ESO needs an economy

Thulsola

I've been playing ESO for around a month now, and I'm loving it. I am level 36, my crafting skills are going well, and I am enjoying the process of grinding and farming mats - then spending hours in a city messing with my inventory, deconstructing things and searching for cheap blues and purples in guild stores to buy and deconstruct.

I am constantly feeling like there is scarcity in the game. I never have enough money to buy as many decon items as I would like. I never have quite enough medium armour mats as I cross into each new level range to get an entire set of armour. I never have quite enough tannins and runes to upgrade my personal armour. And I never have enough skill points to do everything I want to do with crafting and other skills.

And it is amazing because of that! I am constantly having to make hard choices, live with consequences, sell things I'll need later in the game for profit in order to do something I need to do now. It is hard - which makes it enjoyable.

I am aware that I created this level of challenge within the game by how I chose to play. It doesn't exist in the same way for people who are not handicapping themselves through extreme crafting pursuits. There is an abundance of money out there for those not to focused on multiple crafting skills - so much so that they can pretty much buy any items they need without having to pay a price reflective of the work required to craft those items - and it is too easy for a VR player to spend their way into advanced crafting skills that they have ignored throughout the rest of the game. The most expensive things in the game are not crafted items, but the raw and farmed items (motifs, rare provisioning ingredients, alchemy ingredients).

As I look forward to what my VR experience will be, I'm getting nervous.

Because I'm going to max out my crafting skills before I hit level 50. And while I have spent an incredible amount of gold to buy decon items to level and get tannins, I can't sell my crafted items for enough to justify making them. I get a better price for 3 embroidery than I do for a crafted blue item that took 3 embroidery to make - not to mention all the other materials.

There is money to be made in provisioning - but provisioning is also the easiest crafting skill to level up, so the scarcity is created through rarity of recipes and some ingredients, not the required skill of the chef.

If ESO is going to survive, it needs to create an economy in which I can focus on crafting and have it be both challenging and rewarding - and someone else can focus on leveling or PVP and absolutely need to have a relationship with a crafting player or two in order to be successful.

I briefly considered whether I could make a decent living trading between trade guilds - finding cheap items in one and selling them in another for a premium. And while the Trade Guilds do have different economies that would support this kind of game play, the mechanics of the game itself prevent me from being able to really do this: limited bag space, a 30 item listing limit in guild stores, no search functionality in the guild store UI - and the big one - not enough consistent demand for end goods to facilitate a fast enough turn around to make it profitable - or fun.

I think there needs to be some reward for people who invest their time in crafting - and that it shouldn't be easy for VR12 players to simply buy their way to level 50 skills in crafting. There should be some benefit to owning an armour set "made by Thulsola" that sets my armour apart from everyone else's. Research was a first good step - but now we need to reward individual crafters with bonuses when they over research certain traits.

For now, I am getting the full Elder Scrolls experience and I am loving it. But unless they figure out a way to create a balanced end game that rewards grinding and provides excitement for non-grinding players, I am afraid I will be one of the many players who lets my subscription lapse after only a few months of game play.

Thulsola

Some ideas for improvement:

• Research should lead to a very small chance of being able to combine multiple traits on crafted items. If I chose to re-research two traits in bow, for example, I should get an ever increasing chance of being able to create an item that has both those traits. This would reward crafters who have been focused on crafting since day one and allow them to differentiate their crafted items from other people's.
• I love the guild store mechanic, but if there is going to be a better economy in the game, then we need to have a way of buying and selling our crafted materials to everyone in the game. Perhaps we should be able to buy from and search all guild stores in our faction, and pay a non-member premium when we buy from other guilds.
• They need to allow us to post far more items for sale in guild stores.
• I'd slow down all the crafting skills - maybe not to the slow speed of the enchanting skill, but slower. Provisioning and alchemy need to be made significantly slower to level up.
• I'd add a research component to provisioning that would increase the likelihood of finding rare ingredients - like tomatoes, pepper and onions. Breaking provisioning down into components similar to how enchanting is broken down would support this.
• Alchemy could certainly benefit from a similar research mechanism as well.
• Assuming that there is a hearthfire style update coming at some point, they should add a farming skill tree that would allow players to research and produce raw provisioning mats - and the ability to pay/research to upgrade your farming technology.
• I think it would be cool if through a farming mechanism you could also raise livestock for leather - but also maybe being able to raise horses that you could pre-level up (research and what not applied again) and sell to adventurers.
• Also assuming a hearthfire style upgrade, it would be cool if you could setup your own crafting workshops that you could research and create your own combinations of set bonuses.
• Maybe in a hearthfire style expansions we could also have the ability to put in a mine - with all the same research requirements as mentioned above.
• If and when dyes are introduced to the game, they should be a crafting skill like everything else, requiring material gathering, research, etc.
• I think there would need to be a trading mechanic to help facilitate some of this. If done right, the crafting/farming/mining would take a fair amount of time - enough that it would be impractical for a single player to be able to make it work without having to buy and sell some aspect of the each process. This could facilitate players becoming solely trading oriented. Maybe adding the ability to buy and upgrade warehouses in cities, buy/earn preferential trading status with guilds and set up store fronts for their warehouses. The warehouse would require the same kind of research and what not to increase its ability to store specific types of materials, etc.
• I'd add the ability to craft PvP items. Crafting siege weaponry, with all the associated research and material farming requirements could be fun.

To make all of this work there would also need to be some kind of mechanic to facilitate inter-crafter cooperation. Similar to in person trading, but where two crafters could agree on work to be done, the materials required to do that work, and a price, and the game would manage the transaction in order to avoid fraud.

Liquid_Time

@Thulsola
•I'd add the ability to craft PvP items. Crafting siege weaponry, with all the associated research and material farming requirements could be fun.

This would be interesting to see.

The recipes could require blueprints.. They wouldn't need to add additional resources since you have wood, ore, and cloth. Simply require a combination of.. lets say 2 high iron and 5 oak + said blueprint to craft a trebuchet.

Add the crafting stations for these only in Craglor since it is simply PvP items.

Would be nice to see things such as this in a year or two. Some much needed flavor to PvP.

Soloeus

Player1:WTB Elegant Lining 50/ea!
Player2: WTB Barbaric Motiff 10k!
Player3: WTB all Denata 50/ea!
Player1:WTS Elegant Lining 800/ea!
Player2: WTS Barbaric Motiff 35k!
Player3: WTB Denata 1500/ea!


In a Closed Market system, you have a wall that prevents direct buyer to seller commerce. Buyers and Sellers alike have to join clubs or get a license, and go through barriers to finally buy or sell items. This creates a small Upmarket where the prices are always very high. The market is not illicit but expensive. If you can't get through the barriers then you are stuck with this Upmarket.

Meanwhile, your only option is jumping in and out of guilds, wasting time spamming Zone and Yell hoping nobody gets annoyed with your commerce and ignores you. When you finally find a location to set up a stall and conduct business you are limited to that location and cannot branch out unless you go through the barriers again hoping to get another location.

But there is a price: every trade guild joined prevents you from instead joining an endgame, fun, roleplaying, hunting, pvp, -focused guild.

One hand has a large abundance of Materials but no customers and 8/10 of the offers received are garbage offers. The other hand has total scarcity and can't find a way to get 100 Calcinium Ore for less than 3k, and 8/10 of the offers received are garbage offers.

Open Markets supported with Public Auction Houses would solve this problem by allowing any person to attempt to sell an item to every potential buyer instead of fighting through barriers and garbage offers.

jdoe

Just two comments:

First, I really liked all of the above suggestions.

Second, to the OP, I think things will get much more interesting to you in the VR levels. The problem is, of course no one wants to buy anything pre-50, as you level every few hours. I have focused on crafting, above other skills lines, since day one - and even I pre-50 didn't craft a single armor for myself. It didn't make any sense to do so.

The moment you enter the first VR zone though, you will see tons of crafters in zone buy/selling supplies, armors, mats, etc. At that point it makes sense to craft armor, as you will be the same (or close) levels for days or even weeks. Also, gold becomes much less an issue, but that does assume your out killing mobs some.

Again, I fully support most of your suggestions, just giving you something to look forward to.

smercgames_ESO

MMO's will do not have a sustainable economy if items are not able to be destroyed. Add any combination of traits or enchants or buffs or anything but once you have the best item no item is ever needed again for that slot. Open market closed market no market it's all the same. I make a full legendary set and bye bye ever spending more coin until the expansion.

The exception are potions and food since they are consumable. If siege weapons were added then those would be an exception too since they are destroyed.

Thulsola

Good point, @smercgames_ESO. I wonder if repairing of weapons and armor should be shifted to player crafters and away from merchants?

Thulsola

I'm not convinced that an AH when there is one, huge server is the best solution to the issue, @Soloeus, but unless there is a way to distinguish the creations of individuals, it will lead to a race to the bottom and ultimately extreme deflation. In order to compete in an open market, individual craftspeople must be able to provide value in ways other than just price.

smercgames_ESO

They should allow for items to be destroyed completely. Only able to repair them a certain amount or something. Removing the item gives crafters a reason to craft a new piece of gear for them. Makes Legendaries that much more valuable because losing one will hurt so you won't be PvPing with them all day so that narrows the gap between the power game with full yellows and the normal player in blues/greens (with the exception of the guy who constantly farms enough for pure yellows 24/7 but even then he has to farm that up or buy it from another person).

You can't shift repairing to crafters because then no money exits the game and the amount of gold keeps getting higher and higher and higher. The only other thing I spend gold on are respecs and bag space. Force crafters to buy certain pieces for crafting from NPCs to help remove some gold. Force all players to have to replace gear that has been patched up too many times so then they are forced to turn to crafters to consistantly make new gear for them. Now I despise the business classes I took and I am no expert on the subject but I coulda sworn hearing "supply and demand" alot and right now you have infinite supply with very limited demand (like I said, once they get geared up they no longer have a demand for more gear).

Soloeus

Thulsola wrote: »

Good point, @smercgames_ESO. I wonder if repairing of weapons and armor should be shifted to player crafters and away from merchants?

I support this notion.

Providing Value in other ways:

1. Selling weapon/armor traits
2. Repair as suggested, add in:

Repair costs 1/2 the Materials as crafting. The materials required for Repair should be the Jute/Ironthread/Oak, whatever. The trait stone and Resins should not be required for "repair." This adds value to crafting.

I do agree that we need more ways to provide value however under a Closed Market System, even if there were "added value" we would have a monopoly on goods from guild alliances.

Thulsola

jdoe wrote: »

Second, to the OP, I think things will get much more interesting to you in the VR levels. The problem is, of course no one wants to buy anything pre-50, as you level every few hours. I have focused on crafting, above other skills lines, since day one - and even I pre-50 didn't craft a single armor for myself. It didn't make any sense to do so.

The moment you enter the first VR zone though, you will see tons of crafters in zone buy/selling supplies, armors, mats, etc. At that point it makes sense to craft armor, as you will be the same (or close) levels for days or even weeks. Also, gold becomes much less an issue, but that does assume your out killing mobs some.

Thanks for the input. I hope that I find VR crafting fun and rewarding as you say.

My approach to my personal crafting is that I craft a new set of armour and weapons every ten levels - when I can use the next level of armour. So at 16 I crafted hide armour, at 26 I crafted leather armour, at 36 I crafted a set of thick leather - all on the special crafting stations. At 16 and 26 I made everything green, though at 26 I made my weapon blue. Last night when I crafted my 36 armour I made it blue because I was sitting on nearly 50 embroidery. The level 26 armour I enchanted with green level enchantments I made myself, and the 36 I crafted with purple level enchantments I made myself.

But I get why people wouldn't bother with crafting personal armour before VR - I just really like the feeling of running around in armour that I have made, upgraded and enchanted myself.

Thulsola

Soloeus wrote: »

I do agree that we need more ways to provide value however under a Closed Market System, even if there were "added value" we would have a monopoly on goods from guild alliances.

But what if you could buy from any guild willing to open its store with a small premium added on for non-members?

Also, I think individual players should be able to open (searchable) storefronts as long as they buy a wharehouse and develop the required skills and research. I think that might be better than just an open AH.

Thulsola

smercgames_ESO wrote: »

You can't shift repairing to crafters because then no money exits the game and the amount of gold keeps getting higher and higher and higher. The only other thing I spend gold on are respecs and bag space. Force crafters to buy certain pieces for crafting from NPCs to help remove some gold. Force all players to have to replace gear that has been patched up too many times so then they are forced to turn to crafters to consistantly make new gear for them. Now I despise the business classes I took and I am no expert on the subject but I coulda sworn hearing "supply and demand" alot and right now you have infinite supply with very limited demand (like I said, once they get geared up they no longer have a demand for more gear).

I think shifting repairs to crafters would be fine as long as the cost to the crafter in materials and research was significant enough that they would have to charge for it.

I like the idea of diminishing returns on repairs - and then a crafter could take skills in increasing the amount they are able to repair an item time after time - making their services more valuable once again. Eventually people would have to replace their VR gear - as you say - creating more demand.

Maybe vendors could still repair but it would be the most expensive and lowest on going percentage possible - a white repair, if you will - where as a crafter could give you a purple or gold repair.

Thulsola

You know what might be cool...

What if there were certain special crafting materials that conveyed a significant advantage, but could only be found in the deepest, darkest dungeons that require serious adventurer builds to get to, and could only be used by crafters that had the right combinations of research and skills. I could see a crafter/guild bankrolling dungeon runs so they could get their hands on the items...

Kalann_Pander

jdoe wrote: »

I pre-50 didn't craft a single armor for myself. It didn't make any sense to do so.

Not true for everyone.
My level 30 Magnus / Seducer set is way better than anything I've looted.

Thulsola

I think it would be pretty cool if a trader who is opening a warehouse/store could hire and train NPCs to run it, just like we buy and train horses. Some sort of system where the store gets benefits based on the quality of its staff...

smercgames_ESO

Kalann_Pander wrote: »

jdoe wrote: »

I pre-50 didn't craft a single armor for myself. It didn't make any sense to do so.

Not true for everyone.
My level 30 Magnus / Seducer set is way better than anything I've looted.

Depends how fast you knockout content. People who concentrated on leveling over exploring probably didn't even have enough traits researched by the time they got to VR content to make any worthwhile sets. Even now looking at the sets when I'm VR 6 I have no clue what crafted set to use besides Nightmother's Gaze. (Medium armor DW NB)

Thulsola

smercgames_ESO wrote: »

Depends how fast you knockout content. People who concentrated on leveling over exploring probably didn't even have enough traits researched by the time they got to VR content to make any worthwhile sets. Even now looking at the sets when I'm VR 6 I have no clue what crafted set to use besides Nightmother's Gaze. (Medium armor DW NB)

That's why I upgrade once every ten levels or so (It'll be every level once I reach VR, I suspect), and why I think it would be worthwhile to better support crafters so that those who are power leveling can buy good armour and support a crafting economy.

DewiMorgan

One of the most fun parts of the game for me so far is trait trading, though I've nearly got all of the traits now (12 left, whoo!). It gives me an opportunity to help out new crafters and guildies, to be generous, and to occasionally get a benefit myself. It makes me feel good.

So I'd be interested in some form of crafting where I cannot make all parts of the thing, and would have to trade with other crafters to make the thing.

Say for example, if siege engines required both generic parts (made by anyone with siege engine crafting skill), as well as multiple specialist parts (by people who've morphed their siege engine crafting to make that specific part).

This would encourage trading, as you can only morph one way, and have to buy items crafted the other way.

Unfortunately, this idea fails because we have 8 alts, and we can just have multiple alts morph their skills to cover all specializations - unless each siege engine requires 9 specialist parts, which would be silly. So, I'm not sure how to get around that limitation, but I'm sure sparter people than I could work out a way.

Thulsola

DewiMorgan wrote: »

Unfortunately, this idea fails because we have 8 alts, and we can just have multiple alts morph their skills to cover all specializations - unless each siege engine requires 9 specialist parts, which would be silly. So, I'm not sure how to get around that limitation, but I'm sure sparter people than I could work out a way.

I would think that the way to deal with alts is simply to ensure that in game time is required for things to be crafted. Imagine if research required you to be actually playing your character for the period of time the research is being done (obviously with shorter time intervals than we have now). You just wouldn't have the time to level all your alts in different paths if it was game time dependent instead of real time dependent.

jdoe

Kalann_Pander wrote: »

jdoe wrote: »

I pre-50 didn't craft a single armor for myself. It didn't make any sense to do so.

Not true for everyone.
My level 30 Magnus / Seducer set is way better than anything I've looted.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply no one crafts under 50, or that there aren't short term advantages to doing so. More just that if you played heavily, you would likely outgrow that set in a day or a few at the most. Thus, other players are unlikely to go through the time and effort to find a crafter, research the set they want, and pay for it to be custom made just for a zone or so worth of playtime.

Also, I may have overstated the situation when I said I never crafted any armor pre-50. I did, I just didn't put any serious thought into it, or try to upgrade or acquire really good pieces. I would basically wear my armor down to nothing, and then make a new set of whites at my current level to avoid the repair fee (and for the slight leveling of crafting).

Elencha

I guess I am the exception to this phenomenon, as I craft myself a new set every two levels. I don't get a new level every two hours though like some of you guys say. I'm not in any hurry for the game to be over though. Paying to not play the game while I wait on new content doesn't sound terribly interesting to me. To each his/her/its own, though, of course.

I spend the vast majority of my focus in this game on crafting, I love selling my crafted items to people for prices that the buyer and I both feel are fair for the pair of us. But I absolutely do not wish to be herded. Nor do I wish to have customers "have to" come to me. Why isn't "because I want to" reason enough for someone to buy from another player? Or sell to them? Or group with them? Or anything else? Why is there always this push to create a mechanic to "give X a reason to Y"? Or to "make it so that X has to Y"?

That said, I really do love some of the ideas presented in this thread, in particular:

Thulsola wrote: »

• Research should lead to a very small chance of being able to combine multiple traits on crafted items. If I chose to re-research two traits in bow, for example, I should get an ever increasing chance of being able to create an item that has both those traits. This would reward crafters who have been focused on crafting since day one and allow them to differentiate their crafted items from other people's.

I think being able to distinguish oneself from other crafters by something other than price would be a lot of fun. Not because I want customers herded to me, but because it would add a bit of realism and pride to crafting.

• I'd slow down all the crafting skills - maybe not to the slow speed of the enchanting skill, but slower. Provisioning and alchemy need to be made significantly slower to level up.
• I'd add a research component to provisioning that would increase the likelihood of finding rare ingredients - like tomatoes, pepper and onions. Breaking provisioning down into components similar to how enchanting is broken down would support this.

I'd agree that provisioning should maybe be a bit slower, but that may be jealousy talking. My boyfriend is at 50 Provisioning and I'm at 17 Blacksmithing.

• Assuming that there is a hearthfire style update coming at some point, they should add a farming skill tree that would allow players to research and produce raw provisioning mats - and the ability to pay/research to upgrade your farming technology.
• I think it would be cool if through a farming mechanism you could also raise livestock for leather - but also maybe being able to raise horses that you could pre-level up (research and what not applied again) and sell to adventurers.
• Also assuming a hearthfire style upgrade, it would be cool if you could setup your own crafting workshops that you could research and create your own combinations of set bonuses.

I don't have the first idea what hearthfire is, but this would lead to immoral levels of fun for me. Although it might cause strife in my home as I would mostly cease adventuring altogether. I'd also like to see crafting levels separated entirely from adventuring levels. I don't think it's unreasonable to be a master craftsman that isn't all that great at killing things. Maybe grant crafting only skill points as crafting levels are achieved and limit adventuring skill points to anything that isn't crafting?

• I think there would need to be a trading mechanic to help facilitate some of this. If done right, the crafting/farming/mining would take a fair amount of time - enough that it would be impractical for a single player to be able to make it work without having to buy and sell some aspect of the each process. This could facilitate players becoming solely trading oriented. Maybe adding the ability to buy and upgrade warehouses in cities, buy/earn preferential trading status with guilds and set up store fronts for their warehouses. The warehouse would require the same kind of research and what not to increase its ability to store specific types of materials, etc.

Here is where we disagree. I simply loathe the idea of forced interaction. I'll trade if I want to, and if I don't want to, I don't want forced artificial scarcity to force me to do so. Why make it difficult for a single player to do anything? I don't do provisioning because I don't want to. I don't need a game mechanic to make it difficult so I won't do it. I understand that this herding mechanic is prevalent within the genre, but really, truly, why? Just because other people do it? That's not a reason. What is the true reason that people aren't supposed to do for themselves? To force them to interact with the other players? What is the reason to force people to interact with the other players? Because they won't do it if you don't force them? If they won't interact with other players without something to force them to do so, then they obviously don't want to interact with other players, yes? This not being a crime, what is the point of forcing them to interact with people if they don't want to? Particularly after months and months of advertising this game as "Play the way you want".

I am however super-digging the warehouse idea. :-)

• I'd add the ability to craft PvP items. Crafting siege weaponry, with all the associated research and material farming requirements could be fun.

This would be really, really cool. I'd actually have a reason to go to Cyrodiil besides Skyshard hunting.

WebBull

An economy is desperately needed but until the bots are fixed, no idea for a true economy will be able to take hold.

Thulsola

Elencha wrote: »

• I think there would need to be a trading mechanic to help facilitate some of this. If done right, the crafting/farming/mining would take a fair amount of time - enough that it would be impractical for a single player to be able to make it work without having to buy and sell some aspect of the each process. This could facilitate players becoming solely trading oriented. Maybe adding the ability to buy and upgrade warehouses in cities, buy/earn preferential trading status with guilds and set up store fronts for their warehouses. The warehouse would require the same kind of research and what not to increase its ability to store specific types of materials, etc.

Here is where we disagree. I simply loathe the idea of forced interaction. I'll trade if I want to, and if I don't want to, I don't want forced artificial scarcity to force me to do so. Why make it difficult for a single player to do anything? I don't do provisioning because I don't want to. I don't need a game mechanic to make it difficult so I won't do it. I understand that this herding mechanic is prevalent within the genre, but really, truly, why? Just because other people do it? That's not a reason. What is the true reason that people aren't supposed to do for themselves? To force them to interact with the other players? What is the reason to force people to interact with the other players? Because they won't do it if you don't force them? If they won't interact with other players without something to force them to do so, then they obviously don't want to interact with other players, yes? This not being a crime, what is the point of forcing them to interact with people if they don't want to? Particularly after months and months of advertising this game as "Play the way you want".

I think you are right that there shouldn't be forced interaction - I was more envisioning that warehouse stores would be able to hire and train NPCs to look after them, and there would be an interface that I could set price levels for purchases and sales to reflect my needs. That way you could come to my store and buy stuff you wanted and sell me stuff I wanted without us ever having to interact.

I'm torn as to whether or not this should be something individuals should be able to do or if it needs to be guild based, though. Personally, I'd love to be able to do this as an individual - but I'm afraid that it would weaken the guild system too much.

Thulsola

tdilloncub18_ESO wrote: »

An economy is desperately needed but until the bots are fixed, no idea for a true economy will be able to take hold.

Ya, I was taking it as granted that Zeni is, eventually, going to figure out how to stop the bots.

Cogo

ESO has an economy. A growing one with that. Trade guilds are a great idea. It shows people that numbers not always means everything. The good tradeguilds do what every good guild does. Checks and controls who may or may not enter the guild.

I am in 2 trade guids where I pretty much sale daily.

I also use zone chat for business quite alot and I am not alone.
This create a very player driven economy and interacts between people.

Everquest showed, without having it in mind I think, that this is a FEATURE for a game. It adds to what you choose to do.

Thulsola

Cogo wrote: »

ESO has an economy. A growing one with that. Trade guilds are a great idea. It shows people that numbers not always means everything. The good tradeguilds do what every good guild does. Checks and controls who may or may not enter the guild.

I am in 2 trade guilds where I pretty much sale daily.

I also use zone chat for business quite alot and I am not alone.
This create a very player driven economy and interacts between people.

Everquest showed, without having it in mind I think, that this is a FEATURE for a game. It adds to what you choose to do.

It perhaps would have been more accurate for me to title the post "ESO needs an expanded economy supported by more features" - but that would have been long and probably would have gotten less views

I'm not complaining about what is in this post, only saying how I would like it to grow. I sell stuff all the time too, but mostly mats. I also have quite a decent business going on selling decon fodder at cheap-ish rates (2 to 3 times vendor).

But I have found the market for crafted items - at least in the level 1-50 zones - to be limited. Maybe I'm in the wrong trade guilds.

And I agree with you, trade guilds are awesome. I think it is a much better solution to player sales than a central AH. But I do think it could be improved - especially with some sort of features that would allow me to build skills in trading and build a warehouse to transship between trade guilds in order to take advantage of their separate economies.

Elencha

@Thulsola‌ I love the idea of this being a single player option as well as a guild option. But again, if people want to join guilds, they'll join guilds. Granted, I personally don't like the idea of guilds with hundreds of people in them. I think a guild should be a group of friends or colleagues not just random strangers. And contrary to what Facebook may imply, no one has 500 actual friends. But I acknowledge that that is merely my own take on it. There are plenty of people who like the idea of large guilds and they will join them whether the game has a mechanic to "make it worth their while", so to speak.
I was, however, addressing the first half of the paragraph with this. The part where you said

I think there would need to be a trading mechanic to help facilitate some of this. If done right, the crafting/farming/mining would take a fair amount of time - enough that it would be impractical for a single player to be able to make it work without having to buy and sell some aspect of the each process.

Why make it impractical to do on one's own? Why require trade for some aspect? Plenty of artisans are hermit types who feel the only way to get anything done right is to do it themselves.

You know what else would be cool? VR Crafting levels. That would be a great way to implement your trait mixing idea, the idea you had about special crafting materials and probably some other nifty value added type stuff. Instead of forced item scarcity let the acquisition of these things be based upon skill in the craft to which they relate, ya know?

Fuzzylumpkins

It has one, just check out gold seller sites for it.

Thulsola

Elencha wrote: »

I was, however, addressing the first half of the paragraph with this. The part where you said

I think there would need to be a trading mechanic to help facilitate some of this. If done right, the crafting/farming/mining would take a fair amount of time - enough that it would be impractical for a single player to be able to make it work without having to buy and sell some aspect of the each process.

Why make it impractical to do on one's own? Why require trade for some aspect? Plenty of artisans are hermit types who feel the only way to get anything done right is to do it themselves.

I see where you are coming from - and I agree - but I think it should be a matter of it being possible solo, but more efficient (and therefore more lucrative) with help. That is the way it is in the real world too. Hermit artisans pay a price in time and efficiency for managing every aspect of the process themselves. They are rewarded with an increase in quality (sometimes), but they often end up seeing reduced compensation when evaluated on a per hour basis.

So how would this relate to real game play? I think that any of these mechanics would have some level of built in grinding required. Having to clear a mine or farm of pests. Weeding, fertilizing, and harvesting. Equipment maintenance. etc. We're basically talking Farmville here. Yes, one person could log in and grind all of that out for several hours each day, or a guild could split the work load and make it easier.

Maybe there should be a mechanism to allow the solo player to hire NPCs to do some of the grinding, but that should be expensive and require skill development and research like everything else.

Elencha wrote: »

You know what else would be cool? VR Crafting levels. That would be a great way to implement your trait mixing idea, the idea you had about special crafting materials and probably some other nifty value added type stuff. Instead of forced item scarcity let the acquisition of these things be based upon skill in the craft to which they relate, ya know?

Agree.

BTW, I didn't explain what Hearthfire was in my last post. It was the DLC that allowed you to build a house and have a family in Skyrim. It included the option to have a green house, and your own crafting stations in your house.

Elencha

I could get down with that. You get great quality at a hellaciously slow pace for micromanaging. It makes sense.
I just had another idea. Allow the formation of true crafting guilds. With the ability to have apprentices who can literally learn their craft from you in addition to their own research. And because teaching is often the best way to learn, the master gains from the relationship as well.