In EverQuest Next, should one character be able to learn all types of crafting?

Rarity can be achieved in ways other than making something artificially difficult or tedious. No matter what way you wish to achieve rarity, eventually things will become non-rare if you don't remove them from the economy. I think the basic crafting mechanics should be accessible, but that there should be a limited number of certain recipes live in the world at a given time. If a character goes dormant for a long enough period of time they should forget the recipe and it will become available to someone else. There should be a limit to these types of recipes a single person can learn. OR some alternate system that can achieve rarity. Plenty of smart people working for them, they should be able to think of something.

Because I am still hopeful that the developers will actually make some decisions which partially recreate what made Everquest better than the modern MMO. I am not sure why one system not being to my liking should make anyone wonder why I would still be interested in playing a game though.

I actually like the idea of being able to unlock other crafting skills as you go on about your game, much like with the other classes. But, maybe with this added stipulation that you have to max out the one or two you started out with first before you can do whatever all is needed for the next crafting skill you want to learn. That way you're not just learning all of them at once, it's a process.

For my part, crafting should be a whole side game within the game, rather than stuff-you-do-when-you're-not-playing.
EQ2 gave me that experience and I was planning alts from the first day I played it. I wanted one of each! Mind you, I love alts, I will be having as many as I'm allowed to anyway so it's not an inconvenience to me.

If on the other hand you prefer to (and I'm not using this phrase to tick you off purposefully) limit yourself to a single character, then I can understand how you might want access to more of the game. I do think, however, that is a major difference between MMOs and single-player games where, in the latter, you would want access to specific items in every play-through and not have the option to log over to another character to make them.

What I don't want to have to deal with, is a limit of which characters can gather. That still irks me in WoW to no end. Again I was happy with EQ2s solution and I am assuming EQN will adopt the same.

If they do it along the lines of EQ1, it will take years for an average player to Master all skills. For someone that focuses almost solely on tradeskilling and spending at least 2-3 hours every day in the game... maybe a year, year and a half?

With that kind of investment barrier, those that Master all tradeskills would be VERY few, even after 5-6 years.

Being able to craft all the crafts or unlock can open new options as well. Now in eq2 there are the apprentices ect to get new recipes. In Next, you could say have 1 or 2 you can master, and then all the rest, using the 2 you choose (and not being able to change without some sort of consequence ) to master say alchemy and tinkering maybe you can make grandmaster exploding poison bombers, or alchemy and cooking to make Death By Chocolate cake Maybe Sage and Adorning for spelled adornments, sage and armorer to make specially spelled or protected armor, or somehow give it more adorning slots. The possibilities are endless to make unique type or style crafters from these combo's. Alch and sage for super powered one use spell scrolls... ect there are so many ideas. I am sure all my fellow players could also come up with dozens more combo's and ways they could be used. Using 9 main craft skill and the 2 subcrafts or even making more would be possible.

Apprenticeships. It's been mentioned that there will be group crafting available, so why not take that one step further. Still make crafting unlockable through quests to get the basics, but allow players to mentor other players to gain entry into that profession. Using the armorsmith example, once one character gets to a certain high level, they can then invite another player who doesn't know armorsmithing yet and teach them how to get started, using their character as somewhat of a "quest giver". Now, it can't be too easy a process, or everyone will have everything unlocked in no time. Maybe add a timer on it. Once per day, both characters would need to be together at a group crafting station and spend a certain amount of time crafting simple things together. Once that's done, a 24 hour timer kicks in. The next day, they do it again. After five days of crafting together, the "apprentice" can now do the basic recipes and learn on their own.

Yes. If I can unlock all adventure classes on one character, then I should be able to unlock all crafting types. Would not make much sense to limit one, and not the other. If people want to put the time in to max all crafting types then let them. Some people only want to play a crafter (had a few friends in SWG that did that.)

Most of the time it does not matter if I can only do some of the crafting on one character. My friends will have the other crafting choices on the characters they play. This way we do not have to deal with other players for crafted items.

limiting crafting from 1 toon will not affect the economy. people will create the alt if they have

to /want to learn the other trades .
so i say this to all you hardcore tradeskillers ... you are safe in being able to make your millions and overcharge us like always.
those that tradeskill will do so and those that dont like to will buy from you, that wont change just because 1 toon can learn them all

I was just curious because that change is the thing I look the most forward to -- no alts but still doing it all. This question about crafting bothers me tho. If they truly meant no alts, why would they ask that?

I am hoping for and looking forward to "next generation" MMOing, not looking back. Although I can understand that there were some things in the past gaming that some miss and want to see again.

I've been curious as well, gwaha. I dropped off of the forums for a couple of months, feeling a combination of
a. the dev explanations of their decisions often seem disingenuous, or like they've cherry-picked for the responses that support their position.
- and -
b. This forum gets so many posts, so quickly, that it's very difficult to engage in real discussion on it.

I seem to remember that you were fearful for how the game was going to turn out, because not only did the dev team keep making choices that you found counterproductive, but they kept doing so in a fairly condescending way (see a. above).

Did something change while I was gone, or am I thinking of a different person?

If we're going to be able to unlock all/most of the adventuring classes on a single character, it would seem unintuitive to not use the same system for crafting classes.

That being said, you need to not only consider the ability to unlock all classes, but also the feasibility of doing so. Really, unlocking and fully "leveling up" a class (either adventuring or crafting) should not be a trivial task, and trying to max out every crafting class should be something that only someone completely devoted to crafting could do on anything resembling a reasonable timescale.

Basically, balance crafting advancement so that most who try their hand at it will only bother with maybe a couple of classes, with it only being the super-hardcores that bother mastering everything.

I'm sorry, but this whole thing about economy is annoying me. Someone puts out a free to play game, where there are micro transactions, but these purchasable items have no effect on the game other than getting something pretty, or cutting your levelling time from 6 months to 1 month. But you can still get there by spending no money, just time. Someone will still spend real life money. Because there are lazy people. Otherwise free to play games would be dead. The economy is not going to suffer.

As for maxing out all professions - if I have to do it on one character, or over five, I will still do it. There are people who insist on being self-sufficient. What the question really is asking, is how you want to unlock professions.

If it comes down to being able to unlock professions on one character, there should be many ways it can be done. For example, someone already mentioned apprenticeship - this could be by spending crafting time with other players, or NPCs. You could do it through storyline - help the master blacksmith and after some insane quest he/she may eventually allow you to purchase/learn the basics. Accidental find - a loot item (soulbound so you can't sell?) like a book that, if you read it, will teach you the basics. Once you know the basics (somehow) you can now learn the rest.

I voted for the last option (crafting should just be one thing). In this fashion, you can make acquiring individual recipes part of the character development process. Everyone may be a crafter and can make whatever, but only this subset of players has these particular recipes. That way, it's not about finding an expert blacksmith and every expert blacksmith has the same recipes, but instead you have to find an expert crafter that ALSO has the particular recipe you want. It would make crafting much more individualistic and players could feel unique to some degree.

It should be super hardcore to master one crafting class. IMO.

I believe that a player should be able to learn all the crafting classes but to only master in for the top tier. For example if their are three tiers of crafting (apprentice, journeyman, master for example), then a player should be able to learn all the apprentice level skills, only a few journeyman level crafts, and only a single master class.

This isn't to say that a player should not be able to change to another master level class if they are willing to lose the experience that was needed in the first class. For example if a master leatherworker wants to change professions to one of his journeyman ranked classes, the first class would be reduced to a journeyman and then they would be able to rank up their new chosen profession.

I said no in the landmark forum but I'll say "maybe" here. Having played FF14 for years I would say it just ended up hurting the economy and interaction/immersion with other players in the long run. If SOE wants everyone to be able to learn all crafts fine but let us only be able to master one of them.

It shouldn't be affordable for the average player to master more then 1.

I want to see a system where one character can learn all crafting abilities. However I want to see a system in which it is very difficult to advance any one specific crafting ability very far to the point of being considered a grandmaster. In order to be highly specialized you have to spend the time and be dedicated to one craft but you can learn the basics of all and should you decide to switch you can without penalty (and without losing work in other areas). With the ability to learn all combat classes it makes sense to let one character learn all crafting abilities as there should not be a forced need for multiple alts.

When you give one character the option to do everything, then no choices ultimately matter. There are tricks to delude people into thinking they matter, but those tricks are easily seen past by mmo vets.

In a true sandbox people can make a wide variety of choices, the game gives them options, but when you are given the opportunity to do everything, the choices no longer have meaning. Everything must be balanced but the best games have big choices, if I choose to be this, I should have sacrificed something for that choice, and gained something else for that choice.

Unfortunately, SOE might be going the convenience route, and claiming it as freedom.

Sort of like GW2 did.