should have never let you get self sufficient in the first place, they made a mistake in doing so. They are trying to fix it, and I think personally it's for the best. Time will tell.

I've seen this go the other way, too, a la The Vision back in EQ days.

[vio_p]

the gear requirements alone prevent people from being omnicrafters and having recipes specialist locked is ruining the crafting end-game because it is removing the potential for you to grow and develop your character.

MrWarMachine you are wrong to a point. The only thing that is stopping people from being Omni crafters are the specialist recipes. you can easily become a 2 star crafter with the ilvl150 HQ white left side, red scripts MH, ilvl170 HQ OH and bit of melding (795 crafting, 748 control w/o soul stone). It's even possible with HQ ilvl150 MH and ilvl140 OH too with stats around 718 craft and 695 control. We are just limited to 2 star crafts at this time unless we went further to get more than one gear set to become 3 star crafters.

This is one thing I dislike myself, as I don't like the idea of holding more than one set of gear for building because I think its BS. The specialist system I'm not fond off cos I like building my own stuff too but I live with it and move on.

[Dahlinea]

Specialist could have been a great experience if it was thought carefully, in my opinion. Like, since the game story is currently on a war they could create instances (like our dungeon versions) for crafters and gatherers to queue where during the allotted time you have to turn in goods made by crafters with mats gathered on the same site by gatherers to help the people suffering from the war, for example. Each player would only be able to queue as a Specialist and restricted to only his skills (no cross skills allowed). Adjusting the current skills to work on par with with cross skills this would turn out to be very pleasant. At the end of the instance you would receive red and blue scripts and crafting and gathering gear to roll on. And gear that helps to craft the new recipes from the master books, for example. Make weekly drops that could be turned in for new MH/OH too would be a good thing, etc...

This would make Specialist meaningful as hell and would there be no need for locking recipes on the 'outside' crafting to make it meaningful.
But I guess they went the easy way with us this time just locking things up to make Specialist, as they made it, look useful... :\

[Millen1]

At the end of the day, I want to craft everything and I want my name on it. Not the name of my two main chars and an alt. So far, I have Crafted everything new. I take pride in my crafts. THE ONLY THING specialist has done is waste my time gearing and jumping between 3 chars. So SE, really. I mean REALLY? Omni crafting isn't going to die, you are just going to leave us unhappy at the end of the day.

[TaleraRistain]

Specialist could have been a great experience if it was thought carefully, in my opinion. Like, since the game story is currently on a war they could create instances (like our dungeon versions) for crafters and gatherers to queue where during the allotted you have turn in goods made by crafters with mats gathered on the same site by gatherers to help the people suffering from the war, for example.

EverQuest 2 introduced tradeskill missions with the Shadow Odyssey expansion that were very similar to this. They were challenging but a lot of fun. There were solo and group versions.