Specialization...

[ScegfOd]

I was just reading about how there is a lack of specialization and well aligned career paths
i thought that maybe it would encourage specialization (for better or worse)
if you
1) had categories of LP that could be used for a subset of skills:
like you could have LP for carpentry and smithing, both involve using your hands and tools to reshape objects
and maybe all the marshal skills (unarmed, armed, marksmanship) could be lumped together
etc.
so you'd end up having trouble getting better at fighting if you have only farmed all your (character's) life...

or
2)you only could improve a skill by completing tasks that required it:
basically like above, but more categories
if you plant something you get all the LP into farming...
if you shot a bow then you get all that LP into marksmanship...

of course with either of these things there would still be the issue of buying new abilities, maybe that could get a separate pool that grows slowly no matter what you get LP from...

...anyway i just thought id throw it out there and see what happens

[loftar]

Our conclusion of the lack of specialization is that the resource tree isn't varied enough. Unless you're part of a large village, you'll basically need to do everything, and that's why you can't specialize. To remedy this, we simply intend to add more stuff, so that each specialized "lifestyle" of a character is self-contained.

A specialized player won't be able to do everything, but he'll be able to do enough to live a meaningful and fun existence (and be able to trade with others who are specialized in other areas). Things from other branches of specialization will probably still be possible to do for everyone, but the more high-level stuffs will be very hard to make in any meaningful way for those not specialized in that regard.

[Sarge]

Our conclusion of the lack of specialization is that the resource tree isn't varied enough. Unless you're part of a large village, you'll basically need to do everything, and that's why you can't specialize. To remedy this, we simply intend to add more stuff, so that each specialized "lifestyle" of a character is self-contained.

A specialized player won't be able to do everything, but he'll be able to do enough to live a meaningful and fun existence (and be able to trade with others who are specialized in other areas). Things from other branches of specialization will probably still be possible to do for everyone, but the more high-level stuffs will be very hard to make in any meaningful way for those not specialized in that regard.

Sweet! Pretty much what I was hoping for. How about considering adding attributes to those? Eg. You need a minimum of xyz amount of dexterity and strength to do metal working, or you need xyz amount of intelligence and dexterity to harvest the root of a herb... that will flesh out and create value for attributes too.

[sabinati]

attributes already effect the quality of things, like perception with cooking and dexterity with sewing and strength for smithing.

[Sarge]

attributes already effect the quality of things, like perception with cooking and dexterity with sewing and strength for smithing.

Yup, I agree with that and quality of tools and appliances already affect the q of goods too, which is great. But how much perception do you need to be able to bake Rings of Brodgar vs Carrot Cake? and what if not only perception counted for cooking, but maybe intelligence or dexterity or both as well as perception, at different weights?

[Chakravanti]

It's not just that. PLEASE LOFTAR DON'T TURN H&H INTO RUNESCAPE!!!!

[loftar]

It's not just that. PLEASE LOFTAR DON'T TURN H&H INTO RUNESCAPE!!!!

I haven't played Runescape. Is there anything particular that I should avoid?

[Blaze]

"Donation"-only features.

[Chakravanti]

"Donation"-only features.

That's not Runescape. That is however a major pitfall of most private RO servers. And several other games.

Runescape is defined by it's excessively simple repitition. To Achieve the ability to produce armor even worth producing you have to smith soemthing like 200k+ cannonballs. OR smelt 800k+ iron ore. OR Smith 1like 80k adamant bolts which is expensive (something like 30m gp).

To be able to MINE the runite ore to smith that product you must mine 86,000 iron ore (Exact figure there....I was a miner). Then, you suck at mining something that is competitive to mine, always camped in every location. However, If you mine another 126k iron ore you'll be able to outmine most of the other people mining.

That's soemthing like a year of gameplay at 16 hours/day. JUST FOR ONE SKILL. It's a system of intensely repetitive grind work that creates push for macros that they CONSTANTLY police....and fail at doing so. IN fact, to PREVENT the RWT that developed due to korean macrohouses having one guy manage like 20 macroing charecters and like 50 people managing these macros and like 5 facilities writing fresh code to circumvent their anti-macro detection programs...

They just pulled an all out trade lock. Prices for item are fixed within a certain range. Depending on the frequency of the trading and average price the fixed price is readjusted based on Grand Something (e.g. in game systematized trading hub entirely depersonalized).

It sucks. And it's all because they're forcing people to simulate THOUSANDS of laborious repetitive work hours before being able to do anything productive. Literally, you produce nothing of any real value at lower leveling until you've produced thousands of worthless items. And when you do, only smithing benefits smithing, woodcutting to woodcutting, mining to mining, combat to combat etc. etc.

It sucks, please don't make H&H a grindfest =D. I LOVE the direction it is currently going where a variety of activities don't spoil your charecter development or cause you to stagnate in a desired profession if you'r bored fo chopping wood for thousands of hours. I WOULD like to see perhaps some system of specialization. Where a charecter develops certain aspects of abilities far mroe than others and can offer significantly better products. Being a jack of all trades, as it were, to be much more difficult regardless of development tier. Kind of like nat/ind slider. Skill interdependence especially between unrelated skills (like trees & metal production) is a good thing to encourage communal living or trade.

Also community functions developed. Won't digress into my many ideas about that here.=D You get what I'm saying?

[kobnach]

Our conclusion of the lack of specialization is that the resource tree isn't varied enough. Unless you're part of a large village, you'll basically need to do everything, and that's why you can't specialize. To remedy this, we simply intend to add more stuff, so that each specialized "lifestyle" of a character is self-contained.

A specialized player won't be able to do everything, but he'll be able to do enough to live a meaningful and fun existence (and be able to trade with others who are specialized in other areas). Things from other branches of specialization will probably still be possible to do for everyone, but the more high-level stuffs will be very hard to make in any meaningful way for those not specialized in that regard.

So how many players/alts will be needed to do everything well?

Note by the way that because resources are scattered, no one village can effectively provide all specialties currently. Raw materials must be acquired from significant distances, and the raw material sources generally need villages of their own. That doesn't stop a group of people from collectively doing everything, with only internal trade - but they cannot be organized as a single village.