Idea : repeatable Craft & Courier quests

Nerouyn

The daily and master writs are something but I was thinking about how to flesh out crafting to make it a more complete game, along the same line as how thieves have their instantly repeatable quests. This is what I came up with - Craft & Courier quests.

Like the name suggests, you craft stuff and then deliver. But with a twist. To combat fraud and theft, the Mage's Guild develop strongboxes into which a copy of crafting contracts can be inserted. Once inserted, that transparent (so the crafter can read the contract) compartment seals and the box is ready for pick up by a crafter. Once a crafter has made the required goods and placed them in the box, it seals, displays a glowing Mage Guild logo as their seal of approval, and can now only be opened by the contract's intended recipient. The box can also always be instantly located by the Mage's Guild should anyone be foolish enough to waylay a courier and take the box..... though the world is full of fools so banditry attempts could be incorporated to make the quests more exciting.

Here's the crux of the twist - the magic of the box is such that it can't travel through wayshrines. Any attempt by a carrier of one will simply fail. So you have to ride, boat wagon etc. from the crafting location/s (a contract might require you to make items from several different sets) to the target. Any job would then involve determining if you have the necessary materials and if not, acquiring them. Determining the best route from pick up to each of the crafting locations and finally to the recipient. Then crafting and delivering.

If they wanted to get fancy, the Mage Guild crafting box could display on your horse somewhere (maybe right behind the rider) so that players who see you pass know they're seeing Craft & Courier gameplay. Those who don't know about it might see the box and wonder what it's all about. And those foolish bandits who might lurk at particular locations would know to attack the courier rather than other passers by.

What happens if you can't defeat those bandits? You visit the local Mage's Guild and they tell you which delve the bandits have scurried off with your box into. You have to retrieve it. If you can't or don't want to (for roleplay or play preference reasons) then you can form a team and get help. Or you can visit the local Fighter's Guild and contract them to retrieve your box. After a random delay your box will be available for pick up from that FG. You can either hang around there or be notified by mail and return later.

Attack by pirates or sea monsters if you take a boat is another possibility.

Benefits

• Makes crafting a more substantial, complex and varied gameplay element, rather than a rinse and repeat virtually identical daily.
• Could help to provide more demand for top tier resource and style materials.
• Would make the original maps more relevant as end-game content and riding around and enjoying them into rewarded gameplay.
• In terms of development it would be relatively easy. With the exception of displaying the boxes on mounts it would mostly be text / UI. The world is there and full of crafting stations. It's already full of NPCs who could be contractors and / or intended recipients. If they do banditry that would be similar to existing dynamic spawn content but probably concentrated along roads.

There's not much scope in the base idea for group gameplay but that could be worked in by adding a risk factor to each assignment, eg. the contractor or recipients having enemies who would want to interfere with delivery. Or increased bandit activity in areas you'll need to pass through. That level of risk could factor into bandit spawn size, strength and frequency. Also how strongly defended the box would be if you lose it (though that might require privately instancing a delve so as not to interfere with regular players). Accordingly pay for the assignment could be substantially better for more dangerous assignments but might require multiple players to complete.

davey1107

Fun idea

Crafts_Many_Boxes

The problem I see is, this is one of those ideas that is really cool for a certain group of players (crafting focused)...and miserable for everyone else.

These would have to be offered in parallel with the daily writs, or else I imagine there would be quite a bit of outrage.

Even with the double xp event right now, there have been nights where I'm only able to log on for 20, 30 minutes. If I had to journey across tamriel on camelback (I'm still new-ish, too cheap to buy mounts yet but I bought thieves guild) to get my dailes done...well, they wouldn't get done too often

Nerouyn

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

The problem I see is, this is one of those ideas that is really cool for a certain group of players (crafting focused)...and miserable for everyone else.

These would have to be offered in parallel with the daily writs, or else I imagine there would be quite a bit of outrage.

Even with the double xp event right now, there have been nights where I'm only able to log on for 20, 30 minutes. If I had to journey across tamriel on camelback (I'm still new-ish, too cheap to buy mounts yet but I bought thieves guild) to get my dailes done...well, they wouldn't get done too often

You misunderstand.

1) I'm not suggesting dailies. As the title say and first sentence say, I'm suggesting instantly repeatable quests like the Thieves Guild pickpocketing etc. ones. The idea is to provide something more substantial than a quick rinse and repeat identical daily for crafters, and also a crafting gameplay option which is always available (i.e. not a daily).

2) I'm not suggesting these as an alternative to master writs but as an addition to. Some people just like crafting. Some people might just feel like crafting on a given day. Most people enjoy variety and this would give everyone another gameplay option.

3) This wouldn't make non-crafters miserable. It might just not thrill them much because it's primarily but not entirely aimed at the crafting crowd.

But like I say in the last paragraph, there is scope for this to include non-crafters with group oriented difficulty / danger scaling. Those assignments would only require one crafter. Everyone else would effectively be muscle and need have no crafting skill at all.

Eocosa

Personally I LOVE this idea!

I know it may not suit most people, but I have always loved games which gave options to how you play.

Admittedly this game is a lot of fighting and combat and that's great for the vast majority of people (I myself enjoy it too), however, for me I enjoy on some Alts other options to play. Crafting/trading is a big part of this game and to allow players who enjoy this aspect to be able to pretty much just do what they enjoy too is awesome!

I always loved in another game I used to play (Star Wars galaxy) that you could play entirely as a crafter/business type if you wanted, or an entertainer in the bars, or a scout to help groups on the dangerous planets and hunting down animal resources for crafters, etc. There was mission terminals (the equivalent of repeatable quests) that offered combat missions (think 99% of quests now), delivery missions (essentially the larger part of what you're proposing), essentially missions for all types of players!

To me it added a whole new depth to the game and replayability that I could level a toon as a full crafter and "max out", or a medic who stays in the cities to heal wounds (semi permanent damage), buff and whatnot, or a typical combat character and go off to adventure.

This game seems like a perfect one to add this depth to as it is so close to it already and this idea would pretty much seal it!

Nerouyn

Eocosa wrote: »

I always loved in another game I used to play (Star Wars galaxy) that you could play entirely as a crafter/business type if you wanted, or an entertainer in the bars, or a scout to help groups on the dangerous planets and hunting down animal resources for crafters, etc.

Unfortunately I never got to experience the original SWG. It was a rather different game by the time I tried it.

But I used to play a game called Ryzom and it also allowed you to play entirely as a crafter if you wanted to (though it was safer doing so with some combat skills for self defence) . Which was great.

Though the Ryzom's design was very different. Unlike ESO, levelling crafting wasn't most efficient by killing mobs and deconstructing stuff. You had to go out and harvest materials and craft stuff. Unlike ESO and most other MMOs, resources weren't in little nodes above the ground in set locations. They were under the ground in fields and had to be revealed (in a small area) with crafting skills. Each field could be exhausted too (temporarily), meaning players couldn't all just pile into the same location and harvest. On top of this, some fields were seasonal so you had to know what was where and when. And as a final complication, there were mobs with rudimentary AI. Since crafting gear has bad stats for fighting you could defend yourself against an occasional mob but only if you saw or heard it coming and were prepared. You could try to find spots with relatively few predatory mobs but their AI makes them chase prey mobs in a realistic and unpredictable manner so there's no such thing as total safety.

That worked well in terms of providing more substantial craft play but via a fundamentally different harvesting and gear design.

Code2501

Anything instantly repeatable with a chance to earn motif pages would be great even if the drop rate for motifs was low.

lientier

sounds a bit like something you have in archeage.. but the twist there the twist was you mostly needed to go through pvp zones for a higher reward.. but then they had like cars and other means of transport which made you faster..and you didnt have wayshrines but airships and carriages which really went over the map.. so that really made it feel like traveling (I mean they even had gliders - which dint work with the packs but were awesome). and the pakkage actually slowed you down.. where it was handy to have a mule, which was normally slow but faster with a pakkage on your back.a bit like skyrim when overloaded..

I think I would like a bit of pvp action in the idea.. atleast that someone could try to grab it off you and you need to duel or something.. but then lots of other crafter would probably hate this and flog me for it.. and it would be nicer if you could go together to protect it together.. so that would rule out dueling... maybe if someone would attempt stealing it could flag the player for a while so anybody can attack them..

I thiink the navigators in the major cities only work with wayshrines as well.. I would like to have another transportation system..
but I also would love this in general apart from your idea.. like a sandbox sea zone and boats and ships players can craft and use.. *dreaming*

edit: in my opinion this game is too full of world npc fights and npc challenges.. which gets boring when you are an endgame player. you get boring loot and no use of the xp.. I still ike the "different" type dailies like the sacrament and the heist dailies or the contracts from Kari and the dark brotherhood, because its not fighting npcs...

cjhhickman39

The pvp addition could be workable and include noncrafters as well by giving a thevies guild guest to take the box but a warning that the thieves guild may try to intercept this

helediron

cjhhickman39 wrote: »

The pvp addition could be workable and include noncrafters as well by giving a thevies guild guest to take the box but a warning that the thieves guild may try to intercept this

No it doesn't work. Put the idea into Cyrodiil as PvP stuff like supplying a keep.